Form Painting

Founder of the Aristides Atelier at the gage academy of art in seattle, Juliette Aristides explains how you can capture form in the style of the old masters 

What exactly is ‘form painting’?

Form painting means creating the illusion of volume, through light and shade. The secret to making something, or someone, look ‘real’ lies in the halftones, which reveals the angle and intensity of the light falling across the surface of an object. Form painting, or tiling, can also refer to the way you apply paint on the surface to create a sculptural, rather than impressionistic, effect and give the illusion of light wrapping around an object.

What’s the best subject to start with when studying form in this way?

Still life painting is an excellent way to study the illusion of volume. Household objects spray painted a matte white is a great subject matter to start with. You could use cups, eggs, teapots, shapes such as cylinders and spheres, bottles – whatever you want as long as the shapes are big and relatively simple. Set a single object, or simple arrangement of objects, in a still life composition under a single light source and practise painting them.

How should I light a still life to best explore form in my work?

The best light for practising form painting is the simplest: a single light source coming from above, generally shining from the upper left so the painting can be read like a page of a book. Some place the light source on the right, this is called the ‘sinister diagonal’ (meaning left handed, a derivative of sinistra in Italian). Light from a window, a desk lamp or overhead lamp is fine. If you need to block out other light from the room, create a shadow box (a large shoe box with the open top facing towards you) to put your still life in and protect it from bouncing light.

I want to explore how light hits tapering forms in my work, where should I begin?