By Hope Wallace<\/strong><\/p>\n We encourage you to visit the Ohio Watercolor Society Exhibit, which continues through March 27, Tuesday-Sunday, 1-5 p.m.\u00a0 The show is sponsored by Central Mutual Insurance Company and Purmort Brothers Insurance agency.<\/p>\n The Wassenberg Art Center is located at 643 S. Washington Street in Van Wert.\u00a0 Contact us at 419.238.6837 or wassenberg@embarqmail.com.\u00a0 Information about current classes and exhibits is on the calendar at our website, www.vanwert.com\/wassenberg.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n By Kay Sluterbeck If you are an artist you probably know when you\u2019ve done a good painting.\u00a0 It just \u201cfeels right.\u201d\u00a0 But sometimes you feel there\u2019s a problem and you don\u2019t know what is wrong or even whether the picture can be saved.<\/p>\n You could ask an art instructor or another artist whom you respect.\u00a0 But try to avoid asking ask your friends or family if they are not artists.\u00a0 Either they won\u2019t know enough about art to give you an educated opinion, or they\u2019ll say something nice because they don\u2019t want to hurt your feelings.<\/p>\n So how do you locate the problem?\u00a0 You can try turning the painting upside down or looking at it in a mirror.\u00a0 This will let you see it in a different way.\u00a0 Sometimes the problem will be very obvious and you\u2019ll be able to come up with a solution.<\/p>\n If that didn\u2019t work, try using two halves of a mat to \u201ccrop\u201d the image.\u00a0 Move them around the painting, making larger and smaller openings to see if there is something that needs more focus or an area that isn\u2019t necessary.<\/p>\n You can also squint at your picture.\u00a0 Squinting blurs the details so you see only the major shapes in the picture.\u00a0 Ask yourself:\u00a0 Is something out of balance?\u00a0 Do the shapes hold together?\u00a0 Are colors repeated throughout the painting?<\/p>\n If these ideas don\u2019t help you, it\u2019s time for an in-depth analysis.<\/p>\n First decide if there\u2019s a good idea behind your painting.\u00a0 If you painted a common subject, like a barn, how is your painting of a barn unique?\u00a0 If it\u2019s not unique, how can you make it different?\u00a0 You can try using more exciting colors, adding other media (pastels, colored pencils, cut paper?), turn it into a collage, crop it.\u00a0 Imagine how a famous artist would handle the subject.\u00a0 How would Rembrandt or Picasso paint it?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Check to see if shapes connect, and if they flow and are connected to all four sides of the painting rectangle.\u00a0 Try to bring isolated parts together.\u00a0 Push and extend things to the top and\/or sides of your picture.<\/p>\n What is the main thing you want people to look at?\u00a0 Does everything in the painting — shape, color, value — work to draw attention to this focal point, or do many different things compete for attention?\u00a0 Remove or tone down unnecessary details that attract the viewer\u2019s eye away from the \u201cstar\u201d of your painting.<\/p>\n Are the colors balanced?\u00a0 If there is an isolated color drawing more attention than it should, tone it down.\u00a0 Remember that colors should be repeated throughout the painting to unify the work.\u00a0 If you visit the Ohio Watercolor Show at the art center this month, you may notice that \u201cWho\u2019s Next\u201d by Dennis Zimmerman has five or six nearly-invisible spots of red here and there in a mostly green and brown painting.\u00a0 These tiny red areas subtly add life and interest and help to focus the eye on the main subject, but few people will notice them.<\/p>\n Does your picture look like it\u2019s heavy on one side or the other?\u00a0 Check the balance of positive shapes (objects) and negative shapes (the air between the objects).\u00a0 Crop the picture if you have to.<\/p>\n Does the viewer have a way into the painting?\u00a0 Draw the eye to your focal point using line, tone, or color.\u00a0 An exit is nice too — you can add a bit of sky, a window or a door to let the viewer move out of the scene and back in.<\/p>\n Do the objects or people in the picture look like they\u2019ve been cut out and pasted onto the background?\u00a0\u00a0 Avoid harsh edges unless the whole picture is painted in a hard-edge style. Instead of thinking in terms of individual objects, think of shapes.\u00a0 Look for light or dark colors in the background and connect them to the lights or darks of the objects to make interesting shapes.<\/p>\n Is your background truly a background, or does it clamor for the viewer\u2019s attention?\u00a0 Is there too much detail in an area that shouldn\u2019t be noticed?\u00a0 Instead of showing each individual tree, try massing them into the suggestion of a forest.\u00a0 Individual people in the background could be pulled together by putting a neutral color wash over them to blend them into a group.\u00a0 Bright rooftops that really aren\u2019t necessary can be darkened.<\/p>\n Remember, you\u2019re the artist — you don\u2019t have to paint things exactly as they look.\u00a0 You can adjust, change, add or remove anything you want in order to make a better picture!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Come and enjoy the Ohio Watercolor Society Show! By Hope Wallace We encourage you to visit the Ohio Watercolor Society Exhibit, which continues through March 27, Tuesday-Sunday, 1-5 p.m.\u00a0 The show is sponsored by Central Mutual Insurance Company and Purmort Brothers Insurance agency. The Wassenberg Art Center is located at 643 S. Washington Street in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wassenberg"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 22:50:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Be your own critic<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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