Considering Vectors For Better Plein-Air Painting

Have you ever opened a PDF file on your computer?  Did you notice how you can zoom in quite a lot without losing the smooth curves and sharp lines of the content (image or text)?  This is what a vector file is all about; being able to change the scale of an image without it becoming pixelated or losing quality.  It is this kind of vector that I will be referring to in this article and how it relates to painting.

Translating Translation

[This article follows up on last week's article about Art & Translation.]

When translating a scene or object there are various decisions of scale to be made.  It seems like a simple ratio: larger surface = larger brush, smaller surface = smaller brush.  However using a tool to its full potential requires one to understand its purpose.  A hammer is used for banging nails into a surface, nothing changes how the hammer does this.  A brush however is a tool whose purpose is not static like a hammer.  Used to translate or transfer what an artist sees in 3 dimensions onto a surface of 2 dimensions requires the brush to be a very complex tool for a complex task.

Lets say you want to paint a landscape from observation, do you want to create a pencil sketch? a small oil study? a miniature painting? an average sized plein-air painting? or a large studio painting?  In addition do you want to convey each thing precisely as it is seen or are you after its essence and feeling?

Knowing the ways that a brush’s purpose changes with the canvas size will help to better apply it for the desired effect.  The key is in thinking of the painting process similarly to vector files being scaled and realizing that any scaling is navigating a triangulation of brush, canvas and human body.  

Why You Should Think More About The Body

All painting is rooted in the human body, so scaling of brush and canvas is reliant purely on the body and its average dimensions.  The body determines the initial choices of every painting according to the place in which you are trying to put the viewer.

The Canvas Body

The body will feel or sense the size of the canvas and will make the viewer either relate to being in a physical space (as with landscapes or interiors), relate to another person's body (as with figurative, nudes or portraits) or remind them of their actual body/mind (as with abstract expressionism, murals or conceptual art).

The body will also determine how the viewer's mind will categorize the image.  Is it like looking through a window (smaller canvas sizes) or being in front of a vista of some kind (larger canvas sizes)?

The Brush Body

The body relates to brushes in a simple utilitarian way, like most tools the functionality of the brush is dependent on the characteristics of the human hand.  So when working on an 8 foot tall canvas the size of brush is limited only by the ability to grip it in one hand.  On an 8 foot canvas this means that the artist has available all brush sizes down to about a half an inch thick.  A half an inch stroke on an 8 foot canvas will look like a line when viewed from a few feet away.  This distance from the surface that is required to view and discern the image of a large canvas means that half-inch brushes make the smallest mark still visible as an individual stroke.  Even smaller brush sizes can be used but will only be visible from a distance when applied in clusters.

Lets say however that we are working on an 8 inch panel.  This will be viewed from much closer and has a much narrower range of brushes.  Brushes larger than 2-3 inches will nearly cover the entire surface and so are not usable to paint representational scenes.  Brushes smaller than a quarter of an inch will start to categorize the painting as a miniature.  Miniature paintings have their own merits and if that is what the artist is after then smaller brushes must be used.  To stay out of the miniature realm on a smaller surface “lines” must be made not with single strokes from a smaller brush but with the juxtaposition of color planes.  Mixtures of these approaches of course can be used to varying degrees and effect.

The Brush Schizophrenic

The way scaling works then is that the same brush creates dramatically different effects on different sized surfaces and so must be applied differently.  So as the surface dimensions change the brush changes even if it is the same brush being used because its effect is different.
This is a subtle but profound element of painting that the artist should be aware of as the real changes actually occur in the artist’s mind.  Once the artist is aware of the effect that the brush they hold will have then they can more accurately translate what they wish to convey from what they are viewing.  Instead of chasing after lines they can spend their time with more useful endeavors like chasing after effects.

Be well

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