Steven Assael's composition + technique
 

Hi all,
I was recently exposed to a demonstration given by Steven two years ago, in San Francisco. I'm in awe with the demo given here. But a couple of things i don't understand here :o :

1) Why does he have all those grid lines on his portraits? How does he use them?

2) Why does he have all those blots of colors all over his canvas?

I'd love to hear your views, and i think we can all learn something here. If anyone has been to his workshops before, we'll really appreciate your contributions to this thread here!

It looks to me that he's using his blank canvas space as a palette, but that's just an uneducated guess. I've never seen it done.

I think the grid is so that he can place his figures in such a way that where there is a cross-section of lines is where important points go. May have to do with the golden mean.

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Marcus, Those lines look very similar to the compositional structures that are part of Dynamic Symmetry. It could be something totally different, of course, but you might want to look at the book, available from Amazon.

Welcome Richard!
 

It's good to have you joining us on this Forum too. I'll be looking forward to your inspired posts and intellect.

Marcus, it sure looks like he is using the canvas as a palette; which is darned clever and efficient if you think about it: the nuts of paint are right where he needs them, in sight and in the same light for mixing purposes; also there's no bulky palette to get heavy and stand between him and his freedom of movement! What a good idea. Thanks for sharing this glimpse into Mr. Assael's technique. Have you seen this painting finished, in the demo? I too am curious about how it was resolved.

Garth

The only way to ask the question is to ask the artist.

I have searched for a way to ask Steven directly but l only have a phone number, which I will call when I get a moment. When there is a living artist the only way to inquire is to inquire.

Yes Chris, i agree it wouldn't get any better than straight from the horse's...er, genius' mouth. :) I wrote to him directly to his email, but hasn't got back to me since. I even tried to fish his contact via his gallery, and all i got the impression from them that "You'll have to get past us first..." So i hope Chris can be that "Bringer of Light" to shed on our curiousity...the cats here are hungry! MEOW!

Hi Garth, i never got to see the finished work, and neither did he publish it in his website either. Now that you mention about using the canvas as his palette, i suddenly got that "brain-freeze" feeling!
What a genius he is!

Richard, Mark, Julie and Jeff: I think you guys have hit on something here. It does remind me somewhat of the Golden Mean, but then again i notice the central diamond that seems to lock the two figures in place. What i'll do is to look into that book "Dynamic Symmetry" and see if i can find some answers!

Do we still get to guess?

I think he is using Andrew Loomis' concept of "Informal Subdivision" which is... (I think)... in his book "Creative Illustration" which I unfortunately do not own. However, there is a website where you can download Loomis books: it's www.saveloomis.org .

One of my tutor once asked me for my palette knife and to my horror spread big globs of paint on a side of my canvas to check my mixtures! It works, is like trying a dress on before buying it.
In that case the mixing didn't happen on the canvas but on the palette, what went on the canvas was just the colour I intended to use.
Ilaria

Hi Ilaria,
Thanks for sharing your experience. I too use the same method on my own work, and i find it helps to speed things up. As a matter of fact, i realise using palette knives like we do early in our paintings, enables us to work quickly over those areas that are less in priority, and enables us to focus on the main areas.

Linda, thanks for sharing the link. Unfortunately there was nothing there except to some links to possible sales of Mr Loomis' books. However, i wonder if the informal subdivision you mentioned, is anything close to this image i found from another old book published by VICIANA. Iit looks quite similar to the one used in Assael's demo pic, except it still is a mystery about the two extensions from the top of the heads, in the top middle section of the painting.

Chris,Did you manage to get a hold of him on the phone?

Oops! Marcus, you're right. Try this link instead:
http://www.fineart.sk/index.php?cat=13

There is a Table of Contents for Creative Illustration and what one should search for is "Introducing Informal Subdivision". It appears that you can also print out the entire book from here.

Hi Linda, and everyone who's reading this thread
I started reading Linda's recommendation recently, and have come to this particular page which strikes me as an answer to this question we all have been guessing about Assael's composition technique.

Allow me to write what it says on this page (incidentally, this is from pg 29 of his online book Creative Illustration):

There are times when we wish to achieve great dignity of arrangement. Since the Creator's basic design for animate form is the duplicaton of one side by the other, such as the two sides of a human body,, arrangement based on the same plan takes on the same sort of dignity.

It does not mean that each side must duplicate exactly, but there should be a feeling of complete equalization of the units or masses, the line and spaces of one side with the other.

Church murals invariably follow this plan. It may be used to great advantage in symbolical subjects, appeals for charity, heroic subjects, or to suggest peace and serenity.

Formal Balance was almost the only approach in earlier times, and great compositions have been built with it. It is largely the formality of design which lends such magnificence to the work of Michelangelo, Rubens, and Raphael.

Formal subdivision may also be used informally if one is adept enough..."

I've been accused ot being "too simple," but sometimes it works best.

I think those lines are simply his method of "gridding up," or "squaring up," so to speak.

Any picture/illustration can be sized up (or down) simply by drawing a grid on top of it, and then reproducing the same grid and keep ing the new grid in proportion. The new grid is proportionally larger, or smaller, depending on whether you're going up or down in size.

Doesn't matter how you draw your grid or squares, so long as they are repeatable in the new, larger or smaller format. Then, you simply go square by square, or space by space, redrawing in the new scale what is in your original art.

Wow! I get tired of just taking a look at this.
I never liked the grids, I think they are usefull only when you have to paint something really big and you don't want any distortions.

But if someone thinks that's useful... go for it!
And I love Assael's paintings...

I agree with Richard. When i first saw Assael's demo, and this strange looking gridding system, i was absolutely stumped by it (And yes Claudemir, it gave me a headache when i saw it too!)

. So i thought i'd start this thread, and hope in our discussions we may find the logic behind this complex looking gridding...

The question is: Why use grids when painting from life? Assael only paints from life, and I think I've seen another photo from this demonstration that shows the models in the room. Seems like grids are only useful for transferring from two dimensional images.

I'd imagine he intended the grid as a compositional tool, as already suggested here. This painting was done at a conference in San Francisco, I believe, and the grid may have been made more conspicuous for the sake of the audience.

Good question Jeff. I thought about this for a while after you posed this question, and i reckon it's for the audience's sake, like what you mentioned before.

I do also see that this is a large painting, and the subject matter does look serene and peaceful. Theoretically having the grid, to help him gain a balance, may be just the thing to help him create that spatial balance on the canvas.

Correct me if i'm wrong guys. :)

Marcus:

I think you're right (in the post preceding this one), that perhaps these grids/lines give him a sens of balance and help in placement. With those diamond shapes, he can visually judge where his figures are on the canvas . . . not that this isn't possible, anyway. But, with the grid(s), which will eventually disappear, he can get a quick sense of place, balance, structure, and perhaps, snoop out some ideas for additions or adornments or whatever. It looks to me as though he has mor or less halved the canvas, and then halved the top half again, and dropped a couple of light-lined verticals. Again, to my sense, it may help him with his "mental" picture.

You certainly took the words right out of my mouth Richard! In fact now that you mentioned it, i remembered i just saw the mural done by Sargent for the Boston Public Library, and if you can imagine these construction lines on this mural, you can see that this works out right too.

And at the same time, Sargent challenges this balance by "offsetting" the characters a little bit (compare the pharoah's distance from the centre line, vs the barbarian's distance from the same line)
This again shows his unique quality, bending the rules and challenging compositional conventions of his time. :sunnysmil