|
Originally published on the North Coast Open Studios Website 2006
ABOUT PAINTING
What separates a good painter from a great painter? What makes one painting
of a subject clearly superior to another painting of the same subject. I've
put a fair amount of thought into this as I've tried to become the best
painter I can be. I've tried to understand what my favorite painters do
that makes their work so good. I compare my work to theirs to see what I can
learn. I don't want to copy them but sometimes seeing how they solved a
problem gets me back on track for coming up with my own solution. As the
saying goes, we all stand on the shoulders of those who came before.
Here are some of my current thoughts (which will undoubtedly change
over time):
The ability to draw well and compose competently is a given with artists who
know their craft. This includes both representational and abstract painters.
It's what happens afterwards in a fusion of inspiration, intention and craft
that lifts great art into the realm of visual poetry.
Intention:
What made me want to paint a particular subject in the first place? It is
important to keep that in mind so I don't wander off-track. A great painting
has one idea and everything else is subordinated to it and supportive of it.
If things "go south", as Scott Christensen (a great landscape painter from
whom I took a ten day plein air workshop in 2004) would say, is it because
I lost track of my idea? I need to step back, remember why I was grabbed by
the subject and evaluate what I've done in terms of expressing that. If
I can't really recapture the passion and enthusiasm of that initial moment
and use it to drive the work, then the painting may be still be pleasant,
competently painted and quite saleable or may it fail altogether (and you'll
never see it). But it won’t be great.
Craft:
Why is one painting breathtaking and another so-so? Command of the craft of
painting is probably at least part of the answer. It has taken a number of
years for me to feel that I have started to have a decent understanding of
how to mix oil paint and apply it to a surface with the appropriate brush.
Richard Schmid, in his already classic book, Alla Prima, enumerates
five components over which the artist must have some mastery in order to
paint well. They are drawing, composition (or design), value, color and light,
and edges. (What follows are my thoughts about them, not his).
Drawing is having the hand-eye coordination and motor control to make
the marks I want to make the way I want to make them with whatever media I'm
using, whether it's a pencil or paint drips. This takes time and steady,
consistent practice to develop and, for most of us, it's not easy. But there
is absolutely no substitute for the ability to draw well. Period. The power
it gives an artist to express their intention is limitless. Truly great
painters are great drawers, too. They may do it with a brush instead of a
pencil, but, really, painting is drawing anyway.
I love to draw. I've done it since I could hold a pencil. It's how I learn
what something looks like. The information goes up my hand and into my brain
for storage and future retrieval. Just taking a photo doesn't cut it. It's why
I still do all my preliminary work with pencil or charcoal and paper instead
of moving cropped photographic elements around on a computer screen, like
I hear quite a few artists do these days. But something really good happens
when you draw it yourself. There's a transmutation which starts the process
of making the subject yours. Photos lie. They distort. They flatten everything
in them. They are a chemical emulsion on paper or plastic or they're bits in
a computer (if you've gone digital). They are not ultimate truth, just a
popular inexpensive kind of representation. Once you understand and learn to
compensate for their shortcomings, they are very useful. As an animal artist,
whose models don't hold still, they are indispensable, but I still draw from
live animals whenever I get the chance so that I will know better when the
photos are leading me astray.
Design/Composition (for the purposes of oil painting) is the arrangement of
the picture elements on the surface to be painted. Many, many "rules" of
design or composition have been formulated over the years, but it really
comes down to developing an "eye" for what "looks right". I have found that
while my fifteen years as a graphic designer seems like a unfortunate
diversion sometimes, it did develop my eye. As much as I've struggled in
(most) other areas of picture-making, my teachers through the years have
stated pretty consistently that my design ability was one of my strengths.
So at least I've had that in the bank as one area where I do have confidence.
Design is one of a number of ways to guide the viewer's eye through a
painting. Some divisions of space seem to be automatically more pleasing to
the human eye than others. Asymmetry is more interesting than symmetry, which
is why the beginner's tendency to plop the subject smack in the middle is
soooo boring. But, sometimes, it's exactly the right place. It all depends...
In the end, I, the artist, can do anything I want as long as it works. Who
decides what "works"? Everyone who views the work, including me. Who's right?
