TEXTURE OF PAINT continued….    Artlark Week 2 Oct 7^th 2010  Penny Bearman

Alastair inspired me greatly by bringing in an article from the New Scientist magazine. It was an article about the knowledge of the working of the mind that artists possess and use in their paintings.

One example was impressionism and particularly the work of Monet. The article described how the blurry edges of his pictures appeal to the emotional centres of the brain, while a sharper edged style would make a more “intellectual” statement.

There has been scientific research suggesting that blurry shapes resemble our periphery vision, our understanding and perception of periphery vision is an early survival skill, so resonates with our most basic instincts.
It strikes me that if we paint to recreate at least on some level, our impression of seeing, then we might need to paint one element of the image focussed,  with perhaps another element of it blurry.
Perhaps also there could be two messages implicit within our paintings; one that speaks directly to our conscious intellect, with another that resonates with our more basic instincts. This might explain why changing colours or using different tones seems more effective than copying photographs.

Having decided that we want to paint in a more blurry, impressionistic way, how do we do this?
It strikes me that there are 3 different ways of making blurry edges:

1)depicts the effect of pointillist over-lapping colours, which can be achieved  by using a brush mark onto a course canvas, previously coloured.
2)you can suggest blurry-ness by inserting a 2^nd or 3^rd colour in-between 2 colour areas.
3)you can create a deliberately scalloped outline before filling with colour.

There is one final way of creating blurry edges - use your finger or a “blending brush” to smudge the paint while it is wet. This is probably the most obvious solution, but creates a more traditional look than those illustrated above. Challenge traditional methods by inventing your own solution!