4 days ago, the trailer of “Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi” was released. By watching it, I found the combination of these short extracts of the latest episode of the saga is quite suitable to illustrate the fundamentals of fine art drawing and painting working process. Of course, to achieve a great fine art work requires a lot of abilities and a very good sense of management, nevertheless, as Einstein had said: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Every complicated working process has a simple but solid foundation to start with. Let’s now watch the trailer and see what inspiration it could bring us in our fine art practice.
Light and darkness: the secret of 3-dimension achievement
Fine art drawing and painting is to achieve a 3-dimensional space on a 2-dimensional support. And the secret to achieve this is the light. Without light, nothing could be seen, no forms, no colours and no dimensions. And when there is light, there is darkness. (Technically, we call ‘this darkness’ shadow). Darkness is where light can’t reach out. It is very important for an artist to observe correctly the big light and the big shadow for any of his works. The accomplishment of the 3-dimenional space is not to draw or paint all the tiny details but a synthesis of lights and shadows. And this synthesis should always be kept united and well balanced.
An artwork should be built up with interpretation. It is not an activity of copy or colouring.
With the help of a good comprehension of the relationships of lights and shadows, now we can build up the artwork. Like being pronounced in the trailer: “…light, darkness, the balance… so much bigger…”, it’s time to build up the artwork to make it richer. During this building-up process, you can add more details and more colours. But all these to be added details and colours should be chosen with intention. A great artist would not be interested in working like a camera to produce photos. A great artist works to create a universe, to convey a message, to communicate emotions.
“Art is never finished, only abandoned.” – Leonardo da Vinci
Like indicated in Leonardo da Vinci’s quote, art is a building-up process without end. Art is never finished since the absolute perfection is unattainable. But a relative perfection exists and it is what a proficient artist works to achieve. Like the jedi’s vocation in the trailer, an artist needs to decide to end. You need to know where and even how to end to find out this relative perfection to express what you want to communicate.
And like all the jedis, even talented, you need to be trained and work hard to be proficient. :)
#art #starwars #inspiration #atelierdewenxuan
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