Who knows. What "works" changes over time, too. Frustrated? Yeah, me too.
I just do what works for me as best I can and hope someone else likes it
enough to want to hang on her wall.
Value is the relative lightness or darkness of an area separate from
its color. If you've ever seen a color painting reproduced in black and white
and it still looked good and was intelligible, then it means that the artist
got the values right. Value is great for getting the viewer to look where you
want them to. It's not mysterious. The eye will tend to go to the area of
greatest contrast, so I sometimes use this "trick" to control the center of
interest. For instance, I'm painting the head of an African buffalo which is
half in light, half in shadow. I can put my lightest light on the shadow side
and the head will pop out. Or I can keep a background area painted in close
values of low contrast so that you won’t notice them as much.
Color (and light) is what we all tend to see and have opinions about.
But it isn't always what it seems. Colors only exist in relationship to other
colors. An individual color can look lighter or darker, warmer or cooler
depending on what the adjacent colors are. There is "local" color, the color
of a thing unaffected by any particular kind of light, but paintings in which
the subjects are only rendered in local color are not ones I personally find
particularly interesting or creative. For me, and I think for most really good
representational painters, it's all about light and its effects. I don't so
much paint a subject as paint the light on it and then tweak that to my own
taste to express my intention. There is a level of abstract thinking here that
I personally find a lot more interesting and endlessly more challenging than
literal interpretation. I don’t think much anymore in terms of something
being brown or blue. The colors in my paintings result from a thinking process
that may go like this: "That shadow area of the grass has gotten too warm and
dark. I need to make it cooler and lighter." I know that the local color of
the grass is "green". That's the "hue". What gives richness and variety is
varying the value and temperature within an area. Paintings in which this is
done well are the ones that you can look at with pleasure forever and see new
nuances on every viewing.
Edges are what happen when you make a stroke with a brush. They can be
hard, soft or in between. They are a transition point and, like in the natural
world in which the edges between two habitats have the richest variety of life,
offer a wide variety of opportunities for creativity and personal interpretation.
Awareness of and control of edges are, I think, an indicator of the highest
level of craft in painting. They are another way to lead the eye. Harder edges
will stand out against softer ones. In a landscape, the farther back in the
landscape one goes, the softer the edges because of the effects of the earth's
atmosphere (atmospheric perspective). A variety of edges in a painting adds
visual interest and richness.
AND A FEW MORE THINGS...
Orchestration is one of the things that I now realize that my work has
been lacking in the past. I learned about this from Scott Christensen. It's
the final bringing together of the whole thing, a balancing of all the elements
I've been discussing. Learning to do this has slowed me down. It is taking
longer to "finish" a painting now than last year because I now have so many
more things to keep track of. I stop, look and see that an area isn't
sufficiently resolved compared to the surrounding areas. Then I summon
whatever mental energy it takes to come to grips with it and complete it. No
evasions or excuses. When I don't see anymore of those areas, then the
painting is "done".
Judgement and choices. A painting is really a series of judgements and
choices. Good ones make good paintings, great ones make great paintings, poor
ones, well, you get the idea. Good working painters make good choices most
of the time. How do you develop great judgement and how do you know when you
have? I think that having your work critiqued by knowledgeable, articulate
people who are sympathetic to what you are trying to do is extremely helpful.
Looking at and analyzing lots and lots of original art is also necessary. An
artist needs to see the best work possible as often as possible to train
his eye. One needs to learn what the best work looks like and figure out why
it's great. And then apply those lessons to one’s own work.
Style. I've struggled since I started painting in oils toward the kind
of finish and consistency that I see in the works of my favorite painters. It
has seemed until recently like I've started from scratch with every piece. I
haven't been worried about having a "style" per se since I've known since art
school that an artist's style is the inevitable result of all the decisions
they make while doing a body of work over time. I didn't have to consciously
set out to invent one. But how to get there? How to reach the point of knowing
where I wanted to get to when I started a painting and having some idea of
how to go about it?
The thought that occurred to me one day was that every artist, in the end,
has to create her own language, with its own "grammar" if you will. It's the
answer to the question, "How do I make the marks that say 'leaves' or 'fur'?"
