The Vignette
PDF Link
https://userfiles.faso.us/98794/23800.pdf
About the author
Gary Tucker is a watercolor artist/ instructor living in the Boston area. He offers online workshops , in person workshops, and a catalogue of watercolor videos on technique and design
My on-line store https://www.gumroad.com/garytuckerartist
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SOME REASONS TO TRY A VIGNETTE
Painting with the thought of making a vignette encourages the artist to think of the overall design of the painting. Typically the artist starts with the main subject - and it can
quite engaging placing the subject in the rectangle without painting edge to edge as we normally do. I find that I am instantly engaged in making and interesting shape out of my subject and so for me it is an important exercise. Typically a good amount of white paper remains and the shape of the subject occupies most of the rectangle. Instead of painting edge to edge the subject at hand the first one consideration seems to be the placement of the subject and adjoining elements and how that interacts with the white of the page. The stress on design continues in connecting the main subject to the sides of the paper sometimes in an obvious manner such as in an adjoining tree sometimes in a less obvious a reflection or shadow. A lot of creativity comes out when executing a vignette and this will extend into our more formal painting as well. The is form is more suited to the sketching as they tend to be more graphic and less about atmosphere or mood.