THE ARTIST MAGAZINE

Building Figures with Abstract Shapes

Judy Buswick

"I start from simple lines and go deeper and deeper," Daniel Varoujan Hejinian says. "Even though I consider myself a figurative painter, I get my ideas from mental images and lines I draw on my canvas, not from models. I see relationships in lines, and then the lines lead to shapes. Shapes lead to divisions of black and white, and then I build up my layers of color to create perspective with objects, faces and figures." By creating three-dimensional shapes, he brings his paintings to life. "Colors start talking to each other," he says. "As a second color is added to the flat roof, you get the dimension of that roof. It's shadow and light that make recognizable objects from flat shapes." In order to more precisely control his shading, Varoujan finishes his pictures with a layer of blended oil glazes, which are slower drying than his base-coat acrylics. His process of building on the relationship of lines, shapes and colors provides him with a painting formula that is limited only by his fertile imagination.

Sketching the Basics
Varoujan first pencils in a three-inch border around his acrylic pre-primed canvas. Then he lets his Sharpie permanent marker swirl curves, boxes, curly-cues and triangles in a free-flowing design around half the border. "If doing a circus theme,I picture the movement of a circus, see lines hanging from the top of a tent,andthen I start putting lines on my canvas." Though he introduces many smallshapesof triangles and cornucopia curves, he cautions that it is important to leave some large, open areas. An artist experimenting with this design-approach may want to first pencil in the lines, adjusting and erasing as needed, before tracing the design with the permanent marker which is meant to show through the paint. After turningthe canvas to check the flow and balance of lines, Varoujan completes the drawing. Next he looks for lines that suggest heads or figures. He compares this process to seeing shapes in cloud formations. "You try until you see a shape and go with it. If you see nothing, turn the canvas, or start again with new lines. Once you see one, you'll see another and another." Continuing with his permanent marker, Varoujan adds facial features or a curving arm with fingers. He delineates faces with simple, stylized lines that seem a part of the initial sketch. Reading into the abstract lines, he adds details that help the viewer see the story hidden within. In the demo piece called "Romeo and Juliet" he first sees a reclining female figure and sketches in her lips, eye, and eye brow. Then he introduces the profile of a lover, before deciding his composition is not just any couple, but the classic Shakespearean lovers. "Lines lead to lines. One line tells about another line," says Varoujan. He followsthe curve of a shoulder or leg and changes a shape to define the form he is pulling from the abstract. He builds shapes over the whole picture, not just one part at time. And, when he introduces a pattern, he repeats it somewhere else. "A pattern in theleft corner needs to be balanced with the same in the right. Then I form a triangle by going down to the bottom and so repeat it in the floor." Soon, he turns his canvas sideways to see how the additional shapes have influenced the balance of the composition. Eventually, he decides the lines of his figures have become obvious enough, while still maintaining an abstract quality.

Building Contrast
He is ready to start building his black and white contrast areas, but first brushes on transparent texture gels into the border and over certain shapes in the composition. This texture gel leaves brush strokes or can be carved with the brush tip to add a subtle dimension under the areas about to be painted. Selecting a pivotal shape, Varoujan uses a thinned, black acrylic paint to introduce his first dark area.
In the demo of "Romeo and Juliet," the first shape was that between the faces of the lovers. "The face is to be light, so I add dark around it. Then it's black, white, black contrasts all over the canvas. If a problem arises as you are setting in the black areas, add a window or other shape to break up the contrasts." With a #8 brush he says, "It's easy to cut right in against the black marker line with this black paint.
The mixture is not too watery but still has some body in it, so that your brush willflow." While painting the blacks, he changes some shapes and also adds more lines with his permanent marker, wherever needed to suggest his figures amidst the abstract. The placement of dark colors added later will be determined by these black shapes. With a smaller brush (#1), he starts working up details of the faces withthe thin black mixture. But he warns that at this point it is still important to concentrate on "getting the basic shapes in place. Don't overdo details."

Base coat of acrylic color
If appropriate to the subject, Varoujan brings in a pale gold acrylic to highlight points within the composition. The pale gold, like everything else, is added at several places to maintain balance. In "Romeo and Juliet," gold appears in the flower area, at Juliet's crown, in the diamond shapes cascading, and in the rose leaves in her hand. Next he adds a medium tone of cobalt mixed with light blue. This mixture is typically usedon skin tones and then repeated elsewhere in the painting. In the demo, Juliet's face and then Romeo's were covered in blue. Varoujan points out that the underlying marker lines bleed through, but may be redrawn if the blue covers any part of the eye details. As this blue base is drying, Varoujan brings in white to make contours and start building his forms. He adds highlights to the face and chin with thick and then thin mixtures of white. He suggests that painting highlights and shadows to indicate the light is coming from below gives the painting a romantic look -- like candle light.
He streaks the fingers with white, allowing the line of marker to show through. More colors, including reds and bronze yellow, are added to the composition. He lays in dark colors on the black and light colors on the white, always repeating both his warm and cool colors. If he's after a vibrant tone, he adds orange near his blue."Cool colors show off the warm color. Orange and red together are not as vibrant.Fire and ice -- these determine which color goes where." As he continues to add to his color mosaic, he starts feathering tones with a dark mixture of cobalt and thallo blue or with burnt umber. "I take a flat form and add to it by blending a contour." Dark color contours makes a shape recede. Shading also with white, his blue mixture, and transparent black, Varoujan pulls more clearly defined forms and figures from his composition. The final acrylic paint brought into Varoujan's demo is a Daler-Rowney heavy- body silver on the border and a few shapes inside. With the canvas now covered, he touches up any marker lines that may have been painted over. He corrects the evenness of some lines and lets others fade in and out. He adds details to rose petals or others points of interest with additional marker lines over his acrylic colors.

Refining With Glazes
Painting with oils on top of acrylics requires a binder layer of pale oil mixed with
"drops only" of Japan drier. This wet, oil-based layer will dry slowly and provide the bonding surface for the oil paint. "Oil paint gives me the flexibility to extend color to very fine points," he says. "One color beside another defines it and creates a synergy." This binder layer will allow for soft blending of paint and then give a shine to the painting. Though it takes several hours to dry, "slower drying is better for the paint (which shrinks as it dries). If it dries too quickly, the paint will crack," he says. Varoujan's oil palette displays a wide array of colors, but he may use only brown, black, ochre, red and blue, as he did to complete the demo. Still, he says he wants to have colors on hand should he need them during this application of oil glazes. Once this layer is dry he can not go back in and add to it. Over his silver border, he strokes on a mixture of umber and black, building contours. He feathers this dark color from the edge of the canvas to the central painting and then pulls lines from inside the painting out through the border. The same burnt umber feathering is applied to shapes within the painting. This transparent glaze, done in the classical style, blends instantly because of theoil beneath. The three-dimensional shapes continues to build and new forms are added with a blend of dark to light curves. At this point Varoujan seeks to emphasize the curves, angles and lines of his figures. Shapes comes out from the canvas.
A dab of the umber mixture blended on Romeo's check softens the blue tone, originally highlighted with white. Instantly the color values change. This is how"colors talk to colors."

Final touches
The final step is to evaluate the painting within a black lacquer frame with a white liner. The black enhances the colors and is Varoujan's favorite frame. Each step in this series allows for changing the initial drawing. But the penciled border and freehand application of abstract lines give Varoujan the underlying direction for his creativity. "Anyone can do it, but each person will bring something of their own sense of balance and color." From simple lines, visible shapes, and shaded colors comes an engaging original abstract with figures.