Diane Widler Wenzel: Preliminary sketch? Or begin with impulsive marks?

contrast enhanced pencil

The first excitement when I feel the most alive is the feeling I want to express in my finished paintings. The  energy of the first impulse is the first thing I want the viewer to notice.The energy is in the gestural scribbled lines continuously flowing into a readable image. Maintaining the edgy excitement and the freshness is my ambition whether the painting takes half an hour or years to complete.

 Mostly I trust my instincts and begin my paintings by throwing marks then later developing them.  One exception is my annual springtime ritual of painting waterfalls. Usually when visiting waterfalls with a group, I only have time to do a drawing or a small postcard size sketch adding color with a pocket watercolor palette. For example: the pencil sketch to the left was done in about 30 seconds.  It pleases me as an end without even doing a painting specifically from it.

The pencil sketch was on a completely open accordion folded watercolor paper. Usually I would divide it into five large postcards in the horizontal landscape format.

The grouping of postcard sized watercolors each took maybe five to ten minutes on location using a small pocket size palette. I remember doing a few small changes afterwards.

Do I hear with my eyes water grinding rocks together?

The 24"x 22" oil painting was started on location at Knight Park below Cascade Head when I was taking a workshop from Jef Gunn at the Sitka Center.  The falls was about one and a half feet high. Rather than a photographic representation, I was after symbolizing the sound.

 I looked at this painting all winter wanting to change it because it didn't flow around the rock.   Should I keep my original intention to paint the sound of the water? Maybe doing pencil drawings and watercolor  sketches on location gave me a muscular memory of  how water flows.

Recreating a linear, gestural sketch doesn't work for me. Though these drawings make invaluable references for comparison. They set the bar for giving the impression of immediacy. To regain immediacy I play a combination of intellectual plan along with permission to let impulse win over control. I get all excited like when I first started the painting.

This week I did try a different approach of using a sketch book by filling a few pages with collages to be kept as an inspirational archive.  I cut  up my bad photos and cut textures from magazine. Then I watched a beautiful red fox hunting in the field behind us.. I went head long into making a painting without much of a plan hoping to capture how light footed these remarkable animals are and the beauty of the sun on their fur. The way I use sketchbooks will not likely change. So struggle I must without an exact road map to know when a painting is done. In the above painting maybe I need at least one rock rubbing another if I decide to keep the original intent of making sound visible. Or clarify the lower left quarter as being on the same level as the rock. The middle protruding just covering the top of the falls bringing the flat protrusion to the front.