looking through light

It all comes down to light. The illusion of 3-d form fools us, but a painting is just a surface, with colors and shapes juxtaposed. Recently I tried letting go (a little) of the subject, to experiment instead with close values and soft edges.

Morning Sounds Again 6”x6” acrylic

I used to try to paint what I saw. Now more often I watch the paint itself. What’s happening with each mark? Do I want more of that, or something else. The painting is the question, not the subject. The problem is not “How to represent this?” but “What is happening on this page?”

Sing 6”x6” acrylic

 

“It’s a poem, not a police report.” Think about structure, line, emphasis, rhythm, mood. Guide the viewer, then release, then reengage.

What do you want to say? Who do you want to say it to? How will you use to say it?

Six inches square and so much to think about.

Engine in the Air

Keep trying.

Move. Risk. Learn.

January’s past. Doesn’t New Year’s feel months ago? Eons even.  Looking back at my work for Januarty, it seems simultaneously all over the place and focused on the same goal, with two directions dominant: move away from safe space, and get to the heart of what matters.

Working daily, with just yourself as motivator, feels hard sometimes, doesn’t it? Each day you need to muster discipline enough to do what it is you really want. Some days even chores feel easier. I believe that is because, when we sit down to make work, we face the unknown. We admit to the possibility of failure. We try, knowing that the ideal remains out of reach.

Never mind.

Winter geraniums. Acrylic on paper. Daily painting.

Look for what matters. Is it a memory? A feeling? How would you put it into words? Are there no words? Maybe that is the place to start. Ask yourself: Why this flower or that vase? Look for expression in your lines, your brush marks, your colors – they are the speech you are given to use.

I have been rotating among three subjects: flowers (from memory), animals (from photos), and the idea of memory, in the form of a favorite photo from 25 years ago. At the top level the approach and the media are different – everything from literal representation to abstract form.

Well-earned nap. Acrylic on paper.

They meet in my heart though, for each is a search for the “Why?” of the subject. Each is a journey not only to become more competent, but more expressive.

Mother and child. Value study.

So, I research skeletons, shadows, and the planes of the face. I watch how other artists handle their brushes, and note the colors they use.  Technique is one of the bones that support flesh of creation. Craft that supports expression. Then I push beyond what comes easy. Each painting, even of the same image, is a further journey. Do not repeat. Build.

Winter Warmth (in progress)

Annie Dillard has a lovely passage in the Writing Life about going to work as a writer/artist: “You enter your study, open the French doors, and slide your desk and chair out into the middle of the air.” It’s all risk. Glorious, wonder, impossible risk. This month, pushing myself, the phrase “out on limb” came to mind and it didn’t wasn’t enough. “Out in mid-air” was how I felt: Branches nearby but not I’m not holding on. So.  “Get to work,” Annie writes. “Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in mid air.”

Thee name of that first painting in this blog: Engine in the Air. And it sold. I’ll keep pedaling. You pedal too.

Iteration, or: Try, Try Again

look again

then look again

We bathe in the illusion of perfection. A touch of the keyboard brings videos, museum pieces, curated images: a tsunami of ideals. In fact, none of these arrived without effort. Like the feet of the duck, paddling madly under the water, every creator works hours, days, years to craft their art. I tell my students, great artists had trash cans too. We just never see what’s in them.

For most of February I struggled with tulips. The glow of their petals. The complexity of their leaves. Check out this time-line - just a fraction of the attempts. Notice how my attention traveled: from the simple fact, to color mixing, to the shape and volume, to the sheer glow. I’m not satisfied yet. Something explosive and colorful is coming. More work to do.

If you’ve been struggling with an idea, an image, take moment and read  this. Successes like Dyson and Pixar go through thousands of iterations.. So have faith. Try again.

Border or Threshold?

Ask the question

then ask again

Choice. Creativity. Focus. The perfect may be the enemy of the good, but the imagined can also be the enemy of the real. Sometimes creativity is the enemy of accomplishment.

Do you feel this way? Your brain is popping with ideas, but it is so d**d hard to work. Surrounded by supplies, do you also realize you are not working at all? Because working on one thing means not-working on so much else. How to choose?

Ask yourself:

What’s in my way?

What feels like too much?

What one thing will I do NOW?

Now, clear space and create air. This weekend, I gave away stuff:

• Donated most of my dye supplies to a young textile artist. She was over the moon. The laces, the colors, now will be used instead waiting waiting waiting….

• Handed my paper clay, bought in a fit of enthusiasm, to a friend who sculpts.

• Used Freecycle to give glassware and china from my mother’s estate. The stuff had been in our basement over 10 years. Now it’s in happy homes. I feel lighter.

Those supplies were projects in my mind only. But they kept me from working. Now they no longer breathe down my neck.

Make a habit of creativity. Once the rhythm is there, the work comes. You develop creative muscles. You work when even when you “want” to. You bump against questions, then prod til you find answers. You create. Among my new questions: how to extend that habit beyond the daily hour, past teaching commitments and into my day. The answer? Anne Lamott: “Butt in chair. Just do it… You are going to feel like hell if you never [make] the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart…That is really all you have to offer us, and it’s why you were born.”

Rustle of Leaves - Daily Painting #79

I have (re)discovered that one commitment produces daily questions to follow and ideas to try. I dream about color and composition. Some days I feel surrounded by an enticing song of colors. This single door - daily painting - leads to more possibilities. I am wondering:

• How to move from small to larger?

• How to stop sooner? To recognize and respect that more abstract energy?

• What about layers, especially collage?

• What of acrylics carries over into my watercolor teaching? When a student says “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I now look them in the eye to say, “That’s how painting feels.”

Special thanks to Alice Sheridan’s Interview with coach Judith Morgan. They discuss how Alice has grown her art practice in their years together.

In the Evening - Daily Painting

I’d love to hear how you choose among the ideas that bubble up inside of you. We need to help each other move forward. Life is precious. We are lucky to make art.