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In my opinion, the best art looks effortless, as if the strokes of paint had flowed effortlessly from the brush, resulting in a wonderful, "simple" creation. Sometimes that actually happens, as if the artist had been touched by a magic wand and given a gift. I live for those days!

 

More times than not, however, it is a more complicated process. Often, many hours of contemplation and visualizing, sketching, and seeking sources for accuracy must take place before ever putting brush to canvas. If done correctly, the result should be pleasing to the eye, flowing nicely from one point to another without apparent hesitation, creating a "simple" beauty.

 

To my eye, less pleasing art is created when it looks labored or contrived. If the viewer thinks, "Wow, that must have taken a long time and it certainly looks hard to do. What skill!"...then I, at least, am not a happy artist. I want the viewer to feel the same joy as I felt when I have really enjoyed the process of creating the painting.

 

Summary: It can be hard to make it look easy.

This month I did my annual studio cleanup. Although I keep my workspace fairly neat and organized, after about a year things get out of hand and I have to look again at what to keep and what to toss.

 

My paintings seem to fall into four categories:

                    1. Unsuccessful (thankfully, not too many)

                    2. Appropriate for a gallery

                    3. Successful, but not appropriate for a particular gallery or art show.

                    4. Not appropriate for a any gallery or art show or even donations...but I like them.

                   

For paintings in the "unsuccessful" category, it's pretty easy... toss them, making sure that they are shredded with a razor or sawed in pieces with a jigsaw so garbage looters don't retrieve them. This actually happened to a friend of mine. She put a few dud paintings out for garbage pickup, and neighbors came by and started to walk away with them. Don't  be dejected that you painted a blooper (see the quote from Matisse in the above title), just get rid of the evidence. You may ask why we should we not give them to a charity for auction purposes? The answer is easy: many people will see that painting and remember it as supposedly representative of what you do. That is not a memory you wish them to have.

 

It is easy to know what to do with a painting that is appropriate for a gallery. If the gallery has a sufficient supply of your work, hang extras at home and save them for a later date, donate to the particular charity you have chosen to work with, or use as described below. I have also sold paintings from my home and studio walls quite a few times.

 

I live in a city where Western art (cowboys, Indians, horses, cattle, etc.) is very popular, and some people purchase and collect only paintings of this genre. Additionally, there are many galleries and art shows that hang only Western pieces, so you have to choose your subject matter appropriately for these venues as well. Probably most artists have experienced having a piece rejected for a particular venue, only to have it accepted - and even sold - by another venue. Judges are human, or sometimes it just depends how many pieces of a particular subject matter they have to choose from. Lesson learned: if it is good, but wasn't chosen, just try again.

 

How about those paintings that were fun to paint, that maybe remind us of a person or an event, or that are the interesting result of an experiment? Sometimes we have an "Aha!" moment. We try something new, either by accident or as an experiment, and we like the results. Or we try a new way to work with materials, or we simply had fun. We may recognize that the creation is not necessarily our very best work, or that it is not suitable for  various venues, but we still want to keep  that painting, because it marks an awakening of some sort. I keep those paintings so that I can remember that moment and what I learned and so that  I can build upon this new learning experience.

 

Enjoy the process!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This blog is not designed to be instructive, it is asking for opinions! Marketing experts currently advise artists to create a brand of their painting style and/or subject and to stick with it in order to increase a memorable I.D. in the art world. The example everyone gives, of course, is of  the late Thomas Kinkade, "Painter of Light" (although 1775-1851 painter J.M.W. Turner was the original "The Painter of Light". He painted landscapes that were known for their natural lighting effects.) Kinkade, love him or hate him, ran an extremely successful art business around his paintings that were nostalgically illuminated by glowing lamposts and warmly lit cottage windows. I am not an art snob - I enjoyed looking at them, although I haven't been inspired to buy one. I wonder, however, if this self-imposed advertising ploy became a sort of artistic prison.

