A Landscape Painter Guide to Painting Big Shapes – Easel Talk #36
Welcome to Easel Talk #36!
Big shapes. This is going to be good, and it ties directly to our last talk on modulation. They go hand in hand, though big shapes are way more important. We’re talking composition today, while modulation handles value and color.
Why Big Shapes Matter
Calling this “Big Shapes” hardly does justice to the principle. Every painting you make will succeed or fail based on the large masses of your composition. This isn’t new—I learned it from books, DVDs, years of experience. What’s improved most in my work over three years is discerning where masses belong and how they relate to each other. That’s what makes paintings great.
Seeing Them First
To design big shapes, you need to see them in your reference—whether that’s a photograph or plein air. Squint down. If you’re nearsighted like me, you’ve got an advantage: take your glasses off. Everything blurs, and you see only what matters. If you have perfect vision, squint deliberately. You’ll spot the important compositional elements: ground, trees, hills, sky, their relationships.
This evaluation matters before you commit to painting. If the mass relationships in your reference aren’t working aesthetically, there’s very little you can salvage. We’re drawn to interesting things—a striking tree, light on landscape—but that spark doesn’t guarantee a good painting. I’ve made that mistake. Composition accounts for roughly 80% of why paintings fail. Big shapes tie directly into this. Train your eye now. Learn through experience.
The Board: Your First Critical Decision
One of the most overlooked decisions: board proportions. Not just size, proportions. An 8×12 is different from an 8×10. Your photo references often come out in an 8×12 proportion.
This matters because how you create and design shapes must work off the board’s edges. That rectangle is your number one design constraint. Every shape within it answers to those proportions.
Make sure your reference proportions match your board proportions. You can crop on your phone or with design software. If you’re experienced, it matters less. But give yourself every advantage. This is one obstacle among many, especially that your reference probably contains plenty you don’t want to paint.
If the large shapes relate well to the board’s mass areas, you’ve won a large part of the battle.
The Anti-Masses: Negative Shapes
Most paintings include more than one large mass. The negative spaces—usually sky, but also water, ground, spaces between trees—are just as critical as the shapes themselves. Beginners concentrate on positive shapes (mountains, trees) and forget the negative. That’s easy to overlook because negatives are absence rather than presence.
Composition and big shapes are inseparable. The largest shapes are what you perceive first. There must always be harmony. Don’t make two large shapes the same size. Don’t make all masses identical. Variation matters, one should predominate slightly. If you have discord in the large masses, the painting has an issue. No amount of gorgeous rendering will fix it. This is job one.
The Poster Principle: Simplification
Simplifying the scene into large masses, then rendering those masses with interesting, well-modulated gradations produces an attractive result. Think graphics from the ’80s: simplified hills, simplified sky, simplified water, with gradations moving through. That’s the graphic principle. Simplification.
Just rendering appealing shapes in the right spot with nice modulated colors might be 75% (or 50%, I’m not breaking it down that tight) of what makes a painting succeed.
This is part of a broader approach I explore in the upcoming book: “Unify, Simplify, Amplify.” Big shapes are where simplification comes to the fore. By reducing nature’s visual chaos into clear, readable masses, you create a foundation that can later unify through color and value, then amplify through strategic detail.
Practical Application: The Evaluation Process
When I evaluate a scene for painting, I look for three to five major shapes. These form the composition’s backbone. In a typical landscape: sky, landmass, water, hills, mountains, trees. Not details yet, just basic architecture.
In the underpainting stage, I commit these shapes to the board with fairly simple drawing, focusing entirely on good proportions and relationships. Sometimes I get fancy because I know it’ll be covered, and I want to have fun. But I keep things loose and vague. Get the big shapes right. That’s the primary goal.
The underpainting teaches me things. It helps me figure things out. But if I over-render it, get too detailed, I feel a strong urge to just color things in. That’s not what I want.
Indication, Not Delineation
Working with big shapes is fundamentally about indication: suggesting rather than explicitly defining every element.
When you reduce a complex landscape to essential masses, you engage in a process that lets the viewer’s mind complete the image. That’s crucial. If you over-render, over-delineate, it’s less fun to look at. Everyone knows what a bush, tree, or rock looks like. They have a vast subconscious archive of these things. Give them enough indication, and they’ll fill in the missing details.
This approach is especially important in tonalist painting, where mood and atmosphere take precedence over detail. Big shapes first establish a foundation that naturally lends itself to the suggestive, evocative quality that defines tonalism.
The Ease Factor
When I have great harmony and balance between all big shapes, positive and negative, early on, the painting is far easier to complete. Without that, I struggle through the entire piece, trying zippy rendering or splashing orange everywhere. It doesn’t matter. If the big shapes aren’t right, the painting won’t be good.
Sometimes I discover a design problem halfway through. I’ve salvaged paintings by massively reworking the big shapes to align with other aspects. You can sometimes save them, but prevention is better. Look at your reference critically before painting. Tracing paper is still available. Place it over your reference, grab a Sharpie, outline the big shapes. It’s a great practice.
Common Pitfall: Rushing Into Detail
One of the most common mistakes I see: rushing into detail before establishing solid big shapes. Thinking your way through instead of feeling your way.
You can’t logically think a painting into existence. You need to start with feeling. Some logic helps, certain principles work. Do an underpainting. Pick board proportions that work with your reference. Match reference proportions to board proportions. For some, that’s technically challenging. But it’s worth figuring out, or you’ll always be crippled translating reference to painting surface.
I came from illustration, where style and detail seemed everything. Only later did I learn it was big shapes and design that matter. Style and detail come later. Don’t rush into them before establishing big shapes.
People starting out tend to just start with the tree without figuring out where everything else goes. That’s not good. Anyone teaching will show you: work out basic rough composition before specifics.
When you unify, simplify, amplify, details should amplify what’s already great. That extra highlight on a tree, a few lovingly stroked blades of grass, they’ll make the painting sing. But they won’t make a weak painting good.
Build like a house: dig a proper hole, get a good cement foundation before raising beams and walls.
No amount of well-rendered detail saves a painting with problematic big shapes. Get them right, and you’re well on your way.
One early student put it plainly: “Detail won’t save your painting. It never will.”
About the New Site & Upcoming Book
I’m launching a new website at mfrancismccarthy.art. You’ll find transcripts there and links below. This talk comes from an upcoming book chapter, probably June release. I’m holding my feet to the fire on that one.
I’ve also shipped orders of “13 Years of Accumulated Painting Knowledge” to happy readers worldwide. $65 US, international shipping included. Nothing but positive feedback so far. The next book will be more extensive, a collection of essays and chapters on each critical aspect of landscape painting for achieving mastery. That’s what this channel is about. That’s my whole teaching mission.
Take care of yourself, your family, your loved ones. Stay out of trouble. And fight the power!
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