One of my main goals right now is to get better at painting. I both love to paint and am intimidated by it. I see something that I think would make a good one but then stop myself before I get into doing it. I might fail. It won't be good enough.For a few years all of my paintings were of people which coincided with my interest in sculpture. Many were of spiritual ideas or imaginary subjects. Lately though I have been going back into landscapes. I like painting impressionistic or some would say expressionistic where the feeling matters more than the exact scene.
On this trip I saw a lot of possible locations but only one that I took the time to do. These rolling, eroded hills, in The Painted Hills Unit of the John Day Fossil Bed National Monument, were the most sensual bit of landscape I have ever seen. Very rich, deep colors with curves that seemed both female and lush.
My painting though didn't come out as I had expected. Instead of the sensual curves, I ended up with almost violent slashes of colors which was however not inappropriate for this land which was born from violent changes.
Something dawned on me after I had finished it, and I have finished even though I may paint the same scene again from a different angle. This was what I always want to paint and seldom have. It was the essence behind the physical view. Truthfully, abstracting a scene is the hardest thing to paint.If you don't paint, you might think duplicating the exact scene in front of your eyes would be the hardest but that can be taught mechanically. Anyone, and I do mean anyone, can learn to exactly duplicate a scene. They might not find exciting lighting (unless they take it from someone else) or make the composition as interesting as a more gifted artist, but they can paint what is there. It just takes time and learning technical skills.
The reason many art teachers have their class duplicate their painting is because they know this. They have already found the composition and lighting and can teach anyone who is willing to follow the pattern.
But what everyone can not do is to abstract a landscape. It's what my friend Parapluie does [Umbrella Painting Journal], and I have always envied (using the positive sense of that word) in her work. She looks at and sees that basic underlying feeling and it's what she goes for in painting. She might not get it every single time, but she gets it more often than most.
In this little oil of mine, I came the closest to doing it than I have come in years. Somehow I had lost the light touch, the ability to let go. I am not sure why I lost it nor why this one worked for me. I believe it's partly because of the inspiration of the scene, the energy of the place, and partly using the water based oils which I much prefer to acrylics. They feel sooooo good with the brush or palette knife. It is also partly because I painted without a plan for exactly what would come out. I let it flow.
Critics (incl
uding my inner one) would probably say well the colors aren't right or this or that isn't accurate. They would be right but something more important happened. I painted what I hoped to paint. Later when I looked at the design in it, the bones of the painting, I felt good.The photo is not from the exact angle nor is the lighting the same as when I painted it that day, but I may use it to try again for that sensual subject I was originally thinking was there. I know I could probably perfect my little painting, adjust colors, tweak this or that, but I won't. As it stands, it will always remind me of that day, the heat of the sun, the quiet of the land, and standing at the back of the truck while I painted what I felt, the time I quieted the inner critic (if only for a little while) to enable me to enjoy the process.
4 comments:
Rain . . Such a pleasure to read your comments. My father also liked oils and became quite a painter. Vincent Price (whom you are too young to know of), took my dad under his wing and exposed him to wonderful interpretations on canvas. Mr. Price was a collector and an art critic of note many years ago. According to him: "the hardest part of creating an impression in paint is knowing when to quit". He said that getting started was easy. A person simply washed in the canvas, sketched a vaque outline with a faint pencil, and then picked up the color brush and started. Nearing completion the artist tended to make little embellishments (like a book editor changing words) to make the piece complete. Over the years he was proven right. Almost all artists he knew found it difficult to finally say; "that's it".
Dixon
I will not pretend to know anything about impressionism, but I love your painting. Sometimes the viewer gets an entirely different feeling from the painting than the artist intended. We project our own emotions on what we see.
Thank you, Darlene. It's always hard for me (and Parapluie said for all artists) to show my work to others.
If that's the Vincent Price who was also an actor, Dixon, I knew he was an accomplished artist also. Your dad was fortunate to have such a mentor from whom to learn. I think his piece of wisdom is very true although sometimes what I add or change in a painting finally makes it work. If I stick to what I see sometimes it just never works but it takes altering things to finally find the painting in the scene. Of course, the tweaks can also ruin it. I learned a lot when I began doing digital painting and then I could go back when it didn't work :) I still use that sometimes to check out how a change will work by photographing the work and then using my digital painting tools to try out a change.
I love your painting of the rocks. It tells of the solid forms which would look less solid in sweeping softer curves. We all see differently.
Thanks for the link to my blog.
Bumps Stumps, my paintings are never finished in my mind. I know we artists tend to overwork. Rain's is a good example of one that is fresh and direct and complete. Each painting points to several ones to paint in the future.
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