 

Here's the issue: If we create a brand for ourselves, are we then locked into that definition of our work? Several years ago I found that I was drawn to painting dancers. I like the way the clothing moves and the colors and vitality of the images. On a whim (and before I had ever heard of "branding") I put at the top of my website the words "People in Motion"...it just felt right, at the moment. However, and particularly of late, I have begun paintings of other sorts of subjects, such as horses grazing in snowy fields, or a reclining figure in a kimono, or even cats! So, if I depart from my usual subject matter of brightly-colored figures with lots of motion, and do something completely different, am I ruining my "brand" - even if I hadn't originally planned on having a brand? If I have to stick with a brand in order to properly advertise myself and my work, won't I get bored, and won't my creativity be stifled?

 

Frankly, I am not sure that I want to categorize myself. I like to have the freedom to experiment and to try new things as the spirit  moves me. I am also curious how proponents of this "branding" suggestion would advise.

 

 

I just read a quotation attributed to Columbian artist Fernando Botero, now living in New York, who is famous for his very "well-rounded" figures, particularly of women: "When you start a painting, it is somewhat outside you. At the conclusion, you seem to move inside the painting." Although our styles are very different, that quotation speaks to me. As common procedure, I can imagine Botero plots out the mechanics of his painting, where the figure will stand, what activity will take place, what color scheme would be appropriate , and so forth . He would start drawing, or laying in colors as he normally does, and the painting would be "somewhat outside" of  him, as he put it. However, at some point he would begin to feel almost "inside" the painting, maybe even adjusting his original plan as he becomes more and more a part of it. Maybe he tests various colors to suit  his new understanding, or removes some parts of what he has begun, trying a slightly different pose as he now is experiencing it. Botero paints figures, but landscape painters go through a similar process - moving vegetation to more appropriate spots, darkening  shadows, and so forth, as they begin to feel themselves in that setting.

 

I just finished an oil painting of "a woman riding a horse down a hill in a snowstorm." The words in quotation marks were what I envisioned this painting to be "about". I first planned  the scene, plotting the size and shape and subdued colors. In other words, my painting was still "somewhat outside me," as Botero has described the process. I was intellectualizing the painting, careful to render an accurate horse and rider, chosing colors that were appropriate to the dullness of a darkening snowy day, and so forth. Having experienced many snowstorms as a child growing up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I eventually began to sense the feeling of cold air and  wet snow on my face, my skin remembering how it would tingle with the cold. As Botero might have put it, I "moved into the painting." I could feel that the rider's upper legs would get the brunt of the snow's chill settling on thin denim jeans,even though this rider's legs were partially protected by wooly "chinks", or short chaps. I knew that  farther back behind the horse and rider, the sky would be darker and colder, with snowflakes beginning to obscure those evergreens in the distance, a thickening veil of obscurity between the trees and the rider. The snow would appear less dense on the rider, as the viewer sees her from a closer vantage point, with fewer intervening flakes than those veiling the trees in the distance. I have been in such a setting and everything felt right.

 

The more one can "move inside the painting," as Botero stated, the more fulfilling will be the effort, and the truer will be the result. 

There are several very good reasons why some artists chose to paint from a limited palette, using a small number of paint colors rather than a large assortment of colors. A typical limited palette might include anywhere from three to under ten colors - artist's choice. I use six colors plus white. For the plein air painter, there are fewer tubes to lug around but, even for the studio painter, if you can make do with fewer tubes of paint and still like the results, it can be a good thing.

 

Working with fewer colors can save money, because good quality paints can be purchased in larger quantities. I have been using Classic Artist Oils in 10-ounce tubes at great prices, which fit into standard caulking guns from the hardware store. I find the texture of this brand of paint to be excellent, but that is certainly a personal decision.

 

Using a smaller number of paints can result in a more cohesive color scheme, since all colors used for the painting are created from the same small base of colors. (It is here that I have to insert that, since I paint a lot of dancers in costume, I sometimes have to augment my basic six colors with a tube of man-made colors. For example, for the vivid purple ribbons of a Mexican dancer's ruffled dress, I just grab a tube of dioxazine purple. Trying to mix a good purple from a limited palette's red and blue works very well for "purple mountain majesties", but it is too dull for show biz.)

