Today I
wanted to talk about fast painting. About the process of creating art faster
than usual. A lot of famous artists painting slowly. Sometimes it can be months
and years of creating one art work. And I believe that is totally okay and it’s
up to artist how long he need to finish art. Because it’s process of
development and struggling. But sometimes we have some time limit where we need
to finish art faster. It can be art assignment as you are art student or commission
work which needs to be dome tomorrow.
When I studied in university, we needed
to create 2 to 3 art works per week. And I remember sitting at night painting
and back then I was not so fast working and works was not that successful. No
one teach us how to paint fast. Right now I teach my students to take time in
making good work, but don’t go too slow as you can lose inspiration and make it
rather technical art work than spiritual.
So I am
suggesting these ideas to improve the time of creating process and learn how to
paint faster but not to compromise the quality of your work.
1. Use a
background (add color before start working)
There
are many benefits to working on a ground. One of these is increased painting or
drawing speed. A ground covers a painting or drawing surface from the outset.
It can act as mid-tone, with only black and white used to apply dark and light
areas (as in the examples below) or be left partially visible in the final work.
2.
Incorporate mixed media /patterned surfaces / textural elements
As with
using a ground, patterned, decorative or textural items can cover areas of an
artwork quickly. Although this strategy should be used with care, selecting
only materials which support or enhance your project (usually with reference to
a relevant artist model) this can be a great way to speed up your project and
introduce creative use of mixed media.
3. Work
on several pieces at once
Working
in series – completing several paintings or drawings at one time – though it
might be difficult in the start. Especially for slow painters.
A single
color can be used throughout a number of works, without needing to stop for
remixing / washing brushes.
While
one work is drying, another one can be worked on
Similar
processes or techniques can be mastered quickly and repeated on subsequent
works
In
addition, when working on several pieces at once, ‘preciousness’ about the work
tends to be lost, leading to more experimentation and greater work speed.
4. Use
masking tape to create straight edges
Some artists
are concerned that it might be necessary to ‘prove’ that a straight line can be
painted by hand. This is not the case. Your control of a paint brush can be
ascertained immediately by looking at the remainder of your painting. Masking
tape creates straight edges in seconds. Once mastered, this trick can save you
hours – and make your paintings sharper, cleaner and more professional in the
process. If you haven’t used masking tape before, buy some now!
5. Leave
artwork purposefully incomplete
Artist
work is sometimes purposefully ‘unfinished’. You shouldn’t feel obliged to
‘complete’ every item. There are many occasions when a fully rendered drawing
is not necessary. Drawings, especially those in sketchbooks, can be left with
edges trailing away and tone only applied to some areas. Leaving work
unfinished is particularly useful when conducting visual research, exploring
ideas and experimenting with media. Depending on your artist influences, this
may even be appropriate in final works – as a way to draw attention to focal
points and direct attention within an artwork.
6. Focus
on Line
There
are many occasions where it may be appropriate for a high school student to
draw using only line (it is often the application of tone that is
time-consuming for students, so working exclusively with line can provide a
welcome relief). Blind drawings, contour drawings, cross contour drawings and
other hatched drawings can form an important part of your art.
7.
Include photographs
While
there is a certain quantity of painting and drawing that must take place within
a Painting or Fine Art portfolio, photography can provide an excellent
mechanism for moving a project forward at a faster pace.
Photography
can be used as a tool to develop composition. Rather than ordinary snapshots of
source material, the photographs here are complex digital manipulations, which
help refine ideas and compositions.
In
addition to helping with composition planning, photography can be collaged into
artworks or used as painting ground. If the photograph remains visible in the
final work, less paint needs to be applied, thus speeding up the art-making
process.
8. Use a
bigger brush
There is
something surprisingly liberating about painting with a bigger brush –
especially if you have previously worked at a microscopic scale, picking out
detail the size of a pin prick. You will soon discover that it is just as easy
to achieve clean edges with a larger brush and that an unexpected level of
detail can be achieved. Most enjoy picking up a larger brush – even if this
just becomes a way for creating grounds and applying background layers.
9. Trace
or photocopy your own drawings
For
example, a compositional plan could be quickly enlarged on a photocopier and
traced/modified as required, instead of being redrawn at a larger scale; an
existing drawing could be traced or photocopied in order to trial application
of a different medium or technique (this should be kept to a minimum, however,
to ensure that your work doesn’t become too repetitive); repeat patterns could
be traced; or different drawings could be overlaid and arranged together,
tracing the composite work.
10. Use
digital manipulation
Scanning
existing artworks and editing and combining these with other artworks hold
exciting promise for modern artists. Once an artist has practiced using image
manipulation software (such as Adobe Fireworks or Photoshop) creating images
and then printing them can be a very fast way to create amazing artworks.
Wrote by Alexandra Novik-Khamis
