Every master artist says ” Paint thick in light areas,
paint thin in dark areas.” … to understand this we
need creative thinking.
Why do they say that? What does that mean?
Usually they won’t elaborate on this topic. They won’t give you much clarity on this!
Why?
Art students don’t know.
But we all know what they said is important otherwise why they would talk about it ?
Is there any secret here? Or did those masters think, what they said would be understandable to the student? Is this true?
O. K. When I started this column I told you ‘ There are no secrets, only approaches.’
Yes. It’s true.
In the Evening
Again we will read those words. ” Paint thick in light areas, paint thin in dark areas.”
Paint thick in light areas …
‘ Why we have to paint thick in light areas ?’ … This is the question we have to ask ourselves. Why we have to ask ourselves? Because nobody is there to answer for us. This is the way I used to question myself. An artist needs this kind of attitude. This is one of the key attributes of the creator.
Every artist is a creator.
Again, coming to the topic … Paint thick in light areas…
Why we have to paint thick in light areas? We will find the answer but for that we have to learn an approach to find answers.
We know what is light area. Where light falls that would be the light area in any space whether it is outdoors or interiors. The space which won’t get light that would be dark area. This is very common thing in our day to day life. This we are experiencing everyday. What I am talking about is actual space where we would be a part of it. That is three dimensional. That three dimension is not an illusion. It’s real.
But if we want to paint the same scene it won’t be a real. We are creating an illusion on our canvas which is a picture space. This picture space would be divided into light and dark areas.
Paint thick in light areas…
So, as per masters saying here we should do our brush strokes with thick paint, vice versa dark areas with thin paint.
Just sort out the phrase .. Thick and Thin.
Thick paint will appear to our eye. Thin paint won’t appear. Here the key lies.
In our actual lives we will only see the light ; we won’t see the dark. This is the way our vision works.
So when you paint the light areas with thick paint, it will appear to the viewer’s eye, vice versa if you paint dark areas with thin paint it won’t attract the eye. That way the light effect will be real.
This is the same we experience in real life.
If we have to create the same experience to the viewer on our picture space, we have to follow our paint applications, the way our eye will see. Then we will get the light effect in our paintings.
That’s why every master artist says ” Paint thick in light areas, paint thin in dark areas. ”