 

Truth be told, my real reasons for using a limited palette are the following:

1. I have a lousy memory for names, which includes paint color names. I would never remember which little tube of all the existing variations of ochre I used the last time I painted,  for example, a palomino horse. With my limited palette, I just take yellow, red, blue and white in varying amounts and make my own ochre.

 

2.I love the "Mad Scientist" feeling of creating my own color by mixing a "magic potion" from my limited palette. Nearly every color I need I have been able to create from the few colors I have laid out.

 

Each artist needs to choose which colors work the best for him or her in a limited palette. Below, I have listed my choices, set up as I lay them out on two sides of my palette box, - also a matter of personal preference:

 

1.Titanium White     2.Sap Green     3.Thalo Green     4.Ultramarine Blue

 

5.Cad.Yellow Medium

 

6.Cadmium Red

 

7.Alizarin Crimson

 

 

Today I paint exclusively with oils, but it wasn't always that way. I began by painting portraits in pastels, and I enjoyed that. I don't remember why I initially chose pastels, probably mistakenly thinking it would be an easier medium. However, one fateful day, while on a tour of the moot  courtroom at the University of Arizona Law School, I spotted a wall containing small portraits of all the United States Supreme Court Justices to that date - lined up, framed 14 x 11 inch paintings of jurists in black (almost exclusively men), going back many years. My guide, the head of the law school, groaned as he pointed out the portrait of a young Justice William Rehnquist, who had by this time become the Chief Justice of the United States of America. He lamented the fact that the portrait depicted a younger Justice Rehnquist with long sideburns nearly reaching his chin, a la the 1970's, and not reflecting the gravity of his present status. Smelling an opportunity, I foolheartedly volunteered to paint an updated version of the Chief Justice, if they would obtain an official photograph of the gentleman as a reference, and I would do it for free (anticipating further commissions down the line, which did transpire).

 

Only sticking point: the hanging portraits were all done in oils, and I had never painted in oils.  Not even once. Small detail. Not easily deterred in those days, I bought the most promising "how to paint with oils" books that I could find in the local art store, read them quickly, bought the oil paints recommended, and brushes, canvas, etc., and plowed ahead. You will have to remember that there was no internet at that time for me to refer to, so my speedy sources for information were limited. Besides, I wanted to complete this painted quickly so that maybe I would be hired for other - paid - commissions. I had confidence in my ability to render a good likeness, so all I had to do was learn how to use a brand new medium. That's all! I believe this is called "chutzpah".

 

Bottom line, I got the job done, it was a reasonably good portrait - at least as good as most of those already on the wall and not bad for a first effort with oils . Months later, I was introduced to the Chief Justice when he attended a University function. The painting was displayed on an easel in the reception area, and I chatted with "Chief" (which is, apparently, what a chief supreme court justice is called in informal situations, once the long formal title had been used in introductions). Another person came up to us and, to my utter dismay, asked him what he thought of the portrait of him that I had painted ... with me standing right there! Can you imagine a more tactless question? Bless his heart, Chief Justice Rehnquist - brilliant man that he was - did not miss a beat. He graciously replied with a smile, "I think the portrait is wonderful, particularly considering the subject." What a fabulous response, and what a lovely gentleman he was, and how lucky I was to have had a chance to meet him...and paint his portrait.

 

That was my first experience painting with oil paints, and I have stuck with and enjoyed that medium ever since, although I rarely paint portraits nowadays. Luckily, youth and  ignorance had allowed me to throw caution to the winds and take a chance. And I learned that sometimes you just have to jump in and "give it a shot"  if you want to succeed in any business, including art!

 

*gold

 

 

 

 

In his blog, "Slow Down to Speed Up", painter and author Robert Genn states that artists who are faster painters tend to produce livelier work, although he cautions that, in the wrong hands, speedy painting can just result in "messy stuff." I am a "speedy" type. It is an ideal day for me in the studio if I fill the entire canvas with paint, judge it to be close to my goals, with finishing touches applied the next day - adding maybe a dot or two several days later when I have a fresh eye. Coincidentally a Facebook questioner asked me yesterday how long it took me to complete a painting, and this blog's title is the answer, the thirty years being roughly how long I have been painting.

