Make a list

Dear Artist, Stepping into an environment with an open mind and no plan is possible. Such a serendipitous attitude can surprise with joy and unforeseen opportunities. But you can also be caught unprepared and blind to both potential and problems. Just as walking right by a particular owl in a certain kind of forest is possible, you need to know how to find what you’re looking for. Go out with a list. A list from a recent mountain sortie suggests looking for: Foreground design that echoes background design. Large patterns of complexity and arbitrary abstraction. Contrast of light and weather for potential drama. Opportunities for neutralized and gradated grays. Opportunities for high colour in counterpoint. Authentic form, inside knowledge and specific detail. Some artists may not find it necessary to write this sort of thing down and keep referring to the items while shifting the easel. Beginning artists, particularly, should write them down. For advanced and focused artists, list items can be more automatic and burned into the creative psyche. For all of us, self-briefing before going out or starting a project sharpens artistic wit. A good example of this sort of understanding is the British photographer Martin Parr — best known for his candid shots of people. Working backwards from Parr’s brilliantly defined, colourful photos, we get a glimpse of what must be his list — the sort of things he consciously or unconsciously looks for when he steps out with his camera: Posers posing. Open-mouth eating. Extreme frumpiness. Gross flesh. Tight close-ups. Artificial environments. People selling. Evidence of vanity. People echoing one another’s actions. Children being childlike. People decaying. Technological threat. Human separateness. Media, print, and signage as comment. The contrast of beauty and ugliness. Animals as humans. Humans as animals. Shopping mayhem. The vacant life. Extreme people. Mid action. Top of action. Doppelganger. Incongruity. Banality. The list goes on. If you catch my drift, a list is the unseen backbone of passion. A list gives work the appearance of effortless creativity. Make a list. Best regards, Robert PS: “Work harder, get closer, be passionate.” (Martin Parr) Esoterica: A list of your own making is the most powerful list of all. As well as the nuances of materials and equipment, personal lists can include work processes, both indoors and in the field. The good stuff can be “love at first sight” — in need of study, courting and claiming. And like a love note, it’s nice to have things in writing. Incidentally, I’ve just hung up from talking to my daughter, Sara, in New York. We were going over her list: Battery radio. Flashlight. Spare batteries. Water. Granola. Sardines. Canson papers, Pastels. It’s good to have a list.   Martin Parr photographs                       A change for the better by Jeri Lynn Ing, Red Deer, AB, Canada   I must admit list making does not come easily to me. After reading your letter I gave some thought to my process and I made a list. 1. Composition 2. Colour relationships and light source 3. Simplify 4. Be Fearless 5. You cannot have light without dark 6. Simplify 7. Brush marks and edges 8. Be Fearless 9. Think! 10.Simplify I see this List as advice from my mind to the heart and back to the mind and it follows a quote I read recently from Richard Diebenkorn‘s own pre-painting list: “Don’t be a Pollyanna!” My artwork has become stronger and more joyful recently and making a list of my process showed me why and how I have changed for the better. There are 2 comments for A change for the better by Jeri Lynn Ing   Activating the thinking process by Alan Soffer, Wallingford, PA, USA   As an abstract expressionist painter my list is usually quite brief, but all the same very important. In our ART INCUBATOR workshops we refer to it as “concept.” How can you expect to convey something of value if you have no concept? So whether doing a landscape, still life, nude, or abstract, a point of view is essential. When I am plumbing the depths of my subconscious I always start with a few things in mind, though I don’t have to write them down at this point. I think writing ideas is powerful when beginning the process. I might be thinking about working in a minimalist, reductive way. Perhaps focusing on soft colors rather than vibrant colors on a particular piece. Thinking about line vs mass, and so on. Taking this a step further, I might be thinking about some personal issues or some issues in the universe. Ultimately, this approach can lead to something that speaks to people rather than simply a nice little painting.   Lists rule by Maureen Brouillette, Dallas, TX, USA   I really like this letter because it focuses on something I think is a very important issue with artists. And that is focusing on the left brain, analytical side of things. I have always been a list maker, planner and thinker about what I want to do with my art and my life in general. I even make a list every night about what I want to accomplish the next day. Art, art business, laundry, groceries, etc. Whatever does not get done, goes on the next day’s list. When I’m planning a new series, I have a large drawer in my studio where I store materials and ideas for future work. Most of the ideas come to me when I least expect them. That is my intuitive side. Many times while I’m reading, taking a shower, doing the dishes or watering the yard, an interesting idea will come to me. I quickly write these “insights” on sticky notes and throw them in the drawer. By the time I am finally ready to start the new series, I have reams of material to work with. I am usually surprised and happy by the notes I