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*

Freedom

When I visited a friend recently, I found her upset because she'd just discovered a garter snake caught on a "sticky-trap" that she'd put out for mice on her patio. It was really caught, she couldn't get it off, and it looked like the skin under the snake's chin might tear if she kept trying. We took the poor thing to the Humane Society, which has a specialist in wildlife rescue. He removed the trap with cooking oil (good to know) and we brought the snake back with us. Snakes do eat mice, after all. This whole time, I was wondering if the snake was injured, because it wasn't moving very much, even though only its head & a few inches were caught on the trap. She set it down on the patio, and I was amazed to see it come to life - zzzzzzzzzip - it took off. It was suddenly powerful & graceful. I wonder if the reason our sketching & painting isn't always powerful & graceful is due to our being caught on something... expectation (our own or someone else's), conventional ideas, time constraints, fear, left-brain thinking, the inner critic...(fill in the blank). In one of Jeanne Carbonetti's books, she says, "There's no way you can fail." if you're responding to the painting as it is evolving. There's no need to be fast, just be free.

Jim Messina

I was reading an interview with Jim Messina the other day and found out that he’s one of many celebs who enjoy painting (others being Joni Mitchell, Paul McCartney, Jane Seymour, Donna Summer, Tony Bennett, Jennifer Aniston, Michelle Pfeiffer...) He said that it helped him look at his music differently when it came time to mix it in the studio (hmmm...it even *sounds* like the same process). 

He said, “A hot color might be something with a lot of high end on it, and a cool color might be ‘bassier,’ so to speak. Learning the perspective and how to create the illusion that something is further away from something, while another item is further away than that, and there has to be an object in there that gives you that reading where your eye sees it and sees the illusion – and the same is true with music. There has to be something in there that tells you that’s ‘distance’ and this is ‘up front.’" 

I've always known that painting lets you see things differently, and I guess it lets you hear things differently as well!

Art

One of the things I love the most about the guerrilla painter is how profound his off-the-cuff replies sometimes are. Last week I mentioned to him a story I’d heard on NPR about how Jan Brueghel collaborated with Rubens, one painting the landscape and the other the figures. It seems the art market in 16th century Belgium was so lively that artists arranged themselves into assembly lines, each contributing what he did best. Carl’s comment was, “Back then, art wasn’t Art.”

That got me thinking, “Who defines what 'Art' is, anyway?"
Is it the establishment? Whatever is seen in the context of museums, galleries, schools and publishers?
Is it the investors, the collectors, the critics?
Is it the person who views the work?
Is it the artist him/herself?
Is Art anything that’s done for the sake of pure expression rather than for commercial or practical purposes?

We have more artists today that ever before, as well as more techniques & materials, not to mention more history to refer to.

Art mirrors so many different values: innovation, emotion, skill, color, human form, religious truths, patriotism, irony...

Maybe trying to define it is just a trap, something that gets in the way of creating, appreciating, communicating, practicing & playing.

Or, as Oscar Wilde put it, "A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that the artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman."

Back to the drawing board

Drawing can be the foundation of painting, but it also has intrinsic value. Betty Edwards uses drawing not just to sketch or create works of art but also as a mode of thinking. It accesses the "right side of the brain," where things are not bound by logic, facts, past experiences or words.

She compares it to learning to read & write... you may be able to speak fluently, but if you don't read or write, your thinking is comparatively limited. Most people can see quite well, but if they don't draw, there's a lot they don't notice. Drawing on a regular basis can expand your awareness.

Sad to think that in some places art classes are being removed from schools. Perception, proportion, relationship, patterns, point of view, "negative space" (the space around the problem...context) & wholeness are useful concepts to think with.

Country mouse

There's an organization of French plein-air painters called Les Rats des Champs, which, loosely translated, means "Field Mice." What a great name. And some of them are coming to Colorado this month. 

 I was just thinking about how playfulness is a cornerstone of creativity (if creativity *has* cornerstones). Sometimes it helps if you don't take things too seriously. Experimentation, imagination, letting go of expectation, these are the things that will put you in the zone and make painting easier. It doesn't have anything to do with a certain style. You can do illustration, traditional Chinese painting, tonalism, whatever, and still add a light-hearted touch. 

 When we were in Lima, Peru, we went to the movies. We saw "Fun With Dick & Jane" and also the trailer for "Valiant," the animated pigeon movie, and I said to the Guerrilla Painter, "You know, if anything is going to redeem the United States these days in the eyes of the world, it's this. THIS makes me proud to be from the U.S."

Darkness & Light

Regardless of its other advantages or disadvantages, watercolor canvas definitely makes it easy to play around with value. You can use thick, dark paint without fear. You can make it lighter, if you need to, and lighter still until it's almost gone. Recently I was using a sandstone-red alongside a sagebrush-green, and when they blended they made a particularly nasty-looking dark grey-green. No problemo! I lightened it, then I lightened it some more, and a little more. It actually turned into a very nice tan. "How Buddhist," I thought. "All anything really needs is a little more light."

And then there's the "problem" (why are aesthetic questions always "problems"?) of balancing darkness & light in your composition... if you're using watercolor on canvas, you can go back & "fix" things forever as long as you haven't varnished it.