SPRING PLANTING

Rich soil awakens from a Winter sleep.
Young vines take hold of slender supports.
Sunlight nurtures the moistened fields
with a promise of a colorful harvest to come.

CONCEPT

A painting will have much more impact on the viewer if it has a focused concept. In other words, the painting should be about something, and not just a pretty scene. This painting of the view from an old winery, focuses on the aesthetic beauty created by a haphazard arrangement of geometric patterns and a deep perspective.

TYPES OF CONCEPT

Many types of concept have been used throughout the centuries. Here are three:

• emotional

A concept may be a particular emotion or feeling you have when observing a place or subject. For example: calm and serenity, energy and excitement, grace, friendship, isolation, grandeur, etc.

If this is the case, your painting should be all about communicating this emotion.
When the viewer shares your feelings about the subject you will have a successfulpainting

• aesthetic

Your concept may derive from your aesthetic sensibility - the beauty you find in a subject that others may not have noticed. Look for beauty everywhere even in the most unlikely places. I have seen wonderful paintings of refrigerators doors, plastic makeup bottles, even a bathroom. It is not the subject matter that is important, it is
how you paint it.

• descriptive

The concept may be purely descriptive in nature that highlights some characteristic of an object or subject that is not purely emotional or aesthetic.

SUBJECT MATTER

What subjects should an artist paint? A good guideline is that it should be a subject that the artist feels some emotion about. If the artist has no feeling about the subject then you can be sure the painting will also have no feeling.