 

Speed with the paintbrush is not so much a goal of mine as it is the quirk of my personality. In "real life" outside the studio, my problem-solving tends toward a fast analysis, a swift plan of action, and a quick resolution. Not surprisingly, there are some weaknesses with this plan, some decisions being ... less than perfect. On the whole, however, this procedure works for me pretty well. Other people make spectacular decisions (and paintings) by taking the time to ponder and consider and "edge into" their decisions and their creations.  Neither methodology is right or wrong - just different. When I first began oil painting, I agonized over every color and stroke, taking an eternity to complete a painting, and ending up bored before I finished. With the confidence derived from more  knowledge and experience, my timing then came precariously close to the slap-it-on-wildly plan, producing lots of work, some pleasing, some tossable. But, at least the pace seemed to suit my energy level.

 

After both extremes of the momentum pendulum, I have found a rhythm that suits both my goals and my temperament, something which all artists need to determine for themselves. A fair amount of time is spent in envisioning the painting I am planning, not sketching, just thinking of colors and contrasts, sizes and shapes, and everything that has to do with the vision in my mind of what I want this painting to say. After this contemplation time - lasting maybe a day or two while I am finishing up something else - I quickly sketch a very loose layout of my idea with one color of very thin oil paint - no details, just scribbles. Since I paint mostly figures, proportions and body positions are key, so I let the canvas simmer overnight to reassess in the morning.

 

The next day I make any needed corrections and finally allow myself to paint with abandon. The serious mind work done in prior days, I can let it rip! Lots of  paint on the brush, loose strokes, already imagined colors and  poses...I can immerse myself in a happy flurry of painting. I don't  blend much or soften too many edges, I like the strokes to be obvious and vibrant. The attached painting "Pirueta Azul" was painted in this manner, dried and framed in two days (I use a fast-drying medium),  brought to the gallery, and sold in twenty-four hours. I like to think the viewer enjoyed participating  in the painting by being able to see the process as well as the results.

 

I also wish everything sold in twenty-four hours!

 

 

I love painting dancers! The subject is uplifting, the colors excite me...and things are moving! My website says "People in Motion", because that is what I enjoy painting. 

 

The problem with painting dancers is that you can't simply pose a model and paint - the dancer is not a pot of flowers or a nude on a sofa. Dancers must  be photographed in motion, or the skirts hang down, the arms look forced, the facial expression loses its vibrancy. If a dancer is not moving, a dancer is not dancing...simple as that. How does an oil painter depict skirts twirling, hands and feet expressively moving through the air? Artists have as  many different ways to do it as there are artists, and these are mine:

 

The background: It may not seem obvious, but I believe that the atmosphere around the dancer should show subtle movement. I generally choose  two or three colors and paint a loose layer behind the figure, slightly overlapping one into the other in a swooping motion of some sort, but not too obviously. It is not supposed to attract the attention of the viewer, but to simply set the stage. After all, when a dancer is moving around, the light and the air moves around the figure too, and the background should hint at that. The photograph of this blog's painting, "Lady in Black", shows the background as quite dark, but looking closely, you can see a brushwork pattern of black and green.

 

The clothing: Dancers choose their clothing in part to emphasize their movements. This painting  is a flamenco dancer, and the ruffled skirts of these dancers is often highlighted in bright color to draw attention to the swishes and swirls of this dance. If you were to imagine the same dancer  carrying out this twirling motion wearing blue jeans you would see how the effect would be lost. Because the viewer of my paintings is not watching the performance live, it is my job as the artist to show how the fabric moves, and I do that by directing the color strokes in the direction of the movement. Notice how the bright red of the ruffles shows the direction of the spin. Also, to take it a step further, I sometimes drag a thin bit of the color at the end of the ruffle into the background in a slight swoop, as if to depict where the ruffle had just been. Have to be careful not to carry this too far, however, because it could become distracting.

