Weighing in on Painting

Let’s talk about weight, not a comfortable subject for me, Kilos, stone, pounds ....... always too many of them but today I'm talking about ''weight'' in relation to sketching or painting. What do I mean by weight? .... some would probably say detail, some the moment that you need to stop, for me it's weight. 

Throwing Some Shapes

I'd been admiring these green tomatoes for some time, wanting to sketch but trying to find a visual vocabulary to put across what I liked about them. 

Firstly, I loved the gorgeous lines of the branches and leaves, secondly the shadows and folds, the contrast between the rotund shapes (two different sorts of tomato). Indeed I could have filled the whole doublespread with shaded pencil drawing, incidentally this is done in HB, 2B and 6B pencil, but I felt that this would be too heavy. The delicacy of those stems and crinkled leaves would be lost in a myriad of shadows and details, the sketch would be ''overweight''.

Weight, balance, whatever, I enjoy playing with this concept even in my pastel work. In some paintings the detail is spread evenly right to the outer edges, in some I like to place weight on my focal point and then lighten up towards the edges, every painting (just like people) has its own weight. Trying to find that feel good weight of a sketch or painting is the challenge. Too thin, too pudgy, too blowsy, endless possibilities, finding the ideal weight for your work is tricky, often less is more. 

The next time you are in a gallery take a peek at how artists deal with weight, is the detail spread evenly right across the work, what is the ''weighty'' part of the painting? How does the weighty part affect how you see the work, does the detail draw you in or do your eyes move all over the picture because the finishing is of the same level from middle to edge. 

Ahhh, weight, the bane of my life, it would be so much easier if you could plop a sketch or painting on to the scales and say yip, it's the perfect weight, done! Unfortunately, when I step onto the scales, I know my ''painting'' is far too heavy once again!