have left myself that I had totally forgotten about! I also make lists of changes for work I am still doing. I work in acrylic both transparently, and opaquely and on WC paper and canvas, so I have a lot of options. More contrast at the center of interest? Softer edges going off the space? A warmer dominance? Fewer shapes? More quiet areas? Way more DARKS! Whatever. There is 1 comment for Lists rule by Maureen Brouillette   Comprehensive but not off focus by Elle Fagan, Hartford, CT, USA   In the olden days, they’d snigger if you did refreshers, as if that meant you never really made the date “yerrown.” But today we know the mind likes its fine points refreshed and it shows in the art when we do it. Thank so much for the note on the topic… I am perfecting my use of speech to text so that I can save typing, typing typing time. But even the typing is valuable — it gives the fingers a good workout and typing exercises and speed typing workouts help too. I am even doing a speed-knitting thing — did you know they have contests in it? Wild , no? I had the classic “lady” arts training — some of it all and love it all, and admire experts in other foci and try to stay comprehensive but not off-focus.   Planning finds style by Celeste McCall, Southlake, TX, USA   Edgar Whitney‘s quote is something like, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” I mostly agree with his thoughts on this. However, I have seen, in rarity, a nonchalant GREAT painting made from running paint. I’ve seen such destroyed later by ‘plans.’ So, be happy with GREAT however it comes. But do plan 86% of your paintings. Otherwise, if we don’t, we might become victims of the inability to gain a recognizable style. Style, in my humble opinion, is formed for each artist through years of practice. And it’s what puts artists in the history books.       Just go and look by Peter Brown, Oakland, CA, USA   My humble advice to artists everywhere is to make no list. My humble advice is to simply look at the world. Do people really need to make the same paintings over and over again? I don’t get that. What is the point? Look at the world. I had the great privilege to be in British Columbia in late October. What I saw belies your list. Quite used to it, you may not experience it in the same way I do. Those obese British people at the beach leave me cold. Colder than late October in a summer cabin in B.C. The B.C environment is truly beautiful. Far more beautiful than a bunch of sweaty British people at the beach. Make a list? Hell, no. Just go out and look at the world. Make an image that is surprising. PWB. There are 2 comments for Just go and look by Peter Brown   Don’t need a list by Robin Shillcock, Groningen, Netherlands   Making a list is good for beginners. I used to keep a sketchbook with lists of ideas, of dreams that needed to become real, and notes on the hours spent on work, on what worked and what didn’t on work under hand. But in the end keeping notes became a drag, so I abandoned that idea. I wonder, perhaps it is better to make notes afterwards? To evaluate what you have done. I guess I prefer going to the chopping block with a sharp axe and an open mind, and hope I won’t lose my head in the process. You state that such an attitude can lead to missed opportunities, but the same could be said of making lists beforehand. Because I am a “generalist” sort of painter, with interests in the landscape, the people, wild and domestic animals and plants that inhabit it, and traces of man’s presence, like a footpath, shacks, rusted machinery and even old power line pylons, I feel I don’t need a list to be open to all possibilities. Hiking up the mountain, as I did recently in the French High Alps, offers all kind of opportunities, from foreground details to vast panoramic views. The gear I cart along, however, limits the possibilities to a certain extent. Leaving my spotting scope in the valley frustrates the opportunity of painting wildlife. Having only a small sketching box limits capturing vast panoramas, but everything in between is still possible, and a joy to do!   Hurricane Sandy by Esmie G. McLaren, Vancouver, BC, Canada   All the best to Sara. Sounds like she’s doing okay amidst the calamity in New York. (RG note) Thanks Esmie, and all who wrote in concern for daughter Sara in her fourth floor walkup on 20th Street in Chelsea, NY. We have forwarded all your emails to her. As I write this she still does not have power but it’s amazing what she can get done sitting by the window in the daylight hours.        

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       Featured Workshop: Kathleen Carrillo

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Featured Artist: Grey Darden, Valley Head, WV, USA

Snow on the Ridge watercolour painting by Grey Darden, Valley Head, WV, USA

  You may be interested to know that artists from every state in the USA, every province in Canada, and at least 115 countries worldwide have visited these pages since January 1, 2013. That includes Tatjana Mirkov-Popovicki from Port Moody, BC, Canada, who submitted this photo. And also Helena Ronneburg of Grenaa, Denmark who wrote, “My boyfriend made me aware of your existence and I thank him for that. I recently started an artist’s blog and mentioned your Pomodoro Technique in today’s posting.” (RG note) Thanks, Helena. Please send us your mailing address. During the month of November 2012 we are mailing a free copy of The Painter’s Keys — A Seminar with Robert Genn book to subscribers who copy Twice-Weekly Letter material to their sites, publications or blogs, and link to us. Yep, the book’s free. No kidding. The first hundred will receive an autographed copy.