 

Expressive hands: The hands are extremely important to the dance of the tango. You can see  that I have used this same technique of extending a bit of color of the fingertips into the background, emphasizing the intricate finger movements of the tango... basically, showing where the hand was a nanosecond before you viewed the painting. No such strokes are around the face, as the head is in a still position.

 

The other day, a collector of mine said she could "hear the music" when she looks at a folkloric dancer painting of mine that she owns. And that was music to my ears!

 

 



Artists inwardly groan when people say something like: "It must be lovely just painting every day...so calming and relaxing." In this scenario I picture an artist painting daintily with a long-handled brush (for elegance), wearing an unsullied and attractive artist smock, and perhaps a beret, gracefully dabbing precious touches of paint on the canvas, sipping a bit of wine for added inspiration. Classical music plays softly in the background, and one breaks often for tea and crumpets. Right.

 

More accurate is the concept of painting as problem-solving and answering questions: What do I need to paint first - what needs to be where? What IS that deadline, anyway? What size canvas should I use, what shape, what color theme, light or dark color key (practical side items: do I have enough oil paint, do I need to stretch or cut a canvas, how much time to I have in the studio today, and how much paint should I mix up, where is my tube of cadmium red, is yesterday's work dry enough to paint on?) If this is a commission: will this blue match her sofa? This is  a joke among artists, of course, but people often do have preconceived ideas about what they want. One of my personal favorites is, "Make me look younger, please." Even non-commissioned work has its stresses: will the gallery like this, will anyone want to buy it, did I order a frame yet? How did that blob of cadmium red get on the floor, and who walked through it? Where is the white cat, anyway?

 

More typically, instead of smocks and berets, I wear cutoff jeans, oil-smeared tee shirts, old golf socks, and rubber gloves. My beverage of choice is diet cola, I listen to a radio news network rather than classical music (I know, I am weird), and my brushstrokes are not dainty, but energetic swoops of juicy color. Winston the cat saunters by wearing a bright streak of red.

 

But there must be something mystical in painting, or why do we do it? Something draws an artist to create - heaven knows, we could probably make more money doing something much more prosaic. Something makes us go to our studio every day to make art, subjecting our fragile egos to comments and sometimes rejection, waiting for a kind word here and there. And a sale...here and there. I love it!

As the old saying goes, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Certainly true. But I suggest that naming a man-made work of art should take into account your purpose for giving the work a title.

 

There seem to be differing positions on naming or "titling" works of art. Some artists take the simple route, and pick the obvious descriptive title: "Aspens in Fall", "Garden Flowers", "Little Girl in Green", and so forth, which is fine as far as it goes. It certainly is a no-surprises, user-friendly approach, and the prospective viewer probably has a good idea of what he is about to see. Kind of like naming a white rose "White Rose" instead of  "Peace Rose."

 

Then there are the artists that take the minimalist approach to the titles they assign to a piece of work. For example I read that Jackson Pollock (famous contemporary artist of the 1940's) in the earlier part of his career gave his paintings semi-descriptive titles...probably more descriptive than his work actually was. His paintings are recognized by their size, their interesting spatters and drizzles of paint as it landed on a huge canvas, and their hefty price tags. Later in his career he titled one of his paintings "Lavender Mist, No.1". After that, he decided to just number the paintings as he created them, No.2, No.3, etc, skipping any descriptive wording altogether. By that time, however, he was so famous that he did not need to lure viewers into considering his work.

  

 

For the rest of us mere artistic mortals, I suggest that we might want to consider taking time to create titles for our work that catch the eye of the viewer and make him/her want to find out what it is all about. For example, in my painting "A Blue Note", the title could be interpreted in at least three ways: obviously the young lady is reading a note written on blue paper; also, judging by the expression on her face and the glass of wine on the table, one could guess that the content of the letter is not humorous; and finally, the whole scene has a slightly somber or "blue" mood to it.

 

So, don't just call a rose "A Red Flower That Smells Good", or a painting "Painting number 5". Make viewers curious and get them involved and maybe  they will contemplate your work a little longer than a quick glance..