A Closer Look at Jed Dorsey’s Process
Acrylic landscape painter Jed Dorsey (Ep.27) spoke about his process in our conversation. Sometimes it can be hard to catch it all on a first pass. So I’ve shared it here, edited for readability.
My process is five steps. I got four of them from John Poon but I internalized them and I added a first step that he did not have.
They are (1) design, (2) draw, (3) block in, (4) refine and (5) finish.
If you think about those it's a natural progression. You probably do this anyways, but it's helpful to think about it in stages because you can evaluate your painting in those stages.
At the end of each stage you can think, “Well, how's it looking?”
STAGE 1: DESIGN
Design is before you even pick up your paintbrush.
It's doing a thumbnail sketch or several thumbnail sketches. If you're working from a photograph then it's cropping the photograph. It's doing any kind of work you need to do to create a compelling design.
In my opinion, the design stage is the most important part of the painting process because if you have really great brushwork, really great colors and a poor design your painting will be mediocre. But if you have poor brushwork, OKAY colors and a really great design, your painting will still be very nice.
“At the end of each stage you can think, ‘Well, how's it looking?’ ”
-Jed Dorsey
I try to get people to do thumbnail sketches because it's a very simple way to come up with a design that only takes five minutes or 10 minutes. You can do several versions of them.
However, if you start your painting without thinking through the design you might paint for several hours and at the end of it you might think, “Oh my goodness why doesn't it look good?”
It's a lot harder to change your design at the end of the painting than it is in that first stage.
STAGE 2: DRAW
In the draw stage, you're taking your design and you're transferring it onto your canvas.
One important thing: It’s important you have the same aspect ratio on your design as you do on your canvas. A lot of times people have a photograph that they love and they want to paint, but they don't ever do the design work to change the aspect ratio.
“So I am always thinking about that and I try to get students to ask, “Am I painting for a particular canvas?” And if yes, you want to just make sure your design matches that.”
- Jed Dorsey
For example, they take a long horizontal image and they try to fit it onto a square canvas and everything gets squished together. It doesn't look as good. And it's simply because you didn't match the aspect ratio of your canvas to your design.
So I am always thinking about that and I try to get students to ask, “Am I painting for a particular canvas?” And if yes, you want to just make sure your design matches that.
STAGE 3: BLOCKING IN
The third stage is blocking. That is just simply taking what you've drawn onto your canvas and then starting to fill in the colors, and the values.
For me, I will usually start with darks and get those established. I think it looks better to have your dark, transparent, thinner paint underneath. Then add your lights and your mid tones. Finally, your lights and your highlights on top. The most opaque and thick on the very top.
It's a general principle that lots of artists throughout history have done. It's not as important with acrylics as it is with oils. With oils, you really need to be consciously thinking, I'm painting from thin to thick. Because if you paint thin oil paint over thick oil paint, it will crack and it will do bad things.
But with acrylic, that's not the issue...but it still looks nice. And it's still a good way of going.
So the other important thing with blocking in your painting is that it makes it easier to evaluate everything. When I'm putting a color down, if I'm doing it on a toned canvas, or if I'm doing it on a white canvas, you put a color down that white is going to cause the color to perhaps look really dark.
Whereas if you were putting it down on a canvas that was toned, with a very dark background, that color might look really light. And so it's not actually until you get all the colors on and you start seeing them as they work together that you're really able to evaluate, “Oh, yeah, that's the right value.”
“So the other important thing with blocking in your painting is that it makes it easier to evaluate everything.” - Jed Dorsey
You're making your best educated guesses and you're able to see what you're doing. But you want to get that whole painting blocked in before you start really trying to refine an area. Because you might paint your main focal point perfectly, but then you put the sky in, or something like that, and you realize, “Oh, wow! My subject is too dark, or my hue isn't correct.”
The blocking stage isn’t super long. But you’re using it to try to cover the canvas and get the feel for the painting.
STAGE 4: REFINE
And then the longest stage is stage four. And that's to refine.
The refine stage is where you come in and you're starting then to bring form to what looked just like a batch of color. Now you're trying to make it look like a tree, and you're trying to make it look like it has volume and depth. It's where you bring in atmosphere. You're refining and adjusting the colors so that you have reflected light coming off of something. You’re adding all of those things that make your painting look like it's real.
The first part of the process, the blocking, you can think of as two dimensional. The refining and the adjustment stages are where you start seeing the illusion of three dimensions.
After painting going through those four stages, you might be kind of tired. Your brain might be a little bit needing a break.
Often I find that if you have been looking at the same thing for a really long time, you stop seeing it for what it is. So in-between stage four and five, you could go for a walk. I go to bed, and I wake up the next day, and I look at it.
STAGE 5: FINISH
Step five is to finish. And it may or may not need much. You might come back and look at your painting and think, “It's good. I don't need to do anything.“
Or you might come back and sometimes that first look is very telling. You say, “Oh, wow. I didn't even notice but there's a big black blob in the sky.” Or “There's a really distracting line that is drawing my eye off to the corner of the painting. And I need to kind of break up that line.”
“You want to finish your painting with enthusiasm... just like you start a painting.”
- Jed Dorsey
So finishing is not necessarily a set amount of time. It's really giving yourself time to step away and then evaluate your painting and look at it with fresh eyes. It could be the time when you ask for input from somebody else. If you are having a hard time knowing if it's done or not, you have somebody trusted.
So if I ever find myself in that place where I don't know what's the next thing that I need to do, I say this is the time when I need to stop. I need to take that break away, because my eyes aren't seeing if there's anything left. And if there's nothing left, then why would I just keep painting? Why would I if I don't know what I'm doing. I need to take that time, take a break, and let there be a finish stage.
You want to finish your painting with enthusiasm... just like you start a painting.
I like more impressionistic, looser paintings. So if I allow myself to get out my smallest brushes and paint and paint and paint, my paintings will turn into something that I don't really intend them to be. So a lot of times, I'll try to reserve a few bold brushstrokes for the end, to just say, I'm going to end it with kind of the same energy that I started it with.
Listen to the whole conversation with Jed Dorsey (Ep. 27) here.
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