Maybe it's a literal rendering of each detail, maybe it's abstract slabs of
paint. What matters is that it is how I do it and since each one of us is
physically and mentally unique, our marks, if we are honest in how we make
them, can’t help but be different than anyone else's.
What I knew I wanted in my paintings was a juicy surface quality that looks
painted, not rendered. An almost calligraphic stroke that could be varied
depending on what was needed to describe the subject. (See Tools, below)
Tools: Brushes - I started out with fitches (flat with a rounded end),
moved to brights (flat with a square end, but shorter than flats) and now use
rounds after I've done the initial lay-in with brights.
I've tried a half dozen brands and have currently settled on Silver Brush
Grand Prix bristles.
For me, one of the great challenges of painting is to see how much information
I can pack into a brush stroke. Can I describe form, value and color without
losing the drawing? And watch those edges while I'm at it. And yes, I want
style points too.
After years of brush lettering in the sign trade with sign quills, which are
round, it finally occurred to me that maybe I could put that motor skill
training to good use for making my marks on canvas. It was so liberating and
it was FUN! Rounds were what artists had until about a hundred years ago.
Hals, Sargent, Sorollo and other painters known for their bravura brush work
largely used rounds. So why not try it myself since I had used them before for
lettering? And, to be honest, all other things being equal, I know that
brights and flats are used by lots of artists these days and that using a
less common shape of brush gives my work a different look and, I hope, helps
it stand out.
Palette: After working with Scott Christensen(who required that we use
only four colors at his workshop), I really simplified my palette of colors.
I mix a lot more colors in a much wider variety of values and temperatures
than I did before. My base palette is (from Scott) titanium white, ultramarine
blue, Rembrandt red medium and cadmium yellow pale. Using just these four colors
totally shifted my sense of what was possible and really moved me away from
trying to duplicate the colors in a photograph. I also learned from him how to
use restraint and mute colors so that when you really need to punch an area,
you can. It was a revelation. I have since added back Winsor-Newton
cadmium orange, yellow ochre pale, Rembrandt transparent red oxide, cerulean
and turquoise blue one at a time as I really felt I needed them. I will
sometimes add raw sienna or my beloved sap green, but generally mix my own
greens now along with my greys and earth colors. I find that the additional
colors are desirable for animals, which Scott doesn't paint.
Stamina: Doing this well ain't easy. Painting at an easel can be hard,
tiring work when you give it everything you've got. I started out in a local
sign shop when I was 22 years old. Six plus hours a day of coating out 4x8's
(no runs, no drips no errors), pouncing patterns, installing signs, digging
post holes, hoisting around ladders and jacks and whatever else a sign painter's
apprentice had to do tuckered me out (and got me in the best shape of my life).
Painting is at least as much mental as physical and six plus hours at the easel
sometimes almost tuckers me out more. It requires constant focus, attention
and mindfulness and if I just don't have it on a given day, then there's
paintings I don't even try to work on. This isn't a matter of waiting for
inspiration to strike. Serious working artists work whether they feel like
it or not. But I'm not going to successfully orchestrate a painting to finish
if half the violin section is missing that day. So, I'll work on one that
isn't at a critical point, draw from photos, do thumbnails of ideas,
check email, pet the cat, play with the dog, tidy up... there's always
something in the studio that needs doing.
Oh, honey, that's such a beautiful painting. It looks just like a
photograph. I hate it when someone says my paintings look just like a
photograph. I know they mean well, but why should the successful resemblance
to a photographic image end up being the ultimate criteria for judging the
worth of a painting? It's probably at least partly the fault of the modern
art movement of the last century when producing a work of art which could be
appreciated and understood by the average citizen was a professional kiss of
death. It's not that easy to learn how to appreciate and evaluate the quality
of a painting anymore. But, if you're reading this as a non-artist, I'd love
to have you tell me how much you like the colors or the effect of the light
instead, as long as it's true.
Some of you may have noticed that there has been no discussion
of the content of my paintings or their meaning or even tales of suffering and
starvation. I would only say that my first love is painting animals and the
habitats (landscapes) they live in. They provide me with endless delight and
inspiration. I hope that other people will like what I do and I'm flattered
when someone loves a piece enough to buy it. But any deep meaning is what
you find in it.
