I've spent the last several weeks working on a self-portrait on and off. I started with a realistic goal: do a small head study. But before I knew it I was creating the first in the grief/end-of-life series I've been planning to paint for years, developing a 20x30 charcoal drawing of me hugging my arms to my chest. Hey, sounds tough, but I can do this, right -- wish I'd done a few more of those memory drawing exercises. I'm getting close to the end now, and this is what I have learned about the process (outside of physically putting paint on canvas):
1. When you reach a certain point in the charcoal drawing that looks good, but not totally accurate (especially when that imperfect area is a hand and then particularly the hand you are painting with), IGNORE THE IMPULSE TO TRANSFER THE IMAGE TO PAINTING. Take the time to really work out the problems in advance. This will save you grief, I promise. I've found myself scraping paint off the canvas on more than one occasion, and completely reworked the same area three times.
2. Sitting close to the mirror may be necessary to see detail -- standing would be easier because you can back up more easily -- but affects perspective and our ability to accurately judge what we are seeing. The angle from elbow to elbow appeared different from just slightly above than when viewed from a distance, and I spent three-fourths of the painting time with one too-long arm and not understanding how to fix it. It's hard to get distance to see the whole, especially when sitting. Taking a photo from a distance and then flipping it in Photoshop so you are seeing what you see in the mirror makes a good reference to give you that whole/distant view from time to time. I recommend doing this in the beginning rather waiting until well into the painting. :(
3. Lighting has been a HUGE issue for me. First, my windows face southeast, so the sun moves across the sky as I paint (which wasn't that much of a problem earlier in the year, but now the sun is so low that it shines in my eyes). Second, when I began there was much more daylight, so I was painting in the afternoon. Sunset is at 4:05pm today, and by 2:00 it is really either too dark to paint comfortably and get good color; OR the sun is shining through a second window that I generally only keep a white-colored (or no) curtain over, and then all my lighting is off -- or more accurately, ON. Also, I put the easel on the left because I am left-handed and it blocks the lower half of the window I am sitting next to, but on dark days -- of which there seem to be many in London -- I have had to use a daylight bulb (screwed into a bendy desk lamp with a piece of paper taped about it to direct the light, and attached to the easel with a giant clamp) or shifted the easel to the right side. I could face the opposite direction with everything, but then the mirror is getting more light than I am. It's a regular circus act. Solution: (besides don't set up something this complicated going into winter) stay flexible or go to artificial light?
4. Doing extra reading/sketches/research as I've been painting has been really helpful. I've started a file of large-sized images (love the Google!) of paintings I like, and periodically go and stare at parts of paintings in museums. I'll pick a topic like eyes or expression or shadow colors, and then only stop in front of pieces that show me something I like about that particular thing. I've spent a few hours in a coffee shop reading about and copying sketches of hands. I've stood in a bookshop and read entire chapters of a book on facial expression. I've brought home dozens of library books and always have a small stack on hand to flip through. I never schedule or force these things, they seem to come out of frustration from not being able to capture on canvas the thing in my head. Perhaps it would be wiser to schedule them, but I never know what the next challenge will be. What did Cyd always say? The eye sees it, the mind understands it, and the hand paints it. The research part of things has really facilitated my understanding of things.
5. As much as I would like to think about what the finished product will look like, I really really try to let myself go and focus on the here and now. Who cares how it turns out or if it will be show worthy (I say in a faltering voice -- hey, it isn't easy to do)! Take the time to learn and let yourself screw up, to push things too far. Maybe this painting won't make it into my series, but the next time I work on this theme or another portrait it will be that much better. It's tough to let go, but things move along much faster. No fear of "ruining" things.
6. I had hoped to have the painting finished today. But that was working on the assumption that I would stick to a schedule and did not include days off due to lighting issues or a myriad of other (sometimes plausible) excuses (in my defense, it took a while to sort out the daylight bulb thing, especially trying to avoid the cost by piecing together my own system). Truth is, if I had a regularly scheduled model, I'd paint rain or shine and work with what I had. It would be better to treat myself as a model, stick to scheduled appointments and even give myself 5-minute breaks within the time slots.
