Criteria for improving your paintings

 

Lilacs with Klimt’s Lady with a Fan, Oil on panel, 30 x 24 inches

Awhile ago I read this blog post from OPA about how the jurying committee for OPA exhibitions set criteria for to getting your painting accepted into their shows.  


Here are the ten questions they use as criteria.

  • Is there a dominant value? —> values

  • Is there a dominant harmony? —> color and values

  • Is there a clear center of interest? —> compositions

  • Is there balance? —> composition

  • Do the shapes and lines lead the eyes to focal points within the picture plane? —> composition

  • Is the drawing accurate?

  • Are the value relationships convincing? —> values

  • Are the color temperature relationships consistent and believable? —> color

  • Is there an appropriate variety of hard and soft edges? —> edge quality

  • Is the paint application varied and interesting? —> edge quality


When I read through this list of questions, I was struck how the questions either dealt with composition or one of the three painting fundamentals, values, edge quality, and color.


When I started to learn how to oil paint, I broke up the areas of technical skill into these categories to make it easier for me to learn each concept deeply.  And it is also why I have begun to organize my online Floral Still Life classes to have an overarching focus each term.  My goal is to maximize the learning experience and to help you feel more confident about the decisions you make when painting.  Which in turn, make all future painting sessions more fun.


Going forward, my Floral Still Life class focuses on color in the autumn term.  During the winter term the class focuses on values, and the spring term focus is on edge quality


As for learning about composition, I have a few books to recommend.


We are so lucky because the information is out there to be discovered.  However if you would rather not sift through a pile of books, be sure to sign up for one of my classes :)

 
Elizabeth Floyd