Archive for February, 2012
Second Breath for the Landscape Painter (2)
“What could be?” might well be the artist’s credo, but a different type of thinking is required than when you are landscape painting. It is speculation mode, and you need to think outside the box – even if you don’t end up going there. The human imagination is far richer than we know. The answer is within you. Self-anointed genius awaits all canvases.
The main problems in second breath come in execution. You may be introducing a new idea, but it must not appear as such. Your change must appear like there was no toil. Very often a work needs a few bold strokes rather than a bunch of minor ones. “Finish,” said John Singer Sargent, “with a broom rather than a whisk.”
Second Breath for the Landscape Painter
The February 24, 2012 newsletter form Canadian landscape painter Robert Genn is about “second breath” – the restart of a work after getting a second opinion from yourself. Paintings that are not quite right or that are wrong to the point of abandonment sometimes deserve a second breath.
Clean, clear thought is necessary. This is most often possible after a period of time when it has been turned against a wall. Clever artists teach themselves a kind of time travel so inadequate stuff can be spotted and fixed right away. Using and applying your critical brain requires detachment and honesty. You need to ask yourself, “What could be?”
The Landscape Painter gets Unstuck
Betty S. Flowers, Professor of English and Director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library has some suggestions for any writer or painter who gets stuck getting started. Think “madman,” “architect,” “carpenter,” “judge.” What happens when you get stuck is that two competing energies are locked, horn to horn, pushing against each other. Your ‘madman’ writes or paints crazily, perhaps sloppily and gets carried away with enthusiasm. Then the ‘judge’ sees the sentence fragments or sloppy painting and says, “It’s trash.”
The trick to not getting stuck is to separate the energies. First, let the ‘madman’ loose. Write or paint your passion. Then set it aside for a day. The next morning, ask your ‘architect’ to enter. Her job is to select large chunks of material of the writer and arrange them in a pattern that might fit an argument. The thinking here is large, organizational, paragraph level thinking. For the landscape painter, the thinking is similar – make sure the large parts are working together.
The sentence structure is left for the ‘carpenter’ who enters after the essay has been hewn into large chunks of related ideas. The ‘carpenter’ nails these ideas together in logical sequence, making sure each sentence is clearly written, contributes to the argument of the paragraph and leads logically to the next sentence. The painter puts on the finishing touches. Finally, the ‘judge’ comes in to inspect.
The Creative Landscape Painter
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer, was a visionary, creative genius and a man who lived his talk. His life, his ideas and his determination to never give up touched many lives. We all have a lot to learn from Steve no matter what field of passion we have chosen. I have included one of his many quotes as it is tribute to landscape painters and others…..the creative ones.
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels? We make tools for these kinds of people. While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
The Landscape Painter Walks
The latest newsletter from Robert Genn, Canadian landscape painter, describes his feelings about the benefits of walking. He says, “Walking briskly, pushing the blood to your extremities, alone and with minimal distraction along the path, concentrating the mind on the thighs’ movements, you trigger imagination and focus. In other words, brisk walking is a form of creative meditation.” He takes a notebook to jot down his thoughts and later records them on his laptop.
“With the brisk walk, you make up your mind and improve your focus. It’s as if someone is walking along with you, helping you with your thinking. No matter how long the walk, the best stuff comes in the second half. You may just find that the last minute is spent running to the studio.”
The Painter’s Journal
Painter Nicoletta Baumeister uses her journal for writing: “A poem, haiku or a small drawing at night has the effect of driving all other thoughts away. The narrowed focus of purity of intent creates a sense of calm after a day of supersaturated activity. It also affords feelings of satisfaction, job well done, if only in the tiniest work, so that I slip seamlessly into excellent sleep. Too many people out there have insomnia!”
Baumeister does it again in the morning: “Gratefulness thoughts in the morning light are about the setting of the daily lens. What will we take in, what will we seek and what is today’s sense of self? Feeling grateful puts my feet on solid ground, able to work out the next step; whereas, asking what I don’t have sets my day on a frantic course.”
Video on Abstract Landscape Painting
After looking through the handouts from last Sunday’s demonstration by Robert Burridge, abstract painter, I realized he had a video about how to paint trees and landscapes abstractly. That seemed like it was make with me in mind! My landscape paintings are abstract anyway, so why not get a professional’s input?
When Thelma and I went down to Robert’s workshop to see if he had any videos on abstract landscape painting, none were left. We had to order one from his website www.RobertBurridge.com and can hardly wait for its arrival!
Five Skills Worth Learning
In his February 14, 2012 newsletter, Robert Genn, Canadian landscape painter, lists five skills worth learning by a landscape painter: 1) Drawing mastery is understanding relationships – it means seeing and reporting the relative distances between things. 2) Color mastery involves knowing the properties of pigments and the effects on one another when juxtaposed or mixed. Color mixes that call for opposites on the color wheel (complementary), as well as nearby on the color wheel (analogous), or even so closely related as to appear to be one color (monochromatic) make for lively and sophisticated effects.
3) Abstract understanding generally involves implication, suggestion and mystery and attacks your feelings before your understanding. 4) Compositional mastery, the queen of the skills, involves learning to play with the eye and move it around in the picture plane. Composition includes the golden mean, role of thirds, big and small, dark and light, activation, circulation, focus, pattern, stoppage and many other ploys developed by you and unique to yourself. 5) Emotional evolution means combining basic skills, such as those above, so that your unique voice and engagement occur.
Landscape Art
Among other things, Gwen Fox does abstract paintings and leads workshops in same and I have subscribed to her blog. Her Jan. 16th blog had pictures of landscape art like I have never seen.
The photos are of large stick sculptures and some appear to be made with vines or small (in diameter) sticks, although long. Some sculptures are from larger but shorter pieces of wood. All are amazing! You will have to go to Gwen’s blog to see them, but the following link should get you there: http://www.gwenfox.com/blog/
Robert Burridge, Abstract Painter (2)
Continuing from yesterday, before doing each abstract painting, Robert writes the four Cs: The Concept (big idea), the Color combination (monochromatic, analogous, etc.), the Composition (design of painting) and his Commitment. These help him to keep on track should he get waylaid somewhere.
Robert decided to paint a pear – about 20” high. He put his gessoed watercolor paper on a table covered with 4 mil polyethylene plastic and put a few colors of acrylic paint directly on the plastic. He dipped a brush in water, picked a color and smeared it all over the paper, then another and another color. He was having such fun! Then he opened a bottle of rubbing alcohol and sprinkled some of that on top.
When it was dry he drew a large circle with a triangle on top. This is the basic shape of a pear. He outlined this with a large white line (with fingers), decided the “table” would be 3” from the bottom of the paper, decided the left side would be where the light was coming from so painted the left side of the pear a light color and the right side of the background a similar color. The right side of the pear was dark and as well as the left side of the background. A few more marks (all with fingers) and the painting was finished. When you paint large, your painting gets loose very fast!