Thomas W. Schaller, Architect of Light: Watercolor Paintings by a Master
208
Thomas W. Schaller, Architect of Light: Watercolor Paintings by a Master
208Hardcover
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Overview
"The most nearly 'perfect' paintings to me are rarely the ones simply characterized by technical expertise. More often, they are the ones in which you can sense the beating heart of the artist just below the surface—flaws included."
Twenty years into a career as architect and architectural illustrator, Thomas Schaller embarked upon a bold new path as a fine artist. Today he is one of the world's most accomplished watercolor artists, celebrated for his poignant treatment of light and its dynamic interplay with the natural and manmade landscape.
The first and only collection of work from this popular contemporary artist, Thomas W. Schaller: Architect of Light features 150 of his finest paintings—buildings, bridges, boats, people and other scenes from around the world. In a series of essays, Schaller ruminates on his journey as an artist, what drives him, and the "truths" he's discovered along the way. He offers not only sage insight on composition, color and other technical aspects of painting, but also provocative perspective on more fundamental struggles for the artist, such as overcoming self-doubt and honing one's own, unique voice.
Schaller's essays, like his art, shine with passion, authenticity, and the epiphanies that comprise his artistic constellation: discovering the power of breathing...the secret to "finding the art" in any subject...and how the quest for perfection led him to worry less about the final result to take greater joy in the process itself. It's a pivoting read for collector, art-lover and practicing artist alike, full of views to savor and enlighten.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781440350726 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 09/11/2018 |
| Pages: | 208 |
| Sales rank: | 138,070 |
| Product dimensions: | 10.60(w) x 11.80(h) x 1.20(d) |
About the Author
Since he began his fine arts career in 2010, Mr. Schaller's paintings have gained wide international acclaim. His work has won many awards, has been featured in several solo exhibitions, and has been included in a great number of prestigious international arts exhibitions in more than twenty countries around the world. A Signature Member of many arts organizations, including the American Watercolor Society, he is also an Artist Member of the Salmagundi Art Club, NYC and the California Art Club. He is a founding member of the group North American Watercolor Artists.
Mr. Schaller is currently based in Los Angeles.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Power of Design
"Design is not making beauty. Beauty emerges from selection, affinities, integration, and love."
— LOUIS KAHN
A few years back, I was invited by a respected university to deliver a presentation about my work to their students in the department of architecture. I was honored, and I accepted, but privately, I was uneasy. On its face, the invitation seemed logical enough. After all, I am an architect and was for many years a professional architectural artist. But at the time, I was in the early stages of a career change. I was trying to reinvent myself as a fine artist and often described myself as a "recovering architect." It seemed that in order for me to move on, I had to turn my back on the past thirty years or more of my professional life.
I became concerned as to what I could tell these students that would not sound patronizing or like a kind of rejection of their chosen career. For the record, that wasn't how I felt. I admire architects very much. I am one! But I knew that my own way forward was in trying to find the stories and poetry in drawings and paintings more than in actual building. And I didn't believe I could come close to my own goals without renouncing my former professional life. Since then, I've realized what is obvious now. I didn't have to turn my back on my past at all. It continues to be a cornerstone of who I am. In most ways, I have not really changed.
As the day for my presentation drew near, I thought very hard about what it was I would say. Slowly, it began to dawn on me that we had a great deal more in common than I originally thought. I realized that art is not just some detached, elitist pastime for the enlightened few. It is not even a thing one does, but rather a way in which a person chooses to do whatever it is they do with a life. The passion and the commitment we put into doing whatever it is we do is what counts. A painter, an architect, a musician, a poet, an actor or a writer can all be artists of course. But so too can a gardener, a baker, a farmer, a doctor, a nurse, a scientist, a builder, a parent. All these — and any number of others — can be artists as well.
Design. It occurred to me that design is what artists of any kind have in common. How a person works to design a life — composing all the disparate components — to best be able to do what he or she loves doing is what makes an artist. This was a quiet revelation for me, but a profound one. To create a good building, for example, an architect must design. He or she must arrange positive and negative spaces, light and shadow, materials and color in a sound, effective, and beautiful way. All buildings have an identity, a story, so all the elements of that building must work in concert to most effectively tell that story. And it is no different in designing a good painting. The process and materials may differ, but the artistic goal remains the same — identifying and composing the proper components in the most successful way possible to tell the story we wish to tell.
For any type of design to succeed, it is necessary to establish a clear hierarchy of component parts. If every element of a building, or a painting, were to have equal significance, focus, and balance would be lost. It's critical for any work to establish a point of view. And so, all elements must be designed to support the primary objective. Certainly in the completion of my paintings this is true. One element must stand out above the others as the most important in order to establish the primary theme. Otherwise, all the elements of a work will compete, resulting in a painting that seems unsettled, flat, and noncommittal. Naturally, what that element should be may well vary from artist to artist and from painting to painting.
The hierarchy of "building blocks" I use most often in the design of my paintings is comprised of four considerations. In order they are: Story, Composition, Value, and Color. Yes, there are exceptions, but more often than not, if each element on this list does its job, I will have a much better chance of a successful work.
Story
"If I could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint."
— EDWARD HOPPER
More than anything else, this has to rise to the fore. What is it I'm trying to say? Why have I decided to paint this painting in the first place? My own private answers to these questions will dictate all other decisions that go into the work and determine the importance and contour of all other elements.
From this, I begin to establish the size and the format of the painting, which paper to use, which brushes and pigments to select, which techniques to employ, etc. All these elements must be in service to the overall mood and atmosphere of the story I am trying to tell. Edges can be considered. For example, a hard edge-based approach may work well for a painting of strength and clarity, while a softer-edged take may be better suited to a quieter, more contemplative work.
To be clear, when I say "story" I don't mean to suggest that I aim to spin grand philosophical, historical, or spiritual allegories. And I never want my work to be overly literal or editorial. I mean only that for me to feel that I've succeeded, I have to access something honest and personally relevant. Nobody seeing my works needs me to lecture or to spell out exactly what I am trying to say. I just mean that they should sense that I have been inspired and motivated enough to do the painting. And if I've done my job well enough, they too will be moved to think or feel something — even if that may not be exactly whatever it was that inspired me.
A story for me can be as simple as a fragment of a memory, a hope, or a dream. And new ones can be sparked by most anything: a stranger's face passing on the street, light filtering through a stand of trees or across the façade of a broken building, a piece of music, a poem, or something from the evening news. And those are the things I try to paint. Not specific images of those faces, trees, or buildings, but rather whatever thought or feeling those things may have sparked within me.
And if you see my work, it is not so important that you understand exactly what I may have felt when painting it. If it is enough to draw you in a little, stay a while, and even begin to imagine your own stories, then I have succeeded. For that moment, in silent conversation, you and I have connected. That is all I can hope for my work to do.
Composition
"Even in front of nature one must compose."
— EDGAR DEGAS
Once I have locked in on the story I want my painting to tell, I begin to decide how best I can make that happen. Selecting an appropriate palette is important, as is the choice of paper surface and brushwork. But what is sometimes overlooked is formatting. A horizontal, a vertical or a square format are just three examples, and they help illustrate how the actual shape of a painting has the power to convey all sorts of different meanings, moods, and emotional messages.
Paintings are most often completed on a flat, two-dimensional surface. But as artists, we have — by the orchestration of shapes, tones, and colors on that surface — the power to pull the viewer in and to make the eye travel around and through our work.
In the study of art history, a common theme of some movements, the abstract expressionists for example, concerned the space "beyond the canvas." This was the idea that a piece of art should be not just a stagnant piece of decoration or a moment in time, but an authentic experience. It encouraged the viewer to not be constrained by the edges of a work. The energy of the shapes and brushwork within the painting extend beyond the bounds of the work and connect it and the viewer to the space beyond.
More simply put, a horizontal format tends to urge the eye to travel across our work — left to right or right to left. This is often referred to as the "landscape" format. Such paintings are literally horizon-oriented: earthbound and grounded. The eye of the viewer tracks the horizon, moving across the painting. Often it can seem that some paintings could only be seen in the horizontal. But it's worth considering a vertical or even square format instead. The scene may be much the same, but the energy will be very different.
By contrast, a painting with a vertical format encourages the eye to travel up and down through the painting — perpendicular to the horizon. The stories that this kind of painting can tell are often in direct opposition to those of a horizontal painting. The eye of the viewer begins to subtly see connections between the ground plane and the sky — between heaven and earth. Such paintings are far less earthbound in nature with all the expressive content that might entail.
Lastly, since a square format is dominant in neither the vertical nor the horizontal plane, it can actually stop the eye from moving around too much. For certain kinds of paintings this can be a good thing. A sense of stillness or of quiet contemplation can be well served by a square format. It will not readily encourage the eye to read beyond the canvas, and so it seems to slow and quiet the work. It is purposefully contained within the boundaries of the frame. A still life or a portrait painting may sometimes be more effective if presented in this way.
As the overall format is being decided, the shapes of the painting can begin to be designed. Balance, shape, and proportion are critical, so I tend to do small, informal sketch mock-ups before I begin. These can be very helpful because in the process I may realize that a painting that I had planned to do in a horizontal format actually works better as a vertical. And even before I start to paint, I can edit away unnecessary detail to focus on just those elements that are most necessary.
There are many guidelines for proper composition and I can't cover them all here. I often hear myself say that rules exist to be broken. But, in fact, often rules exist for a reason. And so it is a good idea to understand them before you go about determined to break them. In brief, they all have at the core quite logical notions of balance, symmetry, and order, and so deserve respect.
The Golden Ratio, or Divine Proportion, most often associated with da Vinci, is a mathematically derived approach to objectively quantify beauty in all the arts and sciences by understanding the proper balance and harmony of proportions. Its use by artists and architects from the Renaissance on is well documented. In simpler terms, the so-called "rule of thirds" is often used. In brief, this simply refers to a balanced composition of shapes on your canvas or paper. For example, a horizon line feels most comfortable and balanced if it crosses the page about one-third of the way up from the bottom or one-third down from the top. And a dominant vertical element often looks most comfortable intersecting the horizontal line at a place more or less one-third in from either the right or left side. Often, though not always, the point at which the main horizontal element and main vertical element intersect will be the focal point of the painting. A dominant horizontal element directly in the center of a painting is almost always to be avoided as it literally bisects the work and sets up an uncomfortable tension between the top and the bottom portions. The same caution holds for bisecting a work vertically.
That said, there are countless examples that can be found where an artist has broken that rule on purpose and to good effect. I have done this rather often — usually along the vertical axis — when I want the two sides of my painting to have equal weight. This sets up a tension that I can use to positive effect. The slight feeling of unease it may cause in the viewer can be quite effective.
This is when my sketchbook again comes to the rescue. Quick preliminary studies help me to focus on the design of the shapes of my painting. I can rearrange the most important elements of dark and light, vertical and horizontal, and determine the kind of painting I want to do. More importantly, these sketches let my head get its job done before I start to paint. We've likely all heard the advice, "plan slow and paint fast." I can't agree more.
As much as we are able to accept that the truth of our subject is related to, but different from, the truth of our painting, the better off we will be. They inhabit two different worlds. In painting, there can exist a sort "tyranny of reality;" the impulse we sometimes have to try to make our paintings look exactly like our subjects. Depending on how we wish to paint, this can be deadly. After all, I am a painter, not a camera.
It's crucial to try to interpret the subject rather than try to describe it. I make every attempt to paint my inspiration rather than to paint my subject. So my sketches can be invaluable in this process. They help take me out of one world and into the next. If all my designing, thinking, and planning is out of the way before I begin to paint, the better off I will be. If my mind is out of the way, the more I will be able to let my heart take over.
Value
"In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present."
— FRANCIS BACON
Like most artists, I am the harshest critic of my own work. And chief among my criticisms are the times when I feel I have not managed to get the values right. More than any other aspect of a painting, value can make or break a work. An otherwise mediocre painting can soar, or a technically excellent one can fall flat, depending on the artist's understanding and command of a proper range of values.
Much as we all may love color, no color in the world can salvage a painting that is lacking in value range. A painting that uses lots of colors, but ones that all fall along a narrow range of value will inevitably feel flat and without dimension. And the same can be said for excellent drawing skills, outstanding brushwork, even a brilliant idea. Nothing much in our work will resonate without a well-designed composition of darks and lights. This really is the foundation of a good painting.
We all begin with a flat, two-dimensional sheet of paper. If we want to suggest anything like the third dimension of depth there are only a few ways to go about it. One way is to rely on the lines of perspective in our base drawing. Given my background, it would be safe to assume that I am a proponent of artists having an understanding of at least the basics of perspective. And that I am.
But an even more effective and expressive way to suggest depth and dimension in a painting is by the compositional arrangement and layering of shapes of dark and light. And this is the case whether we work in a highly realistic or completely abstract style.
In the groups I teach, I encourage painters to compose their work with shapes of just three basic values: dark, light, and midtones. Obviously most any painting will have more than these. But if all the tones in your painting can be found somewhere along this dark to light spectrum, you'll have a much better chance of producing a successful painting. My reasoning comes from how I see the world. When we look around us, using site observation, memory, or even imagination, we generally sense our environment in three dimensions. There is a foreground, a middle ground, and a background. Objects farther away from us usually tend to look smaller, less distinct, and paler in tone while those closest appear more distinct and higher in contrast. This is a generalization, of course, but it is usually more true than not.
So when we attempt to interpret what we see, we have to rely on some conventions to create this illusion of depth on the flat paper. The lines of perspective can help. If we assign values to the elements in our paintings that we wish to appear closer and farther away, we can more easily and dramatically establish this illusion. Of course, this is not to say that the foreground elements in a painting need to be the darkest, the middle ground elements midtoned, and the distant elements the lightest. This value arrangement may work, but it is far from the only choice.
What I suggest is to assign a value — dark or light or midtone — to the foreground, the middle ground, and the background elements of our paintings. Any value we choose can work just as well, although the effect will vary widely.
For example, if you assign the darkest dark to the foreground elements of a painting, the lightest light to the middle, and mid-tones to the background, you'll have a solid value design. But if you scramble the values within the same basic composition of shapes, making the foreground light, the middle ground dark, and the background mid-toned, the composition can be just as effective. Any way you can think to arrange these three basic values — dark, light, and mid-tone — to the three basic spatial locations in your painting — foreground, middle ground, and background — can result in a sound value arrangement that will convey perspective and depth.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Architect of Light"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Thomas W. Schaller.
Excerpted by permission of F+W Media, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, 6,
FOREWORD, 8,
Introduction, 10,
CHAPTER 1 The Power of Design, 28,
CHAPTER 2 Finding the Art, 50,
CHAPTER 3 What Is Beautiful, 72,
CHAPTER 4 Painting the Light, 92,
CHAPTER 5 Just Breathe, 108,
CHAPTER 6 Listening to Our Paintings, 132,
CHAPTER 7 Connections, 154,
CHAPTER 8 Finding Our Voice, 172,
CHAPTER 9 The Perfect Painting, 186,
INDEX, 204,
ABOUT THE AUTHOR, 206,
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