Linda Mann Artist

When I am working on a painting, there are two aspects of it that I must consider. First comes the design or composition of the picture. If you stand well back from a painting, this is what you see. You see it as an abstract design in two dimensions. This has to be pleasing and well-balanced. It also has to have elements that lead the eye of the viewer where you want it to go. I don’t think of details at this point- only the graphic composition. To see this more clearly, I often turn the study for the painting, and later, the painting itself, upside down or sideways to emphasize this aspect and take the focus off of the objects themselves.

Once I settle on a composition and begin to paint, my focus turns to the details of the painting-how to represent different materials, what colors to use, how the brushstrokes influence the colors and the surface texture, the way an underlayer shows through a transparent glaze, the look of an impasto stroke, and how all of this describes the objects and the light in a set-up. Later, these are the kinds of things that the viewer will have to get up close to the painting to see and appreciate.

If a painting has a good composition, but is poorly executed, with not enough thought to the details of representing the objects or how the colors and values and brushstrokes describe the quality of the light and shadow, the painting will be a failure. It won’t deliver up close what it had promised at a distance. If a painting has wonderful execution, with good drawing, skillful rendering of textures, edges, and quality of light, yet has a poor overall design, the painting will also be a failure. Without a well-considered structure and overall design, the painting will not attract and hold the attention of the viewer.

Though I always begin a painting by designing the composition, and then progress to considering details and execution as I paint, I constantly revisit looking at the composition as a whole, to make sure that it’s still working. So, just as a good fiction needs both a cohesive plot structure and compelling characterization and descriptions, a good painting needs both a well-considered composition and arresting details.