Proceed with Purpose in Your Oil Paintings

July 7, 2008

Whether you paint portraits, landscapes or still life it is important to have a method of proceeding that maintains a sense of purpose and direction. Most, if not all, of the best artists do this in the context of the light which describes form. John Singer Sargent put forth five types of light:

Light
Midtone
Shadow
Accents
Reflected Light

Some instructors separate shadow into two types: body shadow and cast shadow. Others may separate accents into two types: darks and hightlights. Whichever explanation you prefer the facts are virtually the same. I like Sargent’s for the purposes of discussion because his name carries an imprimatur which makes students want to listen.

I recently watched a Daniel Greene video entitled , Oil Portrait: Bernard, in which this brilliant artist makes a ritual out of working from shadow to light. After completing his drawing he emphasizes the dark accents, masses in the shadows, paints the midtones and then the lights. And that was just the first of three sittings. In the subsequent sittings he re-emphasizes the dark accents, masses the shadows and paints the midtones then lights, eventually working his way up to the light accents (highlights) and reflected lights. During the video Mr. Greene’s narration and procedure remain fully integrated with the type of light in which he is working.

In a video entitled Three Landscape Studies prominent landscape painter, Scott L. Christensen, makes it a point to emphasize Sargent’s Five Types of Light . Scott says that you are always painting in one of the five. He suggests that if you don’t know which one of the five you are working in your painting will suffer. He says you will end up dabbling on it in an effort to get it to go where you want and it usually won’t end up there.

This point couldn’t be truer if I had said it myself. Indeed, in teaching workshops and classes I witness that very phenomenon. Students lose their sense of direction in a painting and start daubing away aimlessly. As a result their work and their enjoyment suffers. As soon as they are reminded to focus on painting one of the five types of light their sense of purpose and direction returns.

So, from a fundamental standpoint, a good general procedure is to:

State your dark accents.
Mass in your shadows.
Paint your midtones.
Paint your lights.
Paint your highlights and reflected lights.

Remember to keep your dark accents and shadows thin and transparent. Make your lights and hightlights thick and opaque. Try to stay aware of the five types of light. In so doing, you will have more successes and more fun painting.

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