I’ve been giving a lot of thought to processes lately. If the recent results of my own trials and tribulations at the easelare anything to go by, the processes by which a painting is made have a great influence on the eventual result. Well, I supposethat’s a pretty obvious thing to say, of course they do. But I’m thinking now not so much about particular techniques, butabout mental approach. Or am I? Oh hell, lets just get on with the post and we’ll see where we end up.
I’ve been trying to get a few things straight in my mind lately, so it’s been a few weeks since the last post. Sometimes it’s bestjust to keep quiet for a while when you’ve got nothing interesting to say. I’ve also been busy with marketing stuff now that I’m attemptingto turn pro – getting business cards designed and printed, setting up a new portfolio site(http://www.paul-foxton-paintings.co.uk),that kind of thing. But mostly the post drought has been due to easel dysfunction problems.
The results of my last few attempts to make a painting have given me much to think about. There are timeswhen working at the easel is a quiet, relaxing, contemplative affair, and others when it’s more like a battleground. Lately, my easel has beena battleground and the last three paintings have been collateral damage. I’ve found myself repeatedly scrubbing days, and in the most recentcase weeks, of work off the panel. Most disheartening it is too.
Right when I need to be pumping out portfolio-grade pieces, I’ve found myself faced with an apparent inability to paint at all. A goodpainter friend of mine reckons it’s precisely because I’m trying to turn professional now, and the pressure is on. He may well be right.But I think it’s also because I’ve found myself at a fork in the road, and I’m vacillating. By way of investigation – and perhaps if I’m lucky,explanation – today I’m going to be writing about two rather different approaches I’ve used recently on two quite different paintings. Maybe I’llfind some clues before I reach the end.
I’ve thought it was done and taken it off the easel, but it’s back on again now for the third time for a few adjustments.
For a while I had a disconcerting feeling that this wasn’t really my painting. A large part of today’s post will bea step by step walk through of how I built this painting up, which I know I’ve been promising to do for a while. I’ve made peace with thispainting now, and can look at it without discomfort again, even enjoy it. It was this one that brought me to the fork in the road, so abreakdown of the process might be helpful to me, if not to anybody else. Although I’d hope for both.
This one has been something of a marathon for me, starting with the initial value study, which took meabout three weeks to complete, followed by a colour study which took up two weeks or so. The final painting heretook another three weeks or so I think, I’ve been staring at it so long now I can’t remember. Suffice to say I’d have to sell it for a smallfortune to recoup the investment in time, and that isn’t going to happen any time soon.
I’m also going to be talking about a small still life of a quince I painted immediately after the iron.
Often my paintings are a reaction in some way to the previous piece, and that’s certainly true of this one. If the iron painting was a study inpatience and working methodically, the quince, by comparison, was an exercise in sailing close to wind.
One of the requirements of a professional painter, it seems to me, is the ability to consistently produce work. No paintings, no money. Notgood. For some time now I’ve been attempting to evolve a repeatable process that assures at least a basic level of quality and will allow me toproduce regularly. But perhaps that very process might become stifling if adhered to too strictly. After all, this is painting, not accountancy,and surely there must be room for inspiration and intuition if we’re to remain personally involved and not become painting machines.
On the other hand, perhaps a certain degree of process provides a necessary environment in which the inspiration can occur, or perhapsguide it if or when it does happen and help it to become more fully realised. You decide. I suspect that there’s some kind of continuum with dry,method-based drudgery at one end and wild abandon at the other, and painters will fall somewhere between one and the other depending on theirpersonality and influences. I’m not sure where I fall yet, I seem to fluctuate. Perhaps we all do.
But let’s get back to the iron, since this has to be my most methodical painting yet. I set out with the idea that I was going to puteverything I knew into this painting, to build it up in stages and to try to complete each stage to the best of my abilities. The value and colourstudies we’ve covered, and the initial sight size drawing out has been covered already too.
The next stage after the drawing out was the ‘rub in’. I’d already resolved the colours I was going to be using, so my basic approach here wasto scrub on thin layers of the colour for each section in their proper places. The paint was slightly thinned with pure gum turps, and applied withbrights. Brights are short bristled, flat profile hogs which are very good for scrubbing in thin layers of colour and working into theweave of the linen. They can take a lot of abuse, and the short bristles let you get a lot of force into the brush.
Unfortunately I accidentally deleted the first photo of the initialrub in, but this one shows some areas that are still at the first stage, and some at the second stage.
