Good stuff, Ryno.? Please continue to send these!





Cynthia

my art studio:
http://www.cynthialarge.com

"Do all your work as though you had a thousand years to live; and as you would
if you knew you must die tomorrow."
--Ann Lee






-----Original Message-----
From: Ryno Swart <swartart@...>
To: ArtistVision@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:19 pm
Subject: [ArtistVision] My newsletter

























A very happy Valentines day to you all. May we all produce paintings

of wild romance!



I have started a newsletter limited at first to personal friends and

students, and I would like to share it with our group here. This is

an extract from my next one, going out tomorrow. Please let me know

if you like it.



----------

Proportion 1. Overview.



The test of a good artist is accuracy.



When you are battling with a picture, when you have that vague sense

of dissatisfaction, you can stop worrying about the thickness of your

paint, and the shape of your brush, even the depth of your tonalities.



The problem is always proportion. Always.



We usually cannot see it, but the subconscious know it.



When we make somebody's leg too short, the subconscious sees a

handicapped person, not a bad painting. When we get the eyes wrong,

the subconscious sees a criminal personality, not a lazy artist. And

it hurts.



It takes time and serious effort to find the error. We have to

compare everything, the eyes to the mouth, the ears to the shoulders,

the legs to the torso, the hand to the ankle. There are 3 ways of

exploring proportion:



1. Academic. Learn the ideal set of proportions of the human body.

This is essential if you are working from imagination or memory, or

even from sketches.



2. Modeling in clay. In three steps using a free and lithe style of

drawing, sketch the silhouette of the figure, then sculpt that

outline, and finally refine it. This is the most natural and most

artistic way of getting accurate proportion, but it depends hugely on

having a good eye.



3. Triangulation. Identify key points in your subject. Carefully

observe the relationship between the various points in terms of the

angle of direction between them. Draw these lines of direction and

where two such lines intersect, the position of the third point is

marked with great precision. This is the most accurate method of

establishing and correcting proportions, but it requires very hard

work, which is why most artists rather settle for incorrect

proportions. Do not be one of them!



---------------



I have been having a nice response here in Cape Town. If you would

like to have a preview, please go the this url:

http://rynoswart.createsend5.com/viewEmail.aspx?

cID=1E519066F29DA35F&sID=59F6F44BDEEB2530&dID=5CB9CB5A1CE688CE

I don't like these long urls, as they are often broken in the browser

address field. In that case, please copy and paste the full url.



Love to you all,



Ryno.



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