Winston Churchill, guerrilla painter

Winston Churchill, even before World War II, seems to have understood the difference between the right & left side of the brain. In his essay "Painting as a Pastime," (which has been published as a book), he says that one can relieve mental strain by taking up a discipline that uses entirely different "mental muscles" from the ones that are overused. 

There's an amusing description of his first time out: "So very gingerly I mixed a little blue paint on the palette with a very small brush, and then with infinite precaution made a mark about as big as a bean upon the affronted snow-white shield. At that moment the loud approaching sound of a motor-car was heard in the drive. From this chariot there stepped swiftly and lightly none other than the gifted wife of Sir John Lavery. 'Painting! But what are you hesitating about? Let me have a brush - the big one.' Splash into the turpentine, wallop into the blue and the white, frantic flourish on the palette - clean no longer - and then several large, fierce strokes and slashes of blue on the absolutely cowering canvas. Anyone could see that it could not hit back... I have never felt any awe of a canvas since." 

He chanced upon some painters on the coast of France who were disciples of Cezanne, who painted the luminous sea with multiple separate spots of pure color. To them, the subject matter was the light itself. Later, he saw a painting by Cezanne of a blank wall of a house, and it made him look anew on everyday scenes in his life. A refreshing pastime, indeed. "You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb."

Make your own paint?

As if we didn't already have enough on our "to do" list, now we can make our own paint.
(There's also a website that shows you how to make your own chocolate, but we won't go there)
For artists who want to know more about how their materials are made and where they come from, paintmaking.com is a valuable resource. It tells you the pros & cons (“There are lots of reasons to make paint, and plenty of reasons not to.”) It might be helpful to understand more about your materials; maybe it will lead to new ease and confidence in your work or even to renewed inspiration. Maybe there are certain colors you want that can be mixed in volume from your own recipes. You can save money, especially if you're using the less expensive pigments. Of course, this all takes time to learn as well as to make, and maybe you would rather just do the painting. And it can be a boring job (lots of mixing).

There is a long list of FAQs and web resources, along with information about all different media – acrylics, tempera, watercolor & gouache, oils & alkyds, encaustic & fresco as well as chalks. There are tools, supplies, ingredients and binders. There is even a “History” page, starting with prehistory and going through Egypt, Greece and on up to the 20th century. And there is information about safety as well.

Also see this helpful page at Natural Pigments

Mindfulness

I think of painting as (among other things) a way to practice mindfulness.

“Mindfulness” is a misleading word in a way, because it doesn’t really refer to your mind. “Mind” can be a verb, as in “Mind your manners,” “Mind the step,” or “Never mind.” It means to pay attention. Not by using your mind, the analytical & critical function of the brain, and not by using the “autopilot” mind that gets us through routine tasks, or by using the fear-based, reactive mechanism that’s a deep part of our survival mode. Pure attention is a very different animal. It lets us see things that our “autopilot” mind usually deletes, and it re-evaluates things that our critical mind usually dismisses or denigrates.

It’s an important function, because our attention is the creative part of our self. It’s the “lead dog” that takes us, our sled and everything we've packed on it along wherever it goes.

Painting or sketching from life puts you in conscious communication with this lead dog, and it helps you decide what you’ll pay attention to. It can overcome our natural “confirmation bias” that lets us see only what we expect to see. Painting or sketching outdoors allows you comprehend a vaster scale of things than you usually think of in everyday life. Or maybe you notice that small things can be significant, even if most people never notice them. It can bring to the fore concepts, connections and connotations that often get trodden underfoot. This can affect your whole life in a major way.

It’s valuable for you and this lead dog to get in touch, to get in the habit of spending time quietly paying attention, sniffing the breeze, noticing relationship, proportion, light and shadow, looking and listening.

David Hockney Plein-Air

There is a current exhibit of David Hockney's East Yorkshire landscapes at the L.A. Louver Gallery in Venice, California. There's a photo of him doing plein-air painting on SIX large canvases at once (to form a single painting). 

Now, that's encouraging. If he can paint six large canvases on location (at one time), how hard can it be to do one small one? 

It's interesting that he doesn't use photography at all, even as a partial reference. He says the camera sees geometrically, but human beings see psychologically, which includes all of our perceptions, memories and feelings.

Routine Magic

Poor old Lucky, our retired cowpony, the last of the ranch string, stopped eating a few weeks ago. The next morning he was down and couldn't get back up. His eyes were tracking back and forth, so I think he had some kind of neurological degeneration. Carl had gone to the airport to get someone that morning, so it was several hours before he could make a trip up here to shoot the old guy. Sad to lose a beautiful friend; we all miss him. Carl took his body up to "bone hill," and I tied a redtail hawk feather to his mane. I invited a friend who learned ceremony from the Indians to come and do one for Lucky on a weekend when Carl's grandson Sacha was here. When she took out her feather-fan, there was a feather that had come loose somehow was lying on top. She gave it to Sacha, saying it was for him from Lucky. That was a redtail feather as well... 

Sometimes I hesitate to learn too much about painting for fear the magic will go away. But then I remember what Michael Cardew said in Pioneer Pottery: "The artist today must be conscious of what he is doing. Yet the inner springs of art are always unconscious. There is a natural apprehension that if one starts meddling with these and brings them out into the open, they may dry up and the shoots may wither. But it is an apprehension that must be overcome, since all mental and moral progress in the past has required the enlarging of consciousness and the widening of its field, and has been the direct result of that enlargement. However much we may enlarge our consciousness, the underlying fund of the unconscious always remains untouched, and seems in fact to be inexhaustible." 

 Painting is a means of combining the material and spiritual realms, and if we focus on composition, value, edges, proportion and other analytical concepts, it doesn't mean we have to let the spirit escape. It's always there, and if we honor it, the magic will be there too. In fact, inspiration and routine work together very well. Keep a notebook open to a blank page, set aside a few minutes a day for reverie, invite the "right brain" in by playing music, make personal acquaintences among the elements of water, fire, earth, air and their various permutations (clouds, clay, incense, you name it). Eventually, meaning will walk up and greet you.

A New Definition of "Useful"

Jane Herold is a potter who produces beautiful wood-fired pottery. Everything is made to be used, to become part of someone's everyday life. She's written an article entitled "A New Definition of 'Useful'" that discusses the seeming paradox of carrying on a thousand-year-old tradition into the 21st century, and I think it could easily be used to explain why painting outdoors is useful, too. 

 At first glance, hand-made pottery (especially wood-fired pottery) and plein-air painting might be dismissed as anachronistic hobbies, but Jane explains that if everyday cups, bowls & dishes are lively enough, each having its own unique character, they make you stop & take notice. Their purpose is to generate caring. You might have all the modern conveniences (?) and yet go through your days without being aware of your surroundings, interactions, feelings, your very life itself. 

She says, "Being indifferent, unconscious, unawake is not something that you can turn on and off at will. We must either find ways of living that encourage awareness or face a loss of sensibility that is likely to seep into all areas of our lives." 

 And painting from life is certainly one of the best ways to encourage awareness.

Imagination

I've been doing some studio paintings lately. It's fun to create our own world, free from the laws of gravity & proportion, to make the invisible visible. It's possible to do this even when you're sitting outside painting what's in front of you, but it doesn't come that easily for me. It's like thinking in two different languages...you have to make an effort to go from one mode to the other back again. 

I know it's true that painting from life will strengthen our studio work, and I suspect that the reverse is also the case. "What if the sky were coral-colored? What if that tree were in the foreground? Shall I add some contrasting texture here? There might be a storm blowing in..." 

It certainly enhances our awareness of all the things we notice around us, and it's *fun*