The darker sections are on their second layer, all the rest is at the first stage. All I was doing at the first stage is laying down anundercoat, as much as anything else to ensure that the subsequent layers would cover well. I also wanted to leave some areas, like the background,with some of the texture of the rub in showing through to give the surface a bit of life. I don’t like the look of perfectly flat areas inpaintings, personally. Not in mine, anyway. The second layer in the background also being thin, it will hopefully suggest some depth through theslight translucency. For this layer, I used neat paint, but still applied fairly thinly. The upper part of the background here is at its finalvalue, and most of it I planned to leave alone after this point.
Here we are with the second layer on the background done.
Some of the shadows on the shelf have also beenput in at this point, since I want them to blend seamlessly into the background.
I’ve feathered out the edges of the shadows where they join the light, planning to address them later. Usually I try to finish all edges as I get to themsince they’re easier to handle wet into wet for me. But for this painting I’m going to be painting into a thin layer of stand oil and turps forsubsequent layers, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
At this point I’ve put a second layer onto the handle of the iron. There’s not much in the way of modelling ofthe form yet though, its pretty flat.
I need to wait for it to dry so I’ve moved onto the cloth. The cloth has been painted prettymuch as I would if I was painting normally in a single layer, wet into wet. This stage is the product of a few days work and a fewlayers though. There’s still a lot more refining of the forms to do.
No couch or medium at all was used on the cloth. It was mostly painted with an old and worn down natural mongoose filbert (my favouritebrush, especially for painting cloth). It seems that especially in the lighter values, sinking in is much less of a problem, in fact it doesn’thappen at all. All the problems of painting in multiple layers seem to happen to me in the darker values. So for those areas, like the body andhandle of the iron, I’ve used a stand oil and turps couch. There’s still some sinking in, but it doesn’t seem to be as bad. If an area is prettywell finished, like the background, I’ll put a thin layer of retouch over it to bring the values back to where they were. Otherwise, the couch sortsit out fine.
Here’s a couple of shots to show how the handle of the iron was painted. This is it at thesecond layer, with just the large blocks of colour and tone laid in.
This layer was put in with neat paint, and left to dry completely before the next layer, which was going to be the modelling of the form.
The body of the iron is still at the first ‘rub-in’ stage at this point. It will follow the same process as the handle, with the final paintingdone into a thin couch.
This couch is painted on thinly and evenly, just over the area to bepainted. It’s then rubbed in enthusiastically with fingers to get the layer as thin as possible whilst still being workable.Doing this helps the paint to go on smoothly, and allows edges to be handled with a lot of control, even when painting up to a dry edge. The onething to watch with this, I think, is that as little oil is used as possible, just enough to make the paint flow. Too much and the finish will go,and the oil will build up into a thick gooey layer which doesn’t look nice, takes forever to dry and is awful to paint into too.
Here’s the handle nearing completion. Apologies for the extremely rubbish photo. Thelights for this set up were attached to my camera tripod and couldn’t be moved, which necessitated the construction of a Heath-Robinson typetripod to fix the camera to which didn’t work well at all. Hopefully there’s enough here to give you an idea though.
All of this final painting has been done into a thin layer of oil, the couch. The edges, in particular, have been done this way, and thebackground has been painted over again in places to get as smooth a gradation as I can.
The body of the iron has now reached second stage, basic blocking in, and was completed in the same way as the handle. Any time I needed towait for a section to dry, I went back to the cloth and refined it some more.
By the time the painting had got to the stage it’s at in the ‘finished’ photo above (actually just nearly finished) I was fairlyhappy with it. It had, by and large, achieved the goal I set for it. I wanted to produce an effective translation of the set up onto thecanvas. I wanted to stretch my facility for observation of detail without losing the overall effect and feeling of light, without losing theconsistency of the picture. I wanted to make the picture live, and to push myself further than I’ve gone before. I do think I’ve come closer thanI often do to achieving my goals with this picture.
But it left me feeling somehow dissatisfied. It took a lot of work to get the result I did, but I was left wondering whether the result I gotwas really the one I wanted from my work. For some time now, I’ve been concentrating on what I think of as the basics: accuracy of shapein the drawing, sound value relationships, descriptively handled edges and natural and convincing colour. Of course, I still have atremendous amount of work to do on all these things, I’m still a beginner in the grand scheme of things. But having done better than I havepreviously on those points with this painting, I was left wondering if that was really what I wanted to do with future paintings. I’ve alwaysthought that there can be more to representational painting than the replication of what we see, and perhaps getting closer to what I sawthan usual in this painting has left me wondering what that ‘more’ might be. I don’t have any answers yet.
