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Many developing painters find the concept of painting shapes difficult to grasp. Yet learning to paint shapes rather than individual objects is, alongside an understanding of color, fundamental to their painting development.

In my years of teaching, I have often found shapes harder to teach than color. Students learning to build imagery with opaque media may see painting mainly as replication. Because painting shapes seems to move them away from that goal, they may resist the approach. Helping them understand how shapes create imagery is essential to their artistic development.

The objects we seek to represent are visible because of light, and their colors reflect their relationship to the primary light source. In painting, an object can be described through the shapes formed by shadow, indirect light, and direct light. Together, these shapes and colors reveal the object. This way of seeing is central to the impressionist approach described here. Although it may initially feel unfamiliar to a beginning painter, it offers a more straightforward way to approach a painting.

Teaching this approach requires students to reconsider familiar habits. For example, students often choose small brushes because they offer a greater sense of control over placement. This preference may reflect the belief that imagery is created primarily through detail and precise replication. Helping students move beyond that assumption is an important step toward understanding how shapes work together to create imagery. Another key principle is to begin with large shapes and progress to smaller ones. This approach, associated here with impressionism, can conflict with a student’s instinct to treat a painting as a collection of individually rendered objects. Instead, a painting can be understood as an arrangement of shapes that convey the color of light falling on those objects. Students must also learn to look beyond detail. Squinting helps them see small areas of color within broader shapes of color and value. Begin with one of these large shapes, then move to the next.

Painting shapes may differ from the way students instinctively expect to paint. With practice, they can develop the visual awareness needed to move beyond replication and build imagery through relationships of shape, color, and value.