Dallas World Aquarium
Perpetual painting
Monday, October 5th, 2009
Like music
where silence between the notes sets the rhythm,
not painting is half the work.
For all artists, the most mysterious question of all might be “is it finished?” , but for the sake of clarity and the examples here I’ll just refer to painters. One popular opinion is that the best painting is one that’s finished quickly; one that retains the artist’s first fresh impressions, otherwise it should be painted over or tossed in the garbage and a new one started immediately. There are solid reasons for not lingering too long on a painting, but in matters of the Art I’m always suspicious when I hear the word should being used in a sentence containing advice. Some art rumors are accepted as absolute when they could stand some explanation. It can be confusing enough for the experienced, but especially for beginners looking for ground rules and a map to follow.
In Art though, for every should there is another option. The same suggestions don’t work for everyone. Have you ever felt guilty or embarrassed – even ashamed – because you took a painting too far? I have, but it’s only when I’ve compared my work and methods to others’ judgment that I should’ve quit while I was ahead…and guilt has no business hanging around in our daily work if it isn’t useful! (Frustration can be an excellent motivator if it’s allowed to be, but that’s another topic).
If it’s going to make sense – not exclusively the sole intention – every painting reaches stages where we need to make the call to leave it alone and say it’s finished, or proceed; stages where placing one more mark means the entire painting has to change and be brought up to par around it. If things that need correcting are not dealt with honestly, the work will not be as successful as it could be. There are phases in each painting that are truly intimidating, when painting is anything but leisurely; when we’re faced with: do we climb that mountain or not?
A lot of Plein Aire artists swear that their methods of painting outdoors on-site produce the highest quality work. The limitations of sunlight, location, outdoor temperatures and so on, mean that to finish successfully they need to splash down a lot of information within a short period of time. Doing so, when the thinking brain is disengaged and just responding to the subject, a lot of amazing unintentional surprises show up in the painting. Spontaneity and spurts of enthusiasm for being fully in the present tense can bring great results that need no further efforts at the end of the day. Plain Aire artists are in a field of their own (literally too!).
It’s a curious thing how creativity warps and reforms into amazing things when pressure is applied. Many people who aren’t artists will agree that the greatest ideas can occur when under pressure to produce them. For those who have orders to complete, at its best the challenge is like a beautiful sort of panic, where there’s an understanding of the time restrictions while fully trusting that whatever needs to happen is going to be successful. The abilities are less trustworthy when the pace and demand for finished work increases, time allotted decreases and the quality of the product diminishes. If this imbalance continues over extended periods of time, like years, sloppy and care-less habits take hold too easily. If there is work that must be accomplished though, these things can be controlled to some extent –this is one benefit of pushing personal boundaries: it puts tenacity to practice – but creativity is fickle and that’s a fact.
What has all that got to do with the question about finishing? The best paintings are not necessarily those that are finished in a few hours or a day. There are other purposes for painting besides finishing it to admire, be admired or to sell. Nothing replenishes the quality of our creative energy like being lost in the timeless, pure enjoyment of study and detail for no reason in particular. “The Zone” is like an addiction where the high is fairly elusive but we’re compelled compulsively to track it down again and again, discovering and rediscovering the source of it all. One painting could be someone’s lifetime of work.
I’m saying that if you personally feel you’d like to keep going with a painting for days or years… or never finish, then you ought to follow your own intuition about it. I’m not saying you should. I just recommend considering what other artists say, but also consider each painting as a new experience with new rules, new goals and new circumstances.
Experience, masterpiece to failure, will always apply to future work somehow. That’s the great thing about painting: no time spent searching for answers is ever wasted. It’s all recyclable material! Every decision about finishing – or not – is relative to individuality, and relative to each new painting as it develops your way.
Howler Monkey
Friday, March 6th, 2009
Howler Monkey, 11 x 11 x 3 inches acrylics on canvas. Work in progress…a few more details left…scrubbing and scratching away more paint than adding it.
The changing state of the oceans
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
Bull Sharks swim overhead in a 40 foot long tunnel in the main floor Mundo Maya exhibit at the Dallas World Aquarium.
Environmental issues are emotional issues. Groups like Greenpeace work aggressively to protect the future of our planet. It’s one way to get the point across, but if we’re talking about changing the habits of the masses, I believe a more gentle approach is in order. As one who was most assertively involved promoting care for the planet about 15 years ago, I noticed first-hand public reactions and feedback demonstrated that negativity toward the human species does not inspire or motivate some of us to take action; in fact it can be detrimental to the cause.
Not to be passive by any means, there are small things the average person can contribute at any level, habit and practices which, by now most of us are aware of. Zoos, major city aquariums, botanical gardens and similar public places progressively encourage a keener awareness of ourselves in relation to the Earth and its creatures, but in an experiential way that permanently affects our perception of life in general. We start incorporating more mindful habits because we want to, not because we are being told we should.
For information about the changing state of the oceans, here is a link to a petition gathering support to increase marine reserves.
Jabiru
Friday, September 1st, 2006
Jabiru - 24 x 18 inches Graphite, eraser on paper. Framed.
Drawings have a job to do: to provide viewers with more than just a pretty picture.
Before starting I envisioned a drawing based on Japanese principles of using fewer lines and shading, with empty spaces considered as much a part of the drawing as every mark. Here’s what I learned through the process of this drawing: When we view Art we do more than just look; we sense character, mannerisms, and emotions… imparted through every little corner of the work, whether we’re aware of it or not, so within the limitations of gray scale in pencil drawing, Artists need to do more than just show. There are tones implied through those tones!
The irony of the lesson is that this uncommon subject, a Jabiru, is not so pretty upon first glance either, and it’s one of the reasons I chose to keep the drawing soft. By purposely compromising the values and using a lighter touch, my hope was that the viewer’s response might be “nice drawing” before thinking “ugly bird”. To explain further, the Jabiru’s feathers are pure white and its head including beak are very dark grey, almost black. The style I was stubborn about from the start: simple with a lot of white space. The media: pencil on white paper. Whereas a photograph utilizes the whole range of dark and light values in a picture, a person drawing needs to choose how much of black, white and gray tones to apply in order to keep pleasing balance visually, but also as importantly: the effect they have on our impressions.
The Jabiru’s huge beak strikes a strong sillhouette by shape alone, so to lessen the impact of the large odd shape on a fairly empty page, extremes were avoided even though “realistically” the bird’s beak is quite dark.
I really want stress here that a drawing is not a photograph, and a photograph is not a drawing. Obvious… you’d think so, but a lot of Artists even believe that every drawing needs to be perfectly realistic. Photographs might be the source of inspiration or for details that memory has missed or forgotten, but never to duplicate. Drawings that are copied attempting to produce an exact visual likeness, relying purely on the photo, lack a certain warmth no matter how well rendered they are. This is a hot topic with Artists, not arising out of elitist attitudes at all, but because Art includes the human factor. A photo is a product of a machine; the visual details are copied with no sense or emotion; it does what it’s been designed to do. Drawings are unique representations of all that we sense as well as see. We interpret character of a subject not only visually, but also through our multidimensional senses and intelligence.
Tropical
Saturday, February 25th, 2006
Tropical (Heliconia, or Lobsterclaw flower)
36 x 36 inches Acrylics painting, frame unnecessary
Tropical - detail of the flower, and of the three inch decorative border around edges