I was recently chatting over email with a painter friend about processes and accuracy, around the time I finished the iron. He’s a painterthat works everything out as he goes on the canvas, and maintains that allowing a piece to evolve more organically, complete with mistakes andscrubbing out, produces a better result for him. His work is powerful and moving, so I wouldn’t for moment disagree with him. Perhaps itwas that conversation I had, or perhaps it was the questions that the iron painting raised for me, or both, but when I came to paint theFloating Sunfire immediately after the iron, I did much less preparatory work, just a quick colour sketch.
When I came to paint the quince, I did none at all. Although it has to be said that all the sight sizing, Bargue copies, value studies, Munsellcolour checking etc. I’ve been doing lately has changed the way I paint. I don’t dash anything off these days, I’m much more slow anddeliberate. It suits me to work that way.
The quince was painted entirely wet into wet without any medium, just paint. I also went back to natural light, which I much prefer. It’s harderto work by I think, since it’s harder to control. Artificial light seems to me to be easier to work with in many ways, because of the degree ofcontrol you have over the light. It has to be said though, I have an emotional reaction to natural light that I just don’t get from artificial light. I can’tdescribe it though, so I’m not going to try. Not everything can be easily put into words.
But something about that soft, gentle quality of natural indoor light moves me and makes me want to catch it in paint. If the iron painting wasabout the subjects I was painting, the quince was more about the light and the atmosphere, and trying to recreate something of the way it mademe feel. I wasn’t concerned so much with the accuracy of the colour, and played a lot with very near greys, violets and blues, whichunfortunately don’t replicate well in the photo. I had in mind that the painting would be a thing unto itself rather that an attempt toget as close as I could to what the stuff I was painting actually looked like. The air shimmered around the white cloth and I wanted to try torecreate something of that in the painting.
At first the quince felt more ‘mine’, it felt closer to where I wanted to be going. But I’ve tried to catch the same thing since andfailed miserably both times. All I have to show for a few weeks work is three panels with the paintings scrubbed off them and a lot of heartache. Atthe very point when I thought I’d reached a basic level of competence, finally, and was beginning to see a way forward, I’ve fallen flat on myface. Again.
So where to now? Well, that’s what I’ve been asking myself, and whilst I haven’t found an answer that completelysatisfies me yet, I do know that sitting around thinking about it won’t help. The answer has to come from the work, that’s the only placeit can come from. About the most useful thing I’ve ever done in painting and drawing is to work in series. Working in series gets youout of a rut, it gets you moving when you don’t know where to go next. When the series is done, you get a sense of achievement, you’ve builtsome momentum, and like as not the next step has become clear along the way.
So for a little while I’m going back to small paintings, based largely on my still life drawings. I’m going to do, erm, ten of them tostart with. Ten always seems like a good number for a series to me. The current plan is to use them to try outsome ideas I’ve been thinking about without waiting weeks to see the result, and perhaps to take a few steps down either fork in the roadand see how it feels. I want to try to distill them down to the essence, and hopefully out of that will come a way forward. And because I’mpainting full time now and have bills to pay, I’m also going to offer them for sale here on the site, as long as I think they’re good enough.It won’t quite be the ‘painting-a-day’ thing, since they’ll probably take me more than a single sitting, but they’ll be – what’s the politeway to say it? – competitively priced. I’llset up a separate section for them though, so people who don’t want to be bothered with them won’t have to put up with having them pushedin their faces. That wouldn’t be very nice would it? I’ll be setting up a separate email list too so you’ll only see them in your in box ifyou want to.
I’m going to leave you with a question today, which I’d love to see some answers to in the comments of you have the time (and ifanyone’s still reading after two months with no posts…)
Question: In your working processes, where do you see yourself sitting on the line from methodical care at one end to gay abandon at theother, from strict adherence to a proven method to flying by the seat of your pants? How much do you leave to chance? And what do you thinkare the advantages and/or disadvantages of each approach? Don’t be shy, tell me what you think.
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Dear Paul, sorry I cannot answer your questions- maybe due to the stage I am at! However I feel there is great value in both methodical care and gay abandon- the conundrums of art…!
Anyway, I will take this opportunity to congratulate you on your wonderful work and on this excellent well thought out site you provide for us. Keep up the good work, best regards, Lucy, Aberdeenshire
Paul:
Chin up! What you’re feeling is a natural offshoot of your tastes and artistic sensibilities developing past the point where they were before you started on this painting. Of course you feel frustrated, as artists we’re always looking for the higher mountain to climb. That’s what drives us on, and for a lucky few, makes us great. (Not counting myself in there among the great ones, just maintaining the structure of the sentence.)
