Back when I was at the American Academy of Art I was always fascinated with what students were using as subject matter in their paintings. I came to realize through the years that anything and everything can be painted into a scene. I was recently reminded of this through an artist that I think is painting some amazing work. The artist is
Dan Mondloch and Dan is from Minnesota and does plein-air watercolors like no other.
Recently Dan did a project where he did 50 plein-air paintings in 30 days and after they were finished he gave them away to some very lucky folks.What had me mesmerized was what Dan was using as subject matters for his paintings. Places and scenes that the average person and
artist would normally just pass by. Dan however takes any subject matter and makes it a beautiful painting. This is what I learned in school and it was so nice to be reminded by Dan that everything and anything is paintable.
What does it take to make something paintable.... it takes a good value pattern with good basic composition. Of course knowing how to draw and paint well in your medium helps tremendously.
Make sure you
have a big value pattern along with a area of interest that stands out (I like to call a center of interest the area of interest because it isn't just an object that is of interest it usually is an entire area that is the center of interest). The area of interest is usually the reason you are painting the subject matter and at times not just a single object.
Sometimes the subject can be a simple object like the coffee cup above and the fish below, but no matter how
complicated or simple the scene, try to make the value pattern as simple as possible. Remember back to a couple newsletters back, look for the big black and whites of the image. See that
older newsletter here.
I always say to my students to paint what they
love and know, now I also want them to add, try looking at your favorite subject you love and know a bit differently the next time you go looking for something to paint.
Here's to looking at things a bit different
David