Flushing the Rolodex

Overworking is avoided by putting down the brush…. a half hour ago.

A freedom loving little guy named “Art” takes over and disrupts the grand plan. I love the idea of putting down the brush a half hour ago!

You writing has helped me understand that most of my paintings have three phases: I love it, I hate it, and then hopefully I love it. “I hate it” is the result of focusing on the details and letting the overall design get muddled. When I reach “I hate it” I find that selectively bringing back the broad highlights with a cloth often brings me back to “I love it”. My process doesn’t seem to include the guilt part.

So appropriate for my work in the studio yesterday. I transformed a dynamic, sparkling, early-morning scene into a muddy mess. Fortunately, I took its photo pre-mud, and hopefully I can return it to some acceptable stage.

Painting is not my best hand; drawing is. My drawings are done relatively quickly. When I paint, I have a rag in my other hand … for wiping. Maybe it has something to do with age, and simplifying my life … and my art. For me, it gets better and better.

Overworked; I took a break from my painting for nearly a month, while on my break I was hankering to grab a brush and start another painting, but I knew I needed this time out. When I did start painting again, I feel my painting has taken on another level and is so much more better for the break I took. I think we overwork ourselves and need these short breaks now and again.

One sure way to flush the rolodex is to paint in plein air, no time for details and all the time in the world for rejuvenation of the spirit of nature, the reason we paint in the first place.

It was so helpful to hear artists talk about this issue of starting strong and progressing toward weakness – the thought that “it can’t be this easy” manifests itself and the painting becomes difficult. It’s as though I’ve asked for it to be difficult. With your insight, one can be aware of this tendency and stay more in that strong beginning place.

As I sit here and evaluate my latest painting I’m struck by your letter and think ‘oh, how very true’. It is good to know I’m not alone! If I could only stop before I start noodling it to death.

The best way to start and finish a successful painting is with a detailed and completed drawing.

Thanks for these thoughts – I’m another “speedy delivery” person.

I think Khonius gave a speech at your birthday party, right? Must be your distant relative judging by the surname.

So pertinent to what I have been trying to do as well as explain, both to myself and others. Thanks for addressing an issue that we all struggle with. The joy of the first general brush strokes, the pain of the difficult decision –making follow up to finish the painting!!

I think it depends on the person. Some people are detail oriented. Some are not. I don’t think there is a good and bad about it.

I want to tell you that I love your humour and how you infuse life into your letters. Like the “lay down on the couch to fix this … ” So human, so simply a good recommendation. Love it …

Interesting and most useful advice. You suggest a good strategy and approach. Your comments parallel your letter of a few weeks ago, where you talked about creativity …… John Cleese video. I found this profound (sounds strange using ‘profound’ and ‘Cleese’ in the same sentence). We need the couch, we need the play, we need to be constantly re-creating.

Don’t say you haven’t been warned! Don’t err on your Scottish homeland treasures drawing. Start bold, stay fresh…..Wise old Auntie J

I think artists share the same dilemma in deciding when a painting is really finished. We scrutinized every detail and sometimes get confused. When we over analyze we blur the original inspiration we had in the beginning. Sometimes in a group situation when the artists ask for comments and people come over look at it they see different things and offer suggestions and some will say that is done leave it as it is. I am not sure that we can stop ourselves in studying our work. Thinking back to the original concept of our painting we are better able to decide when the painting is done.

I was struggling with this today! I began a painting on a small canvas and what a nice start I made, but when I took the canvas home 2 1/2 hours later it was so cluttered the essence was gone! I was so disturbed I painted it out. I realize after reading this what I did, I let the little details rule and lost the nugget of gold at the heart of the painting! I will need to think about this a bit but I do think I can go back to this landscape and try it over and if I try to limit my time spent, maybe I’ll avoid the same pit fall.

I am finding that old age helps in forgetting some of my better painting techniques.

In my own experience, and in working with my students, I find the most common problem when that lovely strong notan starts to disappear is a muddling of values in the painting. When I see this happening, I sometimes suggest that the student look at their work through a red transparent sheet of plastic (which reduces it to a grey monochrome) or take a digital photo and put the screen into b&w.

I remember you mentioned the idea of being “too giving” in character when we overwork a painting. I thought about that and I just can’t see it in myself, although it would be very nice if it was true. I think that I just enjoy lot of visual information in art from some reason – in works of others and in my own. Serene images can be beautiful, but they just don’t capture my imagination as much as visually rich ones. Sometimes I indulge in adding to a painting endlessly to satisfy this desire, knowing very well that the painting is probably lost for the outside world. I don’t think that this is about giving, but more about visually entertaining myself.