I’d wager that now that you’ve climbed this peak of realism you’re looking for something more than a technical challenge, which is mostly what these exercises have been. As Richard Schmid has said, there are more interesting and modern ways to deal with detail in a painting than spelling everything out. It’s the mystery that keeps most people looking: it’s the undefined areas, the spaces in-between that invite the viewer to participate and connect with the work.
Now, don’t get me wrong: your paintings are filled with a delicacy and atmosphere that are wonderfully heartbreaking at times. But now you want to create that same feeling with less labor and more smarts. (At least this is how I felt after completing that portrait of the young girl…you should see my alternate fork, it’s up on the easel now!)
Ok, on to your questions: I bounce back and forth, because like you, I feel I have something to prove to myself as far as technical “ability.” Leaving stuff to chance? I don’t. I might create an effect by chance, but leaving it there is always a conscious decision. As for the ad/disadvantages, that’s easy: methodical will keep you on the path, straight and true, but runs the risk of being dull, dull, dull. Gay abandonment is never dull, but you run the risk of crashing and burning. Right?
Hi Paul,
so nice to read the inner working of your mind. I don’t mind to wait 2 months at all. About your question: i think you have to be methodical in order to have a base from witch you can go your own merry way. Accident don’t happen by chance, but by hard work , and is in there that we all find our answer and our vocation . I think you truly are a painter of light, and your oils present a beauty that is eternal, something no money can buy.
Great job on the web site. Mariano
Paul,
When I look at the painting of the Iron…I see.
When I look at Madame Quince…I feel.
In the painting of the Iron I see a well executed painting but with the Quince painting I don’t even think about how well it is executed. I just linger and enjoy.
I see a simple quince that God made and you have shown me how beautiful it is and even more so in God’s natural light…and I know he gave you the ability to execute it as such.
Thanks Lucy. I suspect that you’re right, that there’s value in measured quantities of both.
Hi Kurt, thanks for that eloquent and very thought-provoking comment. Indeed, we seem to be doomed to a life of frustration and constant dissatisfaction with out results. There’s always another ridge beyond the one we’ve just climbed. I am looking for something more than a technical challenge, yes, but I don’t see the iron as just that (I know you’re not suggesting it was, by the way). There was a strong element of that, to be sure, but still I was trying to create something more. I suppose I always am, but until I can conceive of what that ‘more’ is, it’s kind of hard to see a clear path between here and there. Thus the return to small format paintings for a while I guess. Small steps are less risky!
Less labour and more smarts – perhaps. I guess that comes with time and practice. I think more than anything now I want to start giving weight to some elements that previously I haven’t had room in my head to consider so much – composition, texture, that kind of thing. Your portrait of Dominique came out very nicely, by the way. And allow me to congratulate you on your very lovely
Moon at Sunset.
Very interesting comment about leaving things out. I’ve been thinking about that a lot myself lately too. I think it does involve the viewer more, at least I feel that way when I’m on the receiving end of a painting by Velazquez, say. Gombrich talks about this in ‘Art and Illusion’, a truly excellent book if you haven’t read it. If there are enough visual cues in an image, our brains will naturally interpolate and make up the rest for us. But if the any of the cues are wrong, or if they don’t agree, then the viewer might interpolate something we didn’t intend. I sometimes wonder if it’s better to allow the viewer to construct some parts because they might not have been done so well if I’d put them in myself. The old adage about it being better to keep your mouth shut and be thought an idiot than to open it and remove all doubt comes to mind 🙂
I also like very much your comment about leaving an accident in as being a conscious decision, and therefore nothing, really, being left to chance. That makes sense to me.
>Gay abandonment is never dull, but you run the risk of crashing and burning. Right?
Indeed you do, as my easel can bear recent witness! Although actually, one painting in particular, the last one I attempted, was very carefully worked out, and was still scrubbed off in the end! There’s been much crashing and burning lately in the Foxton atelier 🙂
Thanks Mariano. I agree, I think everything we manage to achieve is achieved by sheer hard work. Certainly that’s true for me. Painters of the past had no problem with being methodical, perhaps it’s just a modern conceit that too methodical an approach can stifle creativity.
Thanks Pat, that’s a nice way to put it. Most people like the iron painting more, (fair enough because it is better done I think) but the quince has got a couple of votes 🙂
>and I know he gave you the ability to execute it as such.
Maybe. But I’ve also worked extremely bloody hard over the last few years so perhaps you’ll forgive me if I take at least some of the credit myself.
Hi Paul, first of all it was worth the wait. Secondly, the best of luck with your new business venture, modestly introduced and I can only guess how long you worked over that!
