Plein Air Power Up: Mass Appeal

Finding The Masses

  There is an abundance of beautiful detail when you are on site looking, thinking, setting up your subject to paint. How do you make your idea about the subject clear in your painting? One key approach is to simplify and gather the details into a larger mass. Larger, simpler shapes and masses convey the essence of a subject better than its details.
  Massing in composition is linking areas of a similar value into a larger, simpler shape and separating them from other areas massed in a different value. The massed areas are then arranged into abstract compositional shapes that are defined and developed in order to create strength and beauty in the painting.  This is completely different than making shapes using line.
  The control of the masses is what unifies the painting and conveys the idea of the painting.

"Yellow Birch"  oil on linen

 In the painting above, the autumn birch leaves are all massed into a big yellow shape, with only a little bit of value change. The green trees in the background are another mass in a much darker value, and the middle ground granite rocks are readable as one mass, too. All of these areas had much more detail in reality that could have been added, but confusion to the eye would likely have taken over.

  So use mass appeal and keep it simple!

PS:  In this jpg of the painting "Yellow Birch" you can still see tiny little perfect mouse tracks along the lower right edge. I painted this in Vinalhaven during the afternoon and left it in the great room of the farmhouse flat on a small table to dry overnight. The next morning, there was a tiny trail of mouse  tracks along one side. Ah, the unexpected in painting!

  "Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so."

Doris Lessing