Speaking of Rolodex , I have three and gonna use them to have a porch show, yard show or open studio show. Just thinking.

I still find the big gap in art schools, teaching artists how to make money and survive after art school is a problem. All the schools have to do is, invite working artists in to speak to their classes, about making money. Too many people tell me all the reasons this does not happen. Shame, the wisdom is i the art community. Every artist is not starving.

I struggle with the line between plein air and studio painting. In a recent trip to Maine, I created about 15 small paintings, Only two of them were not worked on, and quite strongly in the studio later: The result: each piece worked on became much better, stronger in compositional factors. My feeling about them is that they were not finished before but are now. However, there is no excitement. Perhaps they have become an exercise but not a challenge. In my recent pink chair project and my coastal sunrise series, it is the large studio ones that draw me and other people in, and these are quite finished, but there is something else infusing them; like I met a worthy adversary in the size of the canvas and conquered. These are the ones that people are buying more often (though none sell well right now)Inside the studio, it is more comfortable and you can work for long periods unbothered by bugs and weather and light changes. But I crave the feeling of painting on site and wait eagerly for spring so I can get out. I am not sure how this will all turn out in the end. Sometimes I think plein air painting is like my concept of fishing – a legitimate reason to spend time in a beautiful spot. I post on daily paintworks and on pinterest and in doing so, I find that what I am drawn to in my boards “artists who inspire me” and “things I wish I’d painted” are always more impressionistic than my work turns out so I think I want to go there but haven’t found the bridge yet. It is helping me to look at lots of art.

Your message reminds of when a fellow artist said to me, “You always have a path and a bear in your paintings!” I was astonished! I looked at several of them hanging, and was amazed that she was right! I quickly figured it out; when the painting seemed too blah, too “nothing,” I would say to myself, “I will add a path, wending through the painting.” After I succeeded with that, I realized that the painting was too blah, too “nothing,” and added a bear on the path, since we live in bear country and that is what the clients want. I was doing this without a whit of consciousness. Soon, I replaced the bear with an eagle; an eagle in almost every painting … Now I am ready to flush the Rolodex. Tomorrow, I start anew, and go with SIMPLE! If I get the urge to add some detail, I will put the piece away for awhile.

Imagine that the amount of information we choose to put into a painting exists on a scale, with “ way too much” on one side, and “not nearly enough” on the other. If you were to place your failed pictures on one side or the other, which way would the scale tip? I’m guessing the “too much” side would drop fast. If so, you are in the great majority. If not, I salute you. It is easier to add to a watercolor painting than to take strokes away. Why are we so inclined to overload our pictures? Again and again I hear painters say, “I want to keep it simple, but I always end up putting in too much detail”. The inner voices that encourage us to keep adding more information are very convincing. Even if you are sure that the paintings you want to make are bold interpretations of just the essential aspects of your subject, you may still be prone to over-painting. In the early stages of learning about a new subject, we are susceptible to the assumption that if the painting in progress doesn’t feel quite right, it must need something more. Having not yet internalized the basic structure of the image, we look to the photo or the scene to see if there is something we’ve left out. And, of course, there always is. When it still seems wrong, we find another bit to add, and in this way we keep cramming in more and more information, when the real problem may well be that we already have too much. Whether we set up before a plein air subject or a still life, or work from photos, we are faced with a nearly infinite amount of visual information. The human eye can register wonderfully subtle variations in color and value, and it is a real pleasure to indulge this ability, but remember, it can be a separate activity from painting. We are not obliged to put all that information into the picture. Ironically, our job as realist painters most often is to edit out the majority of what we can perceive. Some information is essential, but most of it is optional. Discovering which is which is largely a matter of getting out of your own way. For example, my first impulse as a (double Virgo) painter is to record everything. It feels like it’s my job to do justice to each separate bit of the scene by including as much information as I can observe. I am supposed to do it. I would need a note from the authorities not to. And yet, the paintings that result from that kind of attention do not appeal to me. How can we get “permission” to paint the pictures we really intend to paint? Since so many of us spend more time on the “too much information” side of the range, it makes sense to explore the rest of the territory, but this can be intimidating. It feels like trespassing if we believe we’re not supposed to go there. I find it effective to set up an exercise that is clearly not a painting. The usual preliminary studies, such as a five-value monochrome, are not meant to be beautiful in themselves. Their job is simply to provide answers to questions about what not to paint. When there is no expectation that this piece of paper might become a “keeper”, the usual self-imposed restrictions do not apply. It is liberating to make an intentionally oversimplified version of the scene, as a temporary license to enter forbidden territory. In the process, you will also discover a great deal about which features of the subject are the essential ones. The best way to find out if something needs to be in the picture is to leave it out.