Your question sent me immediately to http://www.businessballs.com (no self-interest I assure you), because I knew I remembered seeing just this dilemma outlined in what he calls the “conscious competence learning model.” I won’t go into it all here because anyone can look it up. I came across this in teacher training and have found it an invaluable set of ideas.
As for the two paintings? They both exude a quiet grace. If still lifes are still allowed to be symbolic, I see the iron as a self portrait and the quince as a dream.
Nick, your comment could not be better timed.
Just over two years ago I worte a post on that very learning model: The Four Phases of Learning. I’ve just re-read it, and it’s given me a strong feeling of deja-vu! Back then, struggling with my work, I embarked on a series of 100 small still life drawings to help move myself along, just as I’m doing now. That series is still ongoing actually, although I haven’t updated the pagefor a long time, I’m up to about drawing number 80 now I think. That series helped me a lot, and much of the direction I’m going in now evolved from it.
I must remember to take my own advice more!
Paul
I get where you’re coming from. My own website has been neglected as I am faced with my first solo. I didn’t realise it was cold feet at the time – just second guessed everything I had done, worked up two other themes and then I decided I didn’t want to be an artist after all!
I worked through the fight in my own way but found some clues in “Old Masters and Young Geniuses” by David Galenson. It’s worth a look. I’ll get a review up in the next few days.
Also on the subject of getting some return on the old iron painting – don’t forget that the drawing and the study are saleable (sp?) also.
PS
Put me on the mailing list for the paintings, eh. One of them will most certainly be getting shipped to Australia (even if it has to be a study for a study to start with given the exchange rates).
You’ll truly be able to say that you have international collectors!
First of all, Paul, I really enjoyed your step-by-step explanation of your iron painting – it was very clear and so interesting to see how you worked.
I wonder if you and I are musing along the same paths. So many realist artists seem to assume that visual accuracy is the goal of realism. But what if that\’s not the goal? What if you are trying to make something look not just real, but alive?
Your quince is alive and so you painted it differently than the iron. That makes sense to me from a technical perspective. You had a time frame to work within. You have more time with a quince than you would with, say, a tulip in a vase, so you would adjust your working methods to match your situation. (Anybody who doesn\’t think that a quince is in some sense alive should search YouTube for fruit decomposition videos.)
I\’ve been painting dead birds and the more I do this, the more I understand how someone like Chardin would have composed [hmmm… why is \’decomposed\’ not the opposite of \’composed\’?] his setups and worked within his time limitations.
One of the unfortunate things that photography has done is to create an expectation in the average modern viewer that everything has a photographic degree of detail and interest. I think that working in \”real time\” and the ensuing emphasis on process is one of the reasons the Masters created their great work. If, for example, something is going to move, or sag, or rot, (or in the case of birds, have little mites crawl out of the feathers – !! – )over a period of time, you have to decide how to deal with that in your painting.
(Can I brag here that I own one of your paintings? It\’s even more beautiful in person than it is online. 🙂 )
Getting ‘more’ out of representational painting than just what you see comes with time. The struggle with craftsmanship and techniques can be pretty intense, sometimes eating us up a bit leaving the grand finale less than satisfying. Your quince gave you your more but it can be an elusive experience just like catching a particular feeling or scent just so, very hard to duplicate each and every time. It must be appreciated for the special moment that it is. I trust that those moments of ‘more’ will happen with greater frequency.
In time the methodical way of working becomes so ingrained that a person is able to do it unconsciously and you get into a zone where you aren’t really thinking so much and I think that’s when ‘it’ happens. Personally I loved your iron with it’s quiet but strong sense of presence. Why is it that when a painter is technically proficient people tend to say ‘but where’s the heart and soul?’ yet when a fine furniture maker creates a beautifully crafted piece everyone says ‘it’s labour of love, he must have put his heart and soul into it’. They don’t ever say ‘my goodness, isn’t that ever overworked!’. When proficiency and heart come together in the right amounts you have ‘more’, although I’ve seen some badly drawn paintings in museums that I loved, so…..
To answer your question. I’m pretty methodical when I paint but I like to experiment with eensy teensy 2 x 3 studies which are purely value, pattern, colour studies, no detail. I also recently started to do large (around 20 inches or so) fast studies in an hour or two with a big brush and exaggerate everything! This is where the gay abandon happens (to some extent) and which insinuates itself into my more methodical paintings making the colour more exciting and the brushstrokes livelier and juicier. Like Kurt I don’t really leave much to chance but when something good happens by accident I accept that it worked and leave it be. When I’m able to recognize these moments I feel successful. When it all comes together I am overjoyed and when it doesn’t I try not to worry about it, knowing that as I keep plowing forward it will all fall into place. No doubt I’ll still have some bad paintings but that’s part of life.
