Painting Bold Silhouettes

Today we're working directly with the brush to capture simple, strong shapes.

Henri Matisse made paper cuts avant-garde, and photographs of backlit subjects are always a crowd favourite at sunset.

Silhouettes strongly simplify and abstract subjects to their outlines, the key is finding angles where objects are instantly recognisable from their outlines alone.

Exercise

• pick a round brush, your favourite one, or a long lost friend

• choose a few objects with distinctive shapes

• paint directly with a single colour, no pencil sketch

• Optional: drop in some color while wet for variation

• Work "alla prima" - all at once

Why

• Practice observation and abstraction

• Build confident brush control

• Learn to paint alla prima

• Train your eye for essential forms

Example

Here’s a sketchbook page with quick silhouettes. Some worked better than others - that's part of the learning process. Remember, we're aiming for bold, immediate marks