BeckerArt FLOAT-YOUR-PIGMENT Newsletter April 21st, Area of Interest

Published: Tue, 04/21/20

Hello

Welcome to the FLOAT-YOUR-PIGMENT Newsletter #256, Area of Interest

Week five and I hope you are all okay and staying healthy.

I want to thank many of you that have been tuning into my Facebook Live demonstrations, it's been super fun demonstrating for so many of you while we are all stuck at home. This new way of demonstrating has been new to me but after 4 demonstrations I feel like I'm getting a little more use to it. I am still working on trying to get 2 cameras to switch from talking to you to demonstrating to you but with all the backorders of webcams and shipping problems, I still have a few weeks before I get everything to work without a hitch.

Tomorrow I have a big Facebook Live demonstration that is sponsored by Dillman's and Holbein Artist Materials happening April 22nd at 3 pm CST, here on my Facebook Page. I will be demonstrating for approximately an hour and explaining how I go about putting people into my paintings when there are no people the photos.

This last Saturday morning I did a demonstration where I told people on Facebook if they wanted to paint along they could. I had some artists join me and they painted along or painted after the demo and you can see their results below. I will be doing a paint-a-long demonstration every Saturday morning at 9:30 and if you would like to paint-a-long, see the image below. If you can't paint on Saturday morning you can pick up the demonstration on my YouTube Channel after the actual live demonstration. Subscribe to my YouTube channel HERE

Thanks to those of you that have used my LINK TO AMAZON. Because of you visiting and buying things on Amazon and first going through one of my links you help me pay for this newsletter... Thank You!

NO CLASSES at the Civic Center in Libertyville until further notice.

NO CLASSES at the BeckerArt Gallery until further notice.

Area of Interest

Most artists and students that have been painting for a while probably have heard the term Center of Interest. It's an area in your painting that the viewer will most likely see first. It is an area you want the viewer to see first, so you put the most contrast and the most color in that area. It is also usually the reason why you paint the painting because it is the most interesting thing about the scene.

I like to call that center of interest by a different term, I like to say an area of interest. The reason I say an area of interest is because when I use to say the center of interest to my students it made them think that it was an object that would be the center of interest. It can sometimes be an object, but a lot of the time it is a whole area in the scene that makes up the center of interest and not just a single object. Take for instance a city scene where you have loads of objects all over the scene, it would not be a single object in that scene that would be the center of interest but instead, it would be a whole area that would make up the center of interest.

Having a center of interest or an area of interest in a painting is very important because it is usually what holds up the whole design of the painting. Take for instance the image below, it is a landscape of a field and it makes up a great stage, but it is missing an area of interest. There isn't an area in this photo that is more interesting than everything else in the scene.

By placing something in the scene that is more interesting then all the other parts in the scene will help you with an area of interest that will make the composition work much better. Below I added a home into the scene as my area of interest. Now there is something in the scene that stands out as the area of interest. It doesn't, however, have to be something totally different from what's in the scene, sometimes it can just be a different color or a bigger contrast of light and dark as shown below.

Below you see an area of interest by just using contrast and more intense colors to achieve a better area of interest.

WORKSHOPS and DEMOS of 2020

DEMONSTRATION_DILLMAN'S FEST at my Gallery in McHenry, IL. May 3rd CANCELED

WORKSHOP Dillman's, Lac Du Flambeau, W/C, Wisconsin, June 29th to July 2nd INFO HERE

WORKSHOP Vermont Art Event, W/C& Acrylic, Burlington, Vermont, July 27th to July 31st CANCELED

WORKSHOP Thousand Island Art Center, W/C, Thousand Island, NY, August 4th to August 6th INFO HERE

WORKSHOP Goshen Painters Guild, W/C, Indiana, August 13th to August 15th INFO HERE

WORKSHOP Dillman's, Lac Du Flambeau, W/C, Wisconsin, Aug. 31st to Sept. 3rd INFO HERE

WORKSHOP Artisan Expo, W/C & Acrylics, Santa Fe, MN. Sept. 24th to Sept. 26th INFO HERE

WORKSHOP Sangamon Watercolor Society, W/C, Springfield, IL. Oct. 9th to Oct. 12th INFO HERE

Product of the Week
Drawing Composing Guides

Grey Scale Value Finder, Color Wheel, Artists View Catcher Finder Viewfinder on Lanyard with Measuring Tape Tools for Artists Drawing
Buy it here

Followers of the Week

This week instead of showing you an artist of the week I am instead showing you a few artist's that painted along with me last Saturday morning. This scene is in Burlington, Vermont. Thanks to all those artists that painted along with me!

Check out below what I will be demonstrating this Saturday April 25th at 9:30 CST. paint along if you like.

Below see a few paint-a-ongs from some very talented artists

Above is the demonstration I did last Saturday Morning

Above is a painting byTina Jones

Above is a painting by David Williams

Above is a painting by Erin Renier

Above is a painting by Ann Megna

Saturday's Paint-a-long Below

Painting Above is what I will be painting this coming Saturday April 25th at 9:30am CST on Facebook Live

Daily Paintings Available

Every day during this pandemic I plan on putting up a daily demo painting on my website that will be for sale on my website. A lot of art instructors and artist are struggling through these stay at home order times because many of our classes, workshops, paint parties, and demonstrations have been canceled, so I am starting to sell the demonstrations that I do in my classes at extremely low prices to help keep some funds coming in to help keep my BeckerArt classroom/studio/gallery open.

All the paintings are original works of art that are
10 x 14" in size and have been done as a demonstration in a classroom or as a live demonstration.

Thanks!

BeckerArt Brushes

Click Here to Purchase BeckerArt Brushes

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For any other info please email me at david@davidrbecker.com