We have to keep in mind that there are many kinds of beauty. People love a painting filled with wonderful brushstrokes and colour that is clearly part of the artist’s imagination but can respond as deeply to a painting that resonates with craftsmanship and beauty. We respond to different paintings in different ways, that’s the beauty of art.
Hey Paul, what’s this I hear about one of your paintings in the ING Design…show and that it sold! Congratulations – well deserved and I am sure just the first of many, many more.
Also, thanks for the informative post – always worth reading and thinking about – no matter when it shows up. I’ll have to take some time to read everyone’s responses to your question.
But off the top of my head, I have to say that I try to rely on careful planning and preparation for major pieces. I’d love to have the skill to ‘dash off’ successful pieces, but it’s not in the cards for me. I may use smaller pieces for experimenting with new ideas or getting comfortable with a new medium etc., or just to have fun. But when it comes to something I hope will hang on someone’s wall, I put my whole heart, soul
and ‘quiver’, filled with all the techniqual ‘arrows’ that I’m learning and know have served others so well in the past and coming more to the forefront in this day and time – excellence in craft.
The more comfortable I become with those prepartion stages, the faster it becomes and my confidence grows. That doesn’t mean I don’t produce stinkers or see things I’d do differently next time – that happens all the time!
Well, maybe I’ll think on this some more.
Paul, great post and great results in the show! Fantastic…
Hi Amanda,
A solo show! I’m not surprised you’ve got the jitters. congratulations though, that’s great news. Thanks very much for sending me a copy of the book. I plan to make it my bed-time reading tonight.
The iron drawing is going in for a show in London this month, so I have hoped for it yet. The colour study is really just a study though, it doesn’t stand up compositionally on it’s own I think, unlike the drawing. I’m trying to set a ‘quality bar’ for the stuff I let out of the studio for sale, and it doesn’t hit the mark.
Thanks for the interest, I will put you on the list when I get is sorted out. It was the private view of the discerning Eye show last night and I’m too emotionally drained to think about anything at the moment though. Hopefully I’ll get it together soon.
Don’t forget to tell me about your show when it’s on. I want all the gory details.
Hi Linda,
A very erudite and thought-provoking comment, as always. I would say that visual accuracy is certainly my goal for some things. Bargue drawings, obviously enough, and some other copy practice that I do. Also sometimes for paintings. But it’s not my overall goal. I know what you mean about the difference between accuracy and life, but it’s not an easy thing to explain. If I think of a painting like Velazquez’ Rokeby Venus, I very much doubt that absolute accuracy was his goal, but every inch of that painting is alive. However, I’m damn sure that he could hit what he saw very closely if he’d wanted to.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how common it was for painters of the past to achieve a fine, refined style which they then relax as their careers and their work develops. Rembrandt, Titan, velazquez. I think that happened to Bouguereau too. I’m sure that there are others. It’s as if them attaining a high level of technique allowed them the freedom to work loosely without clumsiness.
The time constraint on painting live things is a real problem, Flowers can be so hard. I was painting some friesas the other day, and after a basic value under painting I knew I had to get straight on with the flowers, There were only two of them, but by the time I’d finished the second one the first one had changed out of all recognition, some parts wilted, some buds starting to open. There was no way I could go back and refine what I’d done. But maybe that’s just how it is when you’re working from life and your subjects are ephemeral. Despite the ‘hell for leather’ approach I had to take, I really enjoyed the painting. I’ll post it soon.
You most certainly can brag. I know you’re giving me a plug, but I need all the help can get and it’s much appreciated 🙂
Hi Cindy,
So nice to hear from you. I absolutely love your work. You have such a natural way with light, it always knocks the socks off me when people can handle light that well, whether the work is painstakingly finished or handled with painterly brevity like yours. I must remember to put you in my resources section.
In the meantime, here’s a link to Cindy’s work for people to check out: Cindy Revell. Beautiful stuff.
Your comment about the ‘zone’ sounds very like the ‘unconscious competence’ stage of learning which Nick mentioned above. Your point about ‘heart and soul’ is also very well made. Certainly I think that craftsmanship is seen as the enemy of ‘art’ in some corners these days, but I wonder if perhaps that’s starting to change. I hope so. I don’t see why you can’t be a competent craftsman – or woman – and an artist at the same time.
Thanks for sharing some thoughts about your approach. The idea of having times when you ‘let loose’ seems to me to be a very good one. I know I’m always banging on abut Harold Speed, but he recommends this too, as an adjunct to more rigorous practice. There’s a lot of sense in that I think.
