A painting with a message does not happen by accident. It happens when you place elements in their order of importance.
The theme, or harmony, of a painting can be created by any one of its visual elements. A single colour... repetition of shapes... Light can be a theme.
Being true to oneself more often leads one toward success rather than away from it.
Artists need not meet any standards to practice their craft... Virtually every other occupation requires some sort of license, union membership or something that says you are qualified.
The way we see is critical to understanding how others will read our compositions.
Realistically there is no limit to the possibilities. How does an artist make decisions?
Monet, Manet, Sisley, Renoir, Van Gogh and others went outside to paint for one simple reason - it looks different outside.
Think of the centre of interest in a painting as you would read it in a novel or see it in a movie. The crisis or climax is that point when you simply can't put the book down or wouldn't dare leave the movie, for whatever reason.
Put a symbol, or language of some sort, in a painting and it will be noticed by the viewer whether or not they can read that particular language.
The person viewing your work has no idea what the scene really looked like, nor do they care.
The wide open nature of any truly creative artistic endeavor is one of its most important virtues, and one of its harshest realities. Only the most determined, hardest working, capable and creative will make their way to earning a good living by their art.
The difficult part of the process is the long exploration and discovery of your own soul and living with the results.
By merely increasing or decreasing the amount of contrast in any area we can move the observer through the painting.
When we look at a painting, listen to a piece of music, read a novel, or watch a movie we are taking in the artist's composition. The composition is the totality of the work.
That a viewer does not see what the artist intended does not make the composition a failure... In reality all artists speak first to themselves and then to an audience.
All artists are illusionists of one kind or another.
All paintings are abstract ideas, not representations of a true reality.
You have to understand how the human eye behaves when it views a scene for the first time. Work with that knowledge, and your paintings will have more drama and will evoke strong reactions.
