This is were your creative intuition should ‘Kick in’.  The exact middle is not a good artistic balance, that is obvious, but what about the less obvious?  Like hills sloping left to right and nothing to balance it from right to left.  In summary all the elements of your composition should be contained with in the confides of the edges of the work so that there is space and detail balancing each other.  It all should create a harmonious one-ness that is inviting to look over. 

Contrast:
Sit down and make a list yourself of the variations in the ways we can use contrast.  You may think of more than me.  Now pin this list to your easel and ‘USE IT’.  Never miss an opportunity to place a contrast.  A shadow, gives an opportunity for a highlight, next to it.  A cool colour is a invitation for a warm colour. 

How many examples have you got?  Lets compare: Light and dark, hot and cold, soft detail, hard detail, thin paint, thick paint, moving, static….  I could go on but most would be a variation on this list.

Contrast
Overlapping
Mix Media
Into the Picture
Texture
Cast Shadows

Into The Picture:
Avoid barriers in the ‘Eye Path’.  A gate left partly open or open is better than closed, when it forms part of the ‘Eye Path’.  The viewer should naturally want to stroll into the composition and wander about in it.  What is just around the corner?

Texture:
While I do not throw sand onto my paintings to make it look sandy, the principal of creating texture is good.  I love to render rocks for example, with bold impasto pallet knife work that mirrors the rocks texture. Do not over do it but definitely do it!  The texture of the image you are depicting should be obvious to the viewer.

Cast Shadows:
I have said much already about this.  Everything we see is in light.  Light is striking and spilling across it, therefore, choose a light direction and stay with it.  You should have ‘Highlights’ and ‘Catch Lights’ towards the light source, half tones, shadows, reflected lights and lastly cast shadows.  It should happen in this order

Highlight
Catch Light
Half Tone
Reflected Light
Cast Shadows

Try Painting a ball like that you will see what I am talking about.

Often for no reason except convenience, I see the sun striking a distant hillside, disappear behind foreground detail, like a tree, or a house and not appear again on the other side.  Maybe there are better examples.  Just don’t allow the vertical view of a house for example, to line up with some other vertical edge.  A cloud behind a hill or a tree, allow it to peak out the other side just a little.

Similarly, you wouldn’t put a mountain peak, right on the edge of your painting, or roadway, stream, bank right onto the corner by thinking in thirds for such details  - that by a 1/3 up from the corner, a 1/3 in from the edge.

Mixed Media:

There are some things that mix very nicely.  I have used ink, under acrylic, under crayon, under oils.  Don’t try putting acrylic over oils, but the other way around is fine.  An acrylic was over a crayon layer can give you wonderful textures for rocks.  Dripping ink with an eye dropper allowing it to partly dry and blotting, can give lovely round ring mould spots that are so round and totally correct.

I am still looking for subjects for next month and beyond.  We have had no requests in response to my last lesson appeal.  Are there no problems out there? 

Thin – meaning that the paint is put on the canvas thinly.  This may mean that you have mixed a quantity of medium with it to thin it or it may be that you have simply ‘scrubbed’ it onto the surface so that is applied very thinly.

Fat – meaning paint that is ‘Impasto’ i.e., straight out of the tube and applied in bolder thicker chunks.

Why thin first?
I have two very good reasons that I can think of instantly, and other lesser reasons.

1. If you lay down a ‘fat’ paint area you are limited to what you can do over the top of it.  Try painting fat on fat and you will get mud when painting wet on to wet paint.

2. By putting down a ‘thin’ area you are preparing the area for an opportunity to contrast with fat painted details on top.  The more sedate thin paint adds weight to the “Shout at you “ fat paint.

 Generally you should place early details on thinly and progressively get fatter and fatter as you progress, finishing off with bold highlights that look like they were thrown on, but are not.

In my next tip I will talk about ‘Application – Looks like it is thrown on’.

This theory is a very sound one for painting in Oils. But that is on its own will not be enough.  As well as putting on darks first, start with thin paint and no detail, and work towards ‘Fatter’ and fatter paint and more and more detail. I will explain over my next three months.

Remember, you are painting the deepest darks first, were very little light is penetrating. Especially if you are painting a scene outside, much of this deep shadow could be some distance from you. Conclusion: Nobody, unless their father is an eagle can see detail in deep shade at a distance. So don’t put any detail in at this stage.  Try to lather paint on with as little brush strokes visible as possible, just like painting the house – ‘Lay off’ the paint by gentle horizontal and vertical brush strokes, with a beard flat brush. This prepares the way to contrast some detail against the “quiet” area, when you lay on high lights. This works particularly well with distant details in landscapes. It will also, if your colours are wisely mixed, add to the depth, as it confirms the viewer’s subconscious expectations, that detail recedes with distance.

This is what makes a work of art have impact. How many ways to contrast can you think of ?

I wonder how many of you will put me to shame and think of many more than my list below? But consider this! How many times do you miss an opportunity to take one or many of these and use them in your work? I could expand on each one for ages, and may well spend the time if enough of you ask for it.

1. Light against dark. This is the obvious one to start from. But take a long look at EVERYTHING, from looking into a magnifying glass to looking at the Earth from outer space, they all are obeying the same rules. Look for example at a round object, such as an egg. What is right next to the highlight? The shadow is. The darkest part against the light. Then as we come around the ‘egg we get into the reflected light, but the darkest is right beside the lightest. The old saying ‘it is darkest just before the dawn’ is so true, take another look at those photos of Earth. So, do that in your paintings.
2. Hot against cold. I have another whole tip on this, when discussing when to use black. So many times I see the opportunity lost to contrast a cold colour against a warm one.
3. Soft detail against hard detail.
4. Static against moving.
5. Close against distant.
6. Detailed against lack of detail.
7. Thin paint against fat paint.
8. Impasto strokes against invisible strokes.

If you are using black, you have not understood what is happening to light in the natural landscape.

I was talking to a young artist that I teach the other day and he quite casually mentioned that he had used black on his latest landscape to define the shadows. For ages I have not used black, but I have not sat down and thought about why I do not. So I found myself ‘postulating’ about black and it has been good for me to remember why I do not.
I am not talking about for such things as portraits, as they tend to have man made blacks such as upholstery, fabrics and died hair, make up etc. All these can need black. And I have a tube for this. But the landscape I have found to be different. I never have needed it If you can see that black is not a colour It is in fact the absence of all colour. So using it in the landscape will only dirty my colours. I will try to explain myself.
When painting the natural landscape, you are faced with colours that are being effected by light reflecting and bouncing round which is creating the atmospheric ‘twist’ of the day. Remember that you are painting and seeing is light that is striking objects, reflecting off them, and warming them. Were the light is restricted, the colours cool
So let us imagine that you have mixed a colour that you are happy with that is now placed in your work, but you wish to show that colour in light, and in shadow. The light side is a ‘no brainer you just add white and then warm it with your light of the day that you can see before you. But the shadows, and this is where people use black to bring the value down, I suggest you stop and ask yourself first, “what is actually happening here?” In fact that colour is moving away from the light, and into shadow, you should be darkening it, and cooling it. So, add a nice dark blue like French Ultramarine Blue. (Prussian blue is way too fugitive colour wise) This will do the job for you, especially if you add a little Burnt Sienna. If you need a black, try French Ultramarine Blue, Alizarine Crimson, and Burnt Sienna. By varying the combinations of these you can get some lovely blacks that are not black at all, but MUCH more interesting to work over the top of later.
Can you see that you can get opportunities to contrast the dark against light, and also cool against warm this way? Black will just give you the correct value, but it spoils the lovely clean cool colours.