Painting from Primitives (2017)
schollz.com
schollz.com
So to me this article feels a bit like if someone discovered some really basic fact of computer science, like "you can do algebra on strings. If we define + as concatenation, then we can have an abstract arithmetic that works on numbers, strings or sets...". Which would be swell, but I feel the proper response would be to say that this intuition is backed properly by type theory and point out the best textbooks that would suit the author to learn it.
It is a sad state of "art" "education" that everyone has to go through re-learning everything and there are few references with proper learning paths and a good conceptual approach. While you can learn, it is very inefficient and error-prone.
Of course there's another important thing about mindset: in my computer science example, it is hard to imagine somebody up in arms yelling "stay out of this with your technical garbage called 'type theory', it is going to spoil the author mind!". But it is equally hard to imagine this not happening in art.
For painting, the fundamentals are usually listed as something like values, shapes, edges, and color.
Some might make a more exhaustive list, for example breaking shapes apart into more “drawing” skills like perspective, construction, anatomy, etc. this is useful because it’s even more isolated things to practice beyond just making pleasing shapes. (I think some use just “shapes” as the fundamental because the breakdowns imply you are painting some sort of realism, which doesn’t have to be the case. Abstract art, or even non realism representational, still uses shapes)
It can be hard to tease some of these apart, but what the parent is talking about, and what TFA is doing, is practicing values and shapes (though the article also has color, this isn’t necessary). all edges are hard edges, so that is removed from the equation, and you can just practice creating something that “reads” (ie, looks like the thing you intended).
If you wanted to practice values in isolation, you could freeze the shapes, and just adjust the value of each shape to explore what effects it gives and if it still reads.
I agree that learning things, like painting, is made more complicated that it needs to be. Check out Marco Bucci on YouTube. He’s a great teacher (his free videos are fantastic, but I have all his courses as well).
If you watch an experienced artist they don’t generally take these individual steps, as experience lets them combine the fundamentals, but you better bet they put in hundreds of hours practicing them.
Basically what dharmon said, and checking some of the most recommended books, like any Loomis, Gurney's Color and Light, ... Instead of Marco Bucci who's very popular on Youtube nowadays I got started with Feng Zhu, so definitely look out for different formats that would suit you best.
One of my "someday" projects is 'translating' Arnheim's "Art and Visual Perspective" into something easier to use. My classmates were utterly confused but it is very useful.
One thing I’ve learned though that’s slightly different is that lighter and darker areas aren’t simply more/less white/black. There’s both a slight hue and saturation shift. Lighter areas are less saturated with shifts towards blue, and darker areas are more saturated with shifts towards orange. Both ways work, just the second creates more of a sense of depth.
I think I might have learned the same wisdom from a different source – "You can always swing a bigger brush – you're missing a lot of fun", is a quote I was told once in a plein-air workshop, although I can't remember who said it in the first place!