Contrast and brushstroke are my favourite areas.  If you don’t get a handle on these in your painting, even if everything else works, the painting will fail.  Contrast and brushstroke are the secret to creating painting which are painted for humans.

Contrast is the character of your piece.

If you can’t see the image behind the word contrast at the top of the page, what you would notice if you could is that there are no obvious changes in light and dark.  Why? because contrast is far more than light and dark. At the heart of it, it is about the way we understand pattern and our sophisticated pattern recognition.

Too much pattern and I am bored, too little and I am confused, find the right balance and I am engaged.  To unlock this you need to define ‘right’ find help in the articles dealing with contrast.

Enjoy these articles on contrast