Whatever the end result, I will unveil the painting in the near future. And I'll be so much better equipped the next time around. I'll keep you posted!
Friday, November 19, 2010
Friday, November 05, 2010
Finding my way...
I've been avoiding writing. Not purposely, but on some subconscious level I didn't want to face up to the reality versus "the plan" of my arrival and work in London. But while on a recent trip to Morocco I had a lot of time to think about the way I was going about the transition from school to being a working artist. This is what I came up with:
I am only now, as I wander lost through the world, making peace with myself since the upheaval of leaving my school and the art family that came with it, landing in London (and not immediately loving it) and trying to move forward not as a paying art student -- although I will always be a student -- but as an artist. I am learning how to move slowly, to take time and take things in, without feeling the need to be fully productive every minute of every day.
I have not been productive in the way I imagined anyway -- I cringe at the lists and schedules that now lay forgotten in my sketchbook. But I have been maneuvering the London art scene in a sense, and figuring out where to go for what and why. I've had and given up a shared studio (and now paint in my room). I've visited museums and attended lectures, and finally attended a local life drawing session. I have written a first draft of a story, researching picture book illustration, and began working out the illustrations to go along with it. I have painted two small still lifes and one has made it through the first round of a competition (sadly, not the second). I'm currently working on a larger self-portrait -- part of the end-of-life series I plan to create. I'm finally doing color charts. It all sounds good, I sound busy -- but I've found it hard to keep my own schedule and it has been a struggle the whole way.
But as I sit here I realize that transitioning from school to independent artist, and from the U.S. to the U.K., is not unlike cleaning house: It takes a while to dust off the cobwebs and sweep the floor, pull down the old wallpaper and wash the grime off the windows. Things must be collected and sorted and rearranged and put away. And in between all these things there is a lot of sitting. At least that's how I clean. Frequent pauses to survey the mess and wonder how I'll ever sort through it. But somewhere in that process, the true nature of the room comes forth. These past few months have been a lot like that for me. I've been doing an internal cleaning of sorts. And it takes time. And downtime. But my nature as an artist is taking shape, and not a moment -- seemingly productive or not -- has been wasted.
I am only now, as I wander lost through the world, making peace with myself since the upheaval of leaving my school and the art family that came with it, landing in London (and not immediately loving it) and trying to move forward not as a paying art student -- although I will always be a student -- but as an artist. I am learning how to move slowly, to take time and take things in, without feeling the need to be fully productive every minute of every day.
I have not been productive in the way I imagined anyway -- I cringe at the lists and schedules that now lay forgotten in my sketchbook. But I have been maneuvering the London art scene in a sense, and figuring out where to go for what and why. I've had and given up a shared studio (and now paint in my room). I've visited museums and attended lectures, and finally attended a local life drawing session. I have written a first draft of a story, researching picture book illustration, and began working out the illustrations to go along with it. I have painted two small still lifes and one has made it through the first round of a competition (sadly, not the second). I'm currently working on a larger self-portrait -- part of the end-of-life series I plan to create. I'm finally doing color charts. It all sounds good, I sound busy -- but I've found it hard to keep my own schedule and it has been a struggle the whole way.
But as I sit here I realize that transitioning from school to independent artist, and from the U.S. to the U.K., is not unlike cleaning house: It takes a while to dust off the cobwebs and sweep the floor, pull down the old wallpaper and wash the grime off the windows. Things must be collected and sorted and rearranged and put away. And in between all these things there is a lot of sitting. At least that's how I clean. Frequent pauses to survey the mess and wonder how I'll ever sort through it. But somewhere in that process, the true nature of the room comes forth. These past few months have been a lot like that for me. I've been doing an internal cleaning of sorts. And it takes time. And downtime. But my nature as an artist is taking shape, and not a moment -- seemingly productive or not -- has been wasted.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Knowing Things
I wrote this in April 2009 but for some reason never published it... I don't remember what events led to its creation, but I came across it this morning and really liked the ideas...
