the Grand View and Intervals

One of the hardest things about these very big coastline views is to make sure no two intervals are the same. When our linear left brain gets ahold of things it starts making spaces the same and gets  repetitive. A way you can test this is to take a 4x5 space and put in 9 dots at random...now look and see how many are about the same space apart. Do this again and make every space between every dot different,  You will see this is quite a job.

 Nature does not repeat intervals or shapes, even with thousands of leaves on a tree each one will be different. Our eyes through millions of years of evolution are geared for that.  One of the differences between top professional artists and ranks below them is the pros know this secret. Waugh the great American  seaacape artist  said never repeat spaces or shapes, and if you look at his work you'll see he didn't. (He is one of the greats I study and will speak more of him later)

  So in these grand views, it's very easy to start to make things repeat spaces, both positive and negative. Remember every time you make an edge you make two shapes one of the object and one for the space around it. We painters work on 2 D surfaces. So since the tendency is to make the same spaces, one has to be very vigilant to keep that from happening and killing off some of the pleasure the eye and mind take in looking around our paintings, we have, after all, only a few square inches, and Nature has hundreds of miles. So I have finally hit on a method to help me in this.  Most well trained painters are aware of this same interval thing, and on a simpler work it can be done by eye, but on these very small very complex works of  the grandview, I've found it very hard, so the tool is a big help.

I'll still have to be careful when painting to not put them back the same again.

Above  you will find a beginning painting worked out in charcoal, and a little drafting tool with points. With this I can measure an interval and then take that measure and move it around the painting to see if any spaces are repeated. If they are, then now is the time to adjust them I've found several, and each one I changed  helped the painting shapes be more interesting and graceful