Painting tip: Value and big shapes tell your story

Midsummer Shadows, 10x18 in., acrylic

Try to focus on BIG SHAPES and arrange them to carry your message rather than using  a small brush and allowing your fascination with detail to break up your value pattern. 

Value and big shapes tell your story. Cover your canvas with large simple shapes, adjusting them until you are satisfied with how they relate to each other and to the edges of the canvas. Then you can see where detail can enhance that story rather than breaking it up. 

Be like the little kids who decided to get their rewards later instead of grabbing them now. (They were the kids who wound up more successful in life.)

Autumn on the Pond, acrylic, 30x30 in.

Nothing wrong with detail if you subsume it into your value pattern — make your value changes subtle and don’t break up the big shapes — and use color changes rather than value changes wherever you can.

Van Gogh and Monet painted fields of wheat dotted with poppies. It worked because the red of the poppies and the green of the wheat were the same value.

Don't try this with daisies.

—Marcia Burtt

Pergola and Poppies, acrylic, 10x18 in.