It is amazing that you can look so intently at something, absorb it in all its lines, shapes and colors, reproduce it even, then come back the next day and see that this is smaller, or this is larger, this angle is too steep or not steep enough, the dark here isn't as dark as the one there. I'm working on a still life drawing of two bowls and a small pot, and at the end of each day I leave the studio thinking things are right. Then I show up the next day...
This morning I was thinking about some friends and I made the connection that people too are not as easily understood as one would think, their true and accurate form not known. You can study their lines and movements, follow the trail of their actions, watch their expressions and listen intently to the words coming from their mouths--you come to believe you have them figured out, but you don't. You put your own interpretation on their thoughts or actions, see them through your eyes and coming from your experiences, not theirs. And although we think we know one another, most of us know only the person presented to the world. Even with family. Or perhaps especially with family, because we presume to know them better.
I don't think this is a bad thing. It is what it is. We are each the sum of our own experiences, and most of the emotions attached to those experiences bloom from within and for reasons we may not even know ourselves. You have to physically be a pot and hold it's memories to truly know it.
We should continue to study nature--pots and people--and remind ourselves that life is a series of corrections, both as an artist rendering a subject faithfully and as a person remembering that in our interactions with others, the good and bad, we are only human.
It is amazing that you can look so intently at something, absorb it in all its lines, shapes and colors, reproduce it even, then come back the next day and see that this is smaller, or this is larger, this angle is too steep or not steep enough, the dark here isn't as dark as the one there. I'm working on a still life drawing of two bowls and a small pot, and at the end of each day I leave the studio thinking things are right. Then I show up the next day...
This morning I was thinking about some friends and I made the connection that people too are not as easily understood as one would think, their true and accurate form not known. You can study their lines and movements, follow the trail of their actions, watch their expressions and listen intently to the words coming from their mouths--you come to believe you have them figured out, but you don't. You put your own interpretation on their thoughts or actions, see them through your eyes and coming from your experiences, not theirs. And although we think we know one another, most of us know only the person presented to the world. Even with family. Or perhaps especially with family, because we presume to know them better.
I don't think this is a bad thing. It is what it is. We are each the sum of our own experiences, and most of the emotions attached to those experiences bloom from within and for reasons we may not even know ourselves. You have to physically be a pot and hold it's memories to truly know it.
We should continue to study nature--pots and people--and remind ourselves that life is a series of corrections, both as an artist rendering a subject faithfully and as a person remembering that in our interactions with others, the good and bad, we are only human.
Pencil Sketches
Every morning students stumble into the main figure room, a large room with a central model stand under a big skylight, with eighteen easels forming a semi-circle wrapping around the stand. Five days a week we draw or paint the figure from nine to noon. We have three long poses (one 15-week, one 5-week, and one 12-week) throughout the course of a year, and numerous 4-session pencil poses on Tuesday and Thursday over 2-week periods.
The pencil drawings below were completed in either three or four sessions each. If I were to remain a student at the Atelier, I would really start to focus on my line work and hatching; till now I have been focused on trying to achieve accurate renditions of the anatomy and values I am seeing. The sketches are each approximately 8.5" by 11.5".
I will be trying to post all of my recent art work over the next several weeks. Be sure to check back!
Pencil sketches from 2009-2010 (click to enlarge):
The pencil drawings below were completed in either three or four sessions each. If I were to remain a student at the Atelier, I would really start to focus on my line work and hatching; till now I have been focused on trying to achieve accurate renditions of the anatomy and values I am seeing. The sketches are each approximately 8.5" by 11.5".
I will be trying to post all of my recent art work over the next several weeks. Be sure to check back!
Pencil sketches from 2009-2010 (click to enlarge):
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
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