Composing Your Painting with Abstract Patterns - Phil Starke Studio
Phil Starke Studio

Composing Your Painting with Abstract Patterns

Today’s post is about composing with abstract patterns.   We all have the urge to fall in love with detail when we see a subject we want to paint.  It’s natural, something were born with, (or cursed with).  But detail is the death knell to composition.  There is no pattern in detail, it doesn’t hang together in masses.  It breaks up the painting into small little brush strokes that is hard for the viewer to sort through.   If we can get away from realism at the start of a painting and see things abstractly in groups of large dark and light shapes or grouped together into planes of a landscape like sky plane, flat plane, upright planes, this will help us see our subject more abstractly.   A good composition starts with an abstract pattern that has a variety of angles and lines and a variety of shapes and sizes that are interesting to look at.   Detail is for the end of the painting, and takes a lot of thought as to how much to add or leave out.

Leave a Comment:

12 comments
Laura Kratz says August 25, 2010

Well said Phil! If someone had told me that 3 years ago when I started painting I think I would have been far better off. Took a long time for that light bulb to go off!
Keep up the good work…
Laura

Reply
    Phil Starke says August 26, 2010

    Glad you’re enjoying the blog, it’s always better late than never for those light bulbs.

    Reply
Laura Kratz says August 25, 2010

Well said Phil! If someone had told me that 3 years ago when I started painting I think I would have been far better off. Took a long time for that light bulb to go off!
Keep up the good work…
Laura

Reply
    Phil Starke says August 26, 2010

    Glad you’re enjoying the blog, it’s always better late than never for those light bulbs.

    Reply
Peter Metrinko says August 26, 2010

I have the unfortunate tendency to get sidetracked by a detail. I know, I really do, about the need to build up to the detail but sometimes I’m tempted to just do a little more in an area, and then if it starts going well, I keep at it. That really throws the balance off.
I own one of your paintings — it’s well loved and is hanging right over my head as I type. If you wondered where this one wandered off to — it’s in Virginia. (On Flickr– http://www.flickr.com/photos/23937375@N00/4927789845/ )

I check up on your website all the time to see new paintings. There are a couple of older ones, from a Kansas series, that I’d like to purchase.

Anyway, thanks for posting that tip.

Reply
    Phil Starke says August 26, 2010

    It’s always good to know where the paintings end up. Glad the blog is helpful.

    Reply
Peter Metrinko says August 26, 2010

I have the unfortunate tendency to get sidetracked by a detail. I know, I really do, about the need to build up to the detail but sometimes I’m tempted to just do a little more in an area, and then if it starts going well, I keep at it. That really throws the balance off.
I own one of your paintings — it’s well loved and is hanging right over my head as I type. If you wondered where this one wandered off to — it’s in Virginia. (On Flickr– http://www.flickr.com/photos/23937375@N00/4927789845/ )

I check up on your website all the time to see new paintings. There are a couple of older ones, from a Kansas series, that I’d like to purchase.

Anyway, thanks for posting that tip.

Reply
    Phil Starke says August 26, 2010

    It’s always good to know where the paintings end up. Glad the blog is helpful.

    Reply
kiathryn abel says September 15, 2010

Phil, I took your plein aire workshop last spring in Tucson. It was a wonderful experience. I learned A LOT.I don’t ever get excited about detail. But there is something about the overall scene that does excite me and that I find so beautiful that I paint with a lot of speed and enthuasiam. It is a lot of rather semi-abstracted shapes. I always like my painting at this stage but then as I try to refine it and make it more realistic or “finished” (or saleable) it loses something and I like the painting less as I go. How do I keep the painting fresh yet a recognizable and “finished” Thank you. Kathryn Abel

Reply
    Phil Starke says September 17, 2010

    Hi Kathryn, good to hear from you. Hope the painting is going well. That is the hard part about painting, when to stop and how much detail to add. After blocking in the pattern of dark and light I think of detail as broken color instead of rendering small aspects of the subject. Look for subtle changes of color within the same value to break up the shape. Look at painters like Emile Gruppe or John Carlson and study how they simplify detail. Hope that helps, and tell your husband hi we hope his surgery goes well.Phil

    Reply
kiathryn abel says September 15, 2010

Phil, I took your plein aire workshop last spring in Tucson. It was a wonderful experience. I learned A LOT.I don’t ever get excited about detail. But there is something about the overall scene that does excite me and that I find so beautiful that I paint with a lot of speed and enthuasiam. It is a lot of rather semi-abstracted shapes. I always like my painting at this stage but then as I try to refine it and make it more realistic or “finished” (or saleable) it loses something and I like the painting less as I go. How do I keep the painting fresh yet a recognizable and “finished” Thank you. Kathryn Abel

Reply
    Phil Starke says September 17, 2010

    Hi Kathryn, good to hear from you. Hope the painting is going well. That is the hard part about painting, when to stop and how much detail to add. After blocking in the pattern of dark and light I think of detail as broken color instead of rendering small aspects of the subject. Look for subtle changes of color within the same value to break up the shape. Look at painters like Emile Gruppe or John Carlson and study how they simplify detail. Hope that helps, and tell your husband hi we hope his surgery goes well.Phil

    Reply
Add Your Reply