“Landscape Painter’s Workbook” Preview: Shape Interpretation with Hester Berry, Sue Charles, and Carolyn Lord

This is the first of a 3-part series highlighting many of the painters featured in my new book, The Landscape Painter’s Workbook: Essential Studies in Shape, Composition, and Color.

Also see these previews:

• Color Strategies with Carol Strock Wasson and David Mensing
• Movement in Composition with Bill Cone, Cindy Baron, and Mitchell Albala
• VIDEO: Special Book Launch Event
• EXCERPT: Active Negative Space in Landscape Painting

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With my new book coming out this November — The Landscape Painter’s Workbook: Essential Studies in Shape, Composition, and Color — I’m starting a series of blog posts that will highlight many of the contributing artists.

As the title suggests, Workbook focuses on the big three of landscape painting: shape interpretation, composition, and color. In this first post, I’ll discuss three painters who I call “shape masters” — Hester Berry, Sue Charles, and Carolyn Lord. In subsequent posts, I’ll feature painters in the areas of composition and color.

One of the best things about writing a book like this is that I get to work with so many great artists. I’m grateful to these painters, who graciously allowed their work to appear in the book. Workbook shines brightly because of them.

Nature is terribly complex. It has innumerable shapes, from the minute to the monumental, and in its raw, unedited state, can seem quite overwhelming. The key to translating all this into a painting is not to capture every bit of it, but to reduce it into a simpler set of shapes and masses. This is the landscape painter’s first and most important task.

This isn’t something the novice, or even the seasoned painter does naturally. Every painting, even complicated ones, has a foundation that is built upon simplified shapes. Yet this isn’t necessarily what we see first. We are distracted by a sea of details, colors, and narrative content. To simplify we have to see through all the layers of complexity and busyness. We have to interpret and extrapolate. As representational painters, it’s easy to think that completing a picture means adding more information. In fact, the opposite is usually the case. Our goal isn’t to include everything we see, but to know what to leave out. The  art of shape interpretation lies in saying more with less.

What you’ll notice about each of these painters is that, whether painting tightly or loosely, they rigorously define their shapes. Each shape stands for something. There is no arbitrariness in shape interpretation. These painters also avoid complexity and are willing to sacrifice detail in service to the overall shape-logic of the painting.

Hester Berry

The shapes in Berry paintings are fully activated. Her brushstrokes burst with energy; the paint surface is a flurry of activity. This delights the eye, yet it is only one dimension her work. What I appreciate about her painting is that beneath all the active brushwork is a solidly defined shape structure, with a respect for values and forms. Every stroke has bearing on the structure of the picture. Each one of her expressive brushstrokes is a distinct shape, defined from adjacent strokes through value and color differences.

Find out more about Hester Berry’s work at her website: hesterberry.co.uk

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Sue Charles

Sue Charles’ painting graces the cover of The Landscape Painter’s Workbook. Sue is a true shape master. Each of her shapes define structure and form—even forms as seemingly soft-edged and unstructured as clouds. Each shape is defined by a single stroke, and each stroke is a distinct color and value.  Charles was inspired by her early experiences as a stained glass artist. “At the core of my work is a love of pattern and the way everything in nature fits together perfectly like a puzzle,” she explains. “Each stroke is a carefully considered shape of a specific color, placed in relationship to the whole design.” Smoldering can be appreciated on the level of a cloudscape, and as a visual shape-poem.

Check out her video below to get a glimpse of how she applies her shape-oriented strokes.

Find out more about Sue Charles’ work at her website: suecharlesstudio.com

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Carolyn Lord

Reductionism is an approach used in many disciplines, from biology to philosophy. In a reductionist approach one attempts to explain complex ideas by reducing them to more fundamental ones. This is precisely what landscape painters do when they try to reduce the landscape’s myriad forms and details into more simplified shapes and patterns. In Fish Rock Retreat, we find a delightful variety of shapes: large and small, angular and curvilinear. Each shape is considered; and each one has meaning.

Remarkably, when a painter adopts such reductionist approach to shape, it doesn’t detract from the overall impression. It enhances the painting and makes it more comprehensible to the viewer.

Lord’s approach to shape not only gives her subjects structure and form, but also lends a distinctive style to her work.

Find out more about Carolyn work at her website: carolynlord.com