Finally: One answer to what takes a painting to the highest level,
what makes it a memorable and a maasterpiece is that it has an intangible
quality that some artists call "poetry" or "lyricism". Hard to describe but
you know when you see or experience it in a painting. It can't be consciously
controlled like mixing a certain color, but it happens when the result
transcends the sum of the parts as previously described. Every artist can
aspire to a poetic quality in their work and every artist will have to
discover their own path to it. The journey is the destination.
AT WORK IN THE STUDIO
The Set-up: I have a Hughes model 4000 easel, which has vertical and
horizontal movement. On my right is my paint table. It has a glass palette,
underneath of which is a sheet of neutral grey mat board. Around the edge are
all my pots of brushes. The tubes of paint are in a shallow drawer, ready to
hand. Behind me is a mirror propped on my old easel for checking the accuracy
of my drawing or how the painting is looking in general. On my left is my
computer table. Since I converted to digital cameras I only use prints from
photos taken before October 2004. Everything since then is stored on a hard
drive and accessed by my cataloging software, so I work from images on my
computer screen as a supplement to my drawings. I love the ability to zoom in
and out as needed without doing hardcopy enlargements. With luck one or two of
our three cats will be hanging around, along with Niki, my collie. They're
always good for a little procrastination.
The work flow: I usually have a half dozen or so paintings going at
any one time. If I reach a stopping point because I don't know what to do next
or the whole canvas has been worked on and there is now so much paint on the
surface that if I keep going I'll mess it up, I just move on to the next one
or start a new one. I have a pile of sketches and layouts of paintings I want
to do and I'll either leaf through them or browse my photos.
Music: I almost always have music going. What I choose depends on mood
and what I'm working on. I often like to play African music when I'm
working on African subjects but sometimes It's just gotta be Jefferson Airplane
or Quicksilver Messenger Service. My favorite studio music includes 60's rock,
pre-1940's jazz, Celtic, and anything by Sting, Mark Knoffler & The Dixie
Chicks.
The process: Most paintings start with a brush drawing done directly
on the canvas. If I have an exacting or complex composition I may project
the pencil drawing and do a rough tracing or if the canvas is too big, do a
traditional grid transfer. I then re-draw with a brush, correcting and refining
as I go. Once the basic shapes are there, I lay in the areas that will be darker
values. I'll check the drawing in the mirror and correct as necessary. I
usually use either a warm earth tone or a purply cool tone, whatever feels right.
Then I start to take the whole painting towards the darkest values, usually in
a color temperature the opposite of where I want to end up. I lay in the dark
accent areas like shadows, still keeping the relative value relationships.
For instance, distant hills will still be lighter than the foreground to
create atmospheric perspective I also try to hold onto to the value
relationships of picture planes as explained by John Carlson in his book on
landscape painting. The sky is the lightest, followed by flat ground, sloping
ground and then vertical planes, like trees. Getting these correct is crucial
to creating the illusion of three-dimensional space on a two dimensional surface.
Sometimes I do these big area lay-ins with a flat brush in a random pattern.
Next is introducing a variety of different color temperatures in various areas.
I may go back, re-state and tighten up the drawing at this point if it got
lost in the previous steps. This is the middle point, of adding color and
interest and using value to create form. When I'm done with this step, I
usually let the painting sit for a day or three to dry and to get some
distance. Sometimes what looked fantastic at the time, doesn't work at all
the next day and, happily, vice versa.
Then it's the beginning of orchestration time. Sometimes I'll push one area,
like the animal, as far as I can or I might work all over and bring the whole
thing along together. If I look at it and have a little sour feeling, I'll
pick a spot I'm sure of and start there and usually I can get it rolling again.
By the time I'm well into this stage, I'm starting to put down the last
strokes that will be what the viewer will see, so I focus on those very
closely. This is where I start to go for style points and I can't do it if
I'm tired or distracted. Then it's time to pet the cat.
It's a push and pull to bring it all together. One part looks perfect until
I do the bit next to it, so I have to correct the first bit. I'll check the
drawing again and may find out, like I did on a painting of two young Mara
lions, that the painting looked flat because the back lion's head was the
same size as the one in front so it destroyed the illusion of space. So, I
scrapped out the finished head, which I had rather liked, and re-drew it a
little bit smaller and re-painted it and liked