>We respond to different paintings in different ways, that’s the beauty of art.
Nicely put, and thank you for reminding me of that.
Hi Marhsa,
It seems everyone knew about that before me! I finally figured out that they’d put the exhibition online, and I hadn’t seen it. for anyone who fancies a look at the 2008 Discerning Eye show, here it is. There’s a very wide range of work. Not all of it is up my personal street, but that’s no bad thing, especially bearing in mind Cindy’s last point above. There was some wonderful work there, butI drank too much free wine (well, it was free…) and will have to go back for another look.
It’s nice to see you echoing Cindy’s concern with craftsmanship. Of course, having the pleasure of knowing you and your work I know that you put everything you’ve got into it, and work carefully and methodically. I wonder if the current economic trends might persuade buyers that good craftsmanship is worth investing in. I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one that produces the odd stinker!
Hi Rich me old mucker! Thanks for the nice comment. I know you’re Mr.Methodical, but you’re also very good evidence that superb technique is no obstacle to beauty.
For the record, I actually wrote that post a week or so before I finally posted. I’ve just finished the fourth of the small pieces, and will post them soon. I’ve also just been to the G. F. Watts exhibition at the Guildhall gallery in London. I’ll try and find some time to write a bit about it, I was deeply moved. This man was a great, great painter.
Hey Paul,
The paintings look great as does the web site.
For what it’s worth I tend to just jump in and if I screw it up I scrape it off.
Sometimes whatever problems I am having are resolved in this process of redoing it.
I don’t make a lot of drawings for paintings as I paint fruit a lot and time is of the essence.
I also like drawing with the brush as it keeps my mind focused on painting.
If I am drawing I tend to think about different things as it’s a black and white medium.
Being meticulous has it’s virtues but I also think it can be an albatross. I guess striking a balance is what is best. However it seems to be working for you.
I let the subject help me decide how to precede.
If it’s something I know can sit on table for weeks and if it has some difficult drawing problems to resolve then I’ll work in a meticulous manner.
I do like to do one sitting paintings, If they come out I like how fresh they look.
Congrats on the show and selling a painting.
Thanks Jeff.
I know what you mean about fruit and time being of the essence. I’ve been doing flowers lately, and I’m tending to do a quick underpainting to work out the values and then getting straight to the flowers before they wilt, then finishing the rest. Needs must.
It’s good to hear from someone who ‘steams in’ and works it out on the canvas. Obviously that works very well for you, the small still lifes you’ve been posting lately are lovely. I particuarly like the tomato and the turnips. Here is Jeff’s painting blog if anyone wants to check out his lovely work.
This is a good reminder that we all have to find the working methods that work best for us I think, and also that sometimes the method needs to fit the subject, as Linda was saying above. I was looking at Paul Raymond Seaton’s work again the other day. He’s like a modern Fantin Latour. He paints beautiful still lifes with great natural atmosphere and has a great walkthrough of a painting here. Most instructive. I find I’m working very much like that for my small pieces. The results aren’t nearly as good as his though 🙂
Thank’s Paul.
I have to tell you I worked on that painting well passed the the ripeness of the tomato.
My wife kept joking, when are you going to finish that, that tomato is well passed it.
I kept working on it and working on it.
The Turnips, well they hung around for ever so I took my time and drew them out first.
I have been using Marvin Mattelson’s technique as well.
Using a tone of umbra and drawing into it with the back of a brush and then wiping out the lighter tonalities.
I like this a lot as it’s very close to drawing and moves into paint very quickly.
I love Paul Raymond Seaton’s work as well. He does remind me of Latour.
I think balance is key, as you noted sometimes I’ll do a few drawings and others I just want to get on with it.
Harold Speed said it so well:
“What the painter has to do is to see that the tone and colour design in his picture is governed by considerations of its emotional fitness to the impression he wishes to convey; and not, as is often the case, left entirely to considerations of truth to natural appearances, which may or may not give him the tone and colour scheme he needs.”
– Harold Speed Oil Painting Techniques and Materials
Hey Paul-
We want it all don’t we? Pleasure but not abandonment, accurate but not stiff, master of technique but not slave to it. Paintings that are alive! The true alchemist lives in our artist’s heart.
Glad to hear you are going “pro”. Taking that step is no light matter. I think I know how much responsibility that must mean to you on a personal and artistic level. I have recently gone through a deep cleaning process my self. Leaving the “daily painting” process for now (and the small but steady income) in search of “more”.
Your Questions: In your working processes, where do you see yourself sitting on the line from methodical care at one end to gay abandon at the other, from strict adherence to a proven method to flying by the seat of your pants?
I think we need to think of it not as a line and a choice but more of which tool do we use and when, when we answer the question of what is needed to proceed with the work.
You ask: How much do you leave to chance? And what do you think are the advantages and/or disadvantages of each approach?
Where I lack experience I use my eyes, my feelings and my intuition to try and feel my way through problems in a painting. I think the emotional element is what separates us as artist from being engineers.
Thanks for a glimpse of your struggle, you are not alone on this journey. There is no end or solution only a process.
take care.
Hi Paul –
The only thing I can share is that after a lot of questioning myself and my process, I realized the painter in me is going to do what she is going to do, and the thinking/planning part of me has not much to say about it. Even if I “planned” to approach painting in a certain way, it just happens in it’s own way anyway.
Also, whenever I am painting things that aren’t working and I get into the horrible state of “battlefield” I realize it’s because I am looking at my own painting more than I am looking at my subject. I try to remind myself to let my vision drive the painting, not my intention.
Not that I’ve mastered any of this or figured it out, but I have to come up with methods to get me past the self-questioning, and these have worked for me: “paint the way I paint”, and “don’t paint, LOOK”.
Once again, thanks so much for sharing your process, internal and external 🙂
Hi Jeff,
That’s a great quote from Speed. I must read that book again. I do think that there’s a lot of value in achieving at least a certain level of truth to natural appearances, since it gives you a good foundation to work from. I know you wouldn’t aruge with that. The last few days I’ve been relaxing on accuracy of drawing and concentrating on atmosphere. I used to work a lot more loosely before at times, but it’s struck me that now I’ve ‘broken’ my block and relaxed a bit, I’m really appreciating the time I’ve spent on accuracy. I think perhaps that looseness works best when it’s been earned through accuracy first. Perhaps you can say the same for colour.
Hi Peter,
>We want it all don’t we? Pleasure but not abandonment, accurate but not stiff, master of technique but not slave to it. Paintings that are alive!
Funny, but very true. Especially the part about technique. That also has been at the top of my mind lately. Relaxing on accuracy has actually proved to be quite difficult for me, and I’ve burned a fair few paintings trying. It’s convinced me more that, as necessary as I think rigorous practice is, a balance of approaches is probably the most healthy way forward.
Interesting that you’re moving away from the small pieces. Will you still be updating your blog with mew pieces? I’ll keep an eye out. I’m sure most people reading this know about you, but just in case someone doesn’t: here’s Peter’s blog. Some great recent work there by the way Peter, “The Bridge” is a standout piece for me.
Point taken about the emotional element being what separates painters from engineers. Or, at least, some painters. I do think there’s room for many different approaches, and some lean more to what you might call poetic content, feeling, than others. I’d like to think personally that the time I spend trying to improve my technique is spent with the goal of being able to produce not just more convincing pictures, but ones which can communicate a feeling better. But I’m not always sure what that feeling is 🙂
>There is no end or solution only a process.
Absolutely right.
Hi Sadie, nice to hear from you again. Thanks for sharing your perspective. It’s very interesting, especially since your work is so well realised, and you’re far from lacking in the technique department. I have at least an idea of how much work it takes to get to a level where one can paint as well as you can.
Do you think perhaps that the thinking and planning is best employed in exercises, and that it’s better left there when you’re trying to create a piece of work? That thought brings me back to the learning model which someone mentioned earlier, unconscious competence, and also to what I was saying just now about looseness being earned through accuracy. I wonder if the real benefit of all the practice and exercises is that it frees you from worrying about it too much when you actually come to paint picture, and can be guided instead by – whatever it is you want to be guided by.
Hi Paul – Thanks for your kind words, but it’s no false modesty to report that I agonize constantly and lament my lack of training and tear my hair out over my crude imitation of true masterly technique. I only have well-developed mantras because I’ve worked so hard to get around my crushing self-doubt – I lean on my philosophy very hard every day, and many days I feel I fail anyway.
But the days there is a glimmer of achievement… that makes it all worth it, right?
As to your question – I admire your self discipline to do exercises. I should, because it would help me to isolate the problems instead of trying to solve all the problems at once, which costs me. But I approach every painting with the same level of control and attention. My attempts to “loosen up” make ridiculous paintings I have to wipe down. I think trying to be conscious of my approach makes me look at the paint more than the subject, and I end up circling a black hole.
Anyway, you’ll just do it the way you do it, which is exactly the way you should. I find it ironic that you talk of my “technique”, because I consider you to be far more advanced than me. I think we recognize in each other an attempt to do a thorough and honest investigation, which is all any of us can hope to do, right?