Landscape Painting In Watercolor

Week 4 - Main Subject and Focal Point

Pre-Class Info

Up to this point, we’ve covered two important ideas that will provide a strong design foundation in

your paintings.

The first was the of dividing our 2D picture plane into three Planes of Space.

The second was the addition of deliberately applying a distinct value to each plane of space – one

light, one mid-value, one dark.

Although the mental switch is challenging, these two ideas alone will change your approach to

painting and enhance your creativity.

MAIN SUBJECT

Every painting should have one single main subject. This is the one object or element that the

viewer should see, if they see nothing else. The lack of a single main subject is one of the major

flaws in many, many paintings. And, it is often facilitated by the over-reliance on photos and the

massive amount of detail included in modern hi-resolution pictures. How To Decide? Sometimes

the main subject is very obvious. Our painting project from last week is a good example. The large

foreground barn dominates the picture plane – it takes up at least ¼ of the entire space.

The thumbnail value

composition also emphasizes

the foreground barn but

without any color or detail

information.

What two specific things were

done in the value sketch to help

visually emphasize the

foreground barn, even though it

is included in a larger value

shape?

FOCAL POINT

Once you’ve decided on a main subject, the next step is to decide where it will be placed on your

picture plane. There are many possible locations, even those that are un-conventional and break

the “rules” of composition. But, as an introduction we’ll start with a simple and powerful system

that is also easy.

Golden Sections / Golden Means

On any rectangular picture plane there are four visual sweet spots. They have various names,

Golden Sections being one of the common ones. Golden Sections occur at the intersections of the

four Golden Means.

Golden Means can be placed just

by thinking in terms of ‘thirds’. If

you roughly divide your picture

plane into thirds vertically and

horizontally, the four lines will

intersect in four places – the

Golden Sections.

The red crosses in the image at

right illustrate the Golden Sections

on this picture plane.

The ‘L”

An easy way to plot the Golden Sections is to think of the letter ‘L’. The ‘L’ shape represents a

subset of the Golden section in that it is 2/3rds of a Golden Mean on the longest dimension and

2/3rds of a Golden Mean on the shortest dimension. And, it can be rotated around and flipped

horizontally or vertically to locate any of the four Golden Sections.

Let’s take look at last week’s class project with two ‘L’s overlaid on the finished painting.

It’s easy to find the four Golden Sections – two at the corners of the ‘L’s and two at the

intersections of the ‘L’s.

Notice that the upper right Golden Section lies on the large roof of the barn – creating a visual

bullseye right on the object that is our Main Subject.

Subtle Superpower Of The ‘L’

Notice also, that the part of the L that starts at the bottom edge, 1/3rd of the way in from the

right edge passes through the small piece of vertical wall that connects the two sections of the

barn. Likewise, the other arm of this L starts 1/3rd of the way down from the top on the left edge,

and works it way to the right passing along just under the top edge of the roof on the smaller

section of the barn.

The “Superpower” is in the way these two visual paths help draw the viewers eye to our bullseye

focal point.

PRE-CLASS WORK

View these video tutorials to expand on Value Sketching and Color Studies:

Value Sketching Part 2 – More Complex Arrangements

Converting A Value Sketch Into A Realistic Value Range

Converting A Simple Value Sketch To Color

Thumbnail Value Sketches

Once you’ve watched the videos, use the image below as the starting point for your composition

work this week.

The scene includes two different buildings prominently located in the foreground. Either of these

could be your Main Subject. There are other possibilities as well.

Decide what single element will be your main subject – key word: SINGLE.

Create value value thumbnail sketches. Use the same process we have been working with:

• Create three large shapes by making a deliberate decision about space – foreground,

middle ground and background. The exact division of space is up to you and the

boundaries can be somewhat fluid.

• One shape should be large, one middle sized, and one small.

• Using the idea of the ‘L’, decide which of the four Golden Sections is the visual bullseye on

your Main Subject. This is your Focal Point

• Place value in each shape, remembering that it is good practice to have the highest value

contrast at the Focal Point.

• Make at least several value thumbnails. It’s not a bad idea to create six, one each of the six

possibilities in this value composition system.

• Do at least two color studies based on two different value compositions.

WEEKLY CRITIQUE

Email your studies to me for the weekly critique by noon Friday. I’ll pick one of the thumbnails to

use as the basis for our class painting project. I’ll create the drawing layout and email back to

everyone along with the link to the weekly critique.

IN CLASS

We’ll go over the value thumbnail sketches and process, answer questions and do the class project

together.