S T .

LO UI S UNI V E RSI T Y

VARETY
CALBONE, ESPOSO, MEDRANO, SAO-AN
WHAT S VARETY?
THE COUNTERWEIGHT TO HARMONY AND CREATES VISUAL
INTEREST BY SLIGHTLY CHANGING OR USING DIFFERENT ELEMENTS
TOGETHER IN A COMPOSITION. IT CAN BE CREATED WITH
CONTRAST, CHANGE, ELABORATION, OR DIVERSIFYING ELEMENTS.
WITH VARIETY, IT IS IMPORTANT TO CONSIDER HOW THE ELEMENTS
ARE WORKING TOGETHER SO THAT YOU STILL HAVE HARMONY AND
UNITY WITHIN A COMPOSITION.
WHAT S VARETY?
WHAT S VARETY?

Tom Thomson, Opulent October, Winter, 1915

LOR
VARANCE
VALUE- HOW LIGHT OR DARK A
COLOR IS

SATURATION- HOW RICH, VIVID

OR INTENSE A COLOR IS

HUE- WHERE A COLOR IS

LOCATED ON THE COLOR
WHEEL). Abram Arkhipov, Visiting, 1915
LOR VARANCE

Claude Monet, Haystacks, 1891

LOR VARANCE

Claude Monet, Juan-Les-Pins, 1888

LNE
VARANCE
THICK OR THIN
BROKEN OR CONTINUOUS
LONG OR SHORT
STRAIGHT OR CURVED

Ivan Shishkin, In the Birch Tree Forest, 1883

LNE VARANCE
SHAPE
VARANCE
BIG OR SMALL
GEOMETRIC OR ORGANIC
SOLID OR WEAK
LIGHT OR DARK
COLORFUL OR DULL

Claude Monet, Arch to the West from Etretat, 1883

BRUSHWORK
VARANCE
There are so many different marks
you can make with your brush
which vary based on:
The way you hold your brush
The pressure you use
The amount of paint you use
The fluidity of the paint (how
much medium you use)
The surface you are painting on
How dry your brush is
The angle of the brush. Joaquin Sorolla, Bacchante, 1886
BRUSHWORK VARANCE

Nicolai Fechin, Lady in Lilac, 1908

EDGE VARANCE
transition between two shapes.
It can be either hard, soft, or
lost
Edge variance is essential if you
want to paint with a quality of
realism

John Singer Sargent, Venice in the Fog, 1882

ARTISTS ACHIEVE VISUAL
VARIETY WITH SEVERAL
ELEMENTS TREATED IN
DIFFERENT WAYS
SHAPES
Start this process by making your
positive and negative shapes more
varied and dynamic. In other
words, avoid perfect geometric
shapes, straight lines and even
edges. Push your shapes so that
they do not look uniform. Harness
what makes them unique and
emphasize it.
SE
Check the sizes of your shapes to
ensure variety in this respect, too.
Whatever you do, don’t copy your
scene or subject exactly if it has
boring, repetitive shapes. Use your
creativity to make the shapes and
the design more interesting.
 LOR
add a few new tubes of color to
shake up your process
limit your palette or expand it
mix your colors in a different way
be sure you don’t get so varied that
you create a painting that is
(unintentionally) discordant or
lacking visual harmony.
a few colors with a few highlights
are all you need to create a
perfectly appealing work of art.