Gregg Kreutz - Oil Painting Essentials: Mastering Portraits, Figures, Still Life, Landscapes, and Interiors

GREGG KREUTZ, THE CRITIC, 2002, OIL ON CANVAS, 22 24 INCHES (55.8 60.9 CM).

Every oil painter knows the feeling: Youre standing in front of the easel studying your painting, and while nothing seems particularly wrong with it, theres nothing particularly right about it either. The picture sits there, staring back at you, obviously in need of help, but sending no clear signal as to what kind of help.

In my experience, when that happens, when unknown forces have dragged the picture down to the murky depths and are blocking all attempts at resuscitation, its time to hit the big issues, time to strip away superficiality and go after the essentials.

But which essentials? As you will see in the following pages, there are many oil painting essentials that are important, but they cant all be summoned up and thrown at the suffering painting. When you run up against a serious artistic impasse like the one described above what you need areprime essentials!

And luckily, after forty years of intensive research, Ive figured out exactly what these prime essentials are:

Accuracy: Make sure you accurately depict the subject.

Design: Arrange the material in a dynamic pattern.

Depth: Make sure the near/far feeling of space is convincing.

Drama: Intensify the visual energy.

Each of these prime essentials is important, and each needs to be given full attention by the oil painter.

What often happens, though, is that one or more of them is neglected, and the picture doesnt reach its full potential. For example, if you put all your energy into accuracy but neglect design, depth, and drama, the painting becomes just an inventory of whats seen. Or if you emphasize design at the expense of depth, accuracy, and drama, you get a picture with a flat, decorative, cutout look. If the picture is to succeed, each prime essential needs to be fully manifested on the canvas.

The painting, in other words, has to run on all four cylinders. Neglect any of them and youll end up with a lopsided, incomplete picture.

Not that getting each prime essential right is easysome artists may have no problem with drama, say, but may flounder on accuracy. Others might do brilliantly with accuracy, but fail to design the picture. So how do you master all four?

Researchers who study individual achievement say that skill mastering is the result of constant practice. Theyve even calculated exactly how much practice is needed. To achieve expert status in a discipline, they say, twelve thousand is the magic number. Put in twelve thousand hours and youll nail it.

While that might be true of certain disciplines, it doesnt apply to oil painting. Spending four years churning out a painting a day wont guarantee that youll end up a good painter. More likely youll end up wanting to do something elsepossibly anything else. Why? Because the skill of oil painting is not time dependent. Its insight dependent. Developing as a painter means figuring out the answers to questions like: Why does the world look the way it does? What makes a picture effective? What is harmony? What is discord?

GREGG KREUTZ, POOL HALL, 2010, OIL ON CANVAS, 18 20 INCHES (45.7 50.8 CM).

Heres some focused attention on skill mastering.

Those questions arent answered by repetitive action; theyre answered by empathetic investigation, by hands-on (or perhaps brushes-on) exploration. Just as a scientist wont make headway by doing the same experiment day after day, an artist cant expect improvement by painting the same picture day after day. How then does one master oil painting essentials?

Sensitivity

Sensitivity is the core component for mastering oil painting essentials. Sensitivity, in this sense, means being alert to the color of light, the gesture of a model, the delicacy of a leaf, and the sturdiness of a pot, as well as being keenly attuned to the touch of a brushstroke. In my view, that kind of holistic sensitivitywhere equal attention is paid to both subject and processis the real key to developing as an oil painter.

Sensitivity lays the groundwork for insight. In this book, I will share painting insights Ive had over the past forty years, but ultimately for you to really benefit, youll have to reach your own conclusions. What Ive figured out will hopefully provide some guidance, but each insight I convey is only helpful if you experiment with it and turn it into your own. I believeand hope you will discoverthat theres an intelligence below the surface of consciousness that informs our insights. Part of our task as artists is both tapping into that intelligence and trusting it. Once accessed, that intelligence can increase your understanding, deepen your sensitivity to your surroundings, and enrich your oil painting.

Exploration of Multiple Genres

I believe that sensitivity-derived insights can best occur when the artist explores different kinds of subject matter. Portraits, figures, still lifes, landscapes, and interiorseach of these genres teaches important lessons about accuracy, design, depth, and drama. When practiced collectively, they help expand the artists range of expression. And I say this knowing there are many artists who purposefully confine themselves to one particular genre. They become exclusively portrait painters or still life painters or landscape painters, and lock in on that one identity.