When you learn about how to see both the visual music in a painting and its visual poetry, you begin to see paintings in a new light. Your paintings will start to communicate much more emotion and feeling, rather than being lifeless works. It will become much clearer to you why a master painting is considered a masterpiece, and at the same time make you a much better critique of your own work, helping you to improve much faster.

In this course you will learn how to take into account both the abstract and representational aspects of a painting. A painting consists of visual poetry combined with visual music. The poetry of a painting is what the artist is trying to communicate to the viewer through his or her painting, and the emotion that is elicited from the viewer. The music of a painting is its sensuous, non-intellectual part. It derives from the physiological pleasure the human brain gets from making visual order out of the visual chaos of nature. Combine the two in the right way and you have a very powerful painting.

Most of the other courses in the Virtual Art Academy® program deal with either the music side of painting (notan, design & composition, color, and brushwork), or the illusion aspect of the poetry side of painting (observation, shape, and form). In this set of courses you will learn about the poetry side of painting. These units are essential if you want your work to stand out, and also to help you better understand what makes a master painting.

In these courses you will learn:

• The five components of the visual music and poetry model – the characteristics of the best contemporary work
• Pure naturalism to pure abstraction – the choice you have when depicting your subject
• How to differentiate the poetry from the music in your painting and make them work together, rather than fight each other
• The difference between far music and near music, and why brushwork is so important
• An eight point checklist to ensure your painting has visual poetry and visual music
• How master painters achieved visual music and poetry in their work
• Six major types of concept: emotional; aesthetic; descriptive; narrative; complex idea; and message
• Two types of concept that can get you in trouble, and why
• The principle of subordination and how to deal with multiple subjects in your paintings without losing your focus
• How to take advantage of relationships to add poetry to your work and why they are so powerful
• When and how to simplify to give more focus to your concept
• The most common mistake beginners make when creating poetry and music: the poetry/music mismatch
• How to choose the subject matter for your work
• How to develop your own individual style of painting
• A five-step process for coming up with a concept for a painting
• 10 techniques for using contrast to visually emphasize your concept, including the use of contrast of saturation, light and dark, warm and cool, line, brushwork, texture, and size
• When to use exaggeration to enhance your painting, and why it is sometimes necessary to not paint what you see
• How to add energy to your paintings
• How to use value changes, edges, and foregrounds to create a misty mood
• How to dramatize skies and ocean scenes, and how to handle moonlight effects

Buy all three Visual Poetry & Music courses at once and save $20 off the list price! Full price for all three courses would be $45.00, you pay only $24.95.

The Visual Poetry & Music package includes: