Does Your Painting Have a Focus?

Some part of your paintings should clearly represent the central focus of the picture. How it is stated and what devices you can use to make it clear that it IS the focus are things that are important when you create a painting. The main things, though, is the HAVE a FOCUS. Without it, the painting is just a collection of shapes. With it, the picture looks like a visual event. Sometimes the center of interest occupies that position because it is different from what surrounds it, sometimes it holds attention because it is the culmination of the rest of the elements in the picture.

Painting with your eye always on the center of interest helps keep the artist from merely copying and putting equal attention on all the elements of the subject. Being true to the way human’s actually see, we need to look at something, no matter how general. We always pick out something to “focus” on. Paintings should be no less selective than our eyes are. Our paintings should exhibit the same discrimination, the same variations in intensity. It should be obvious to the viewers of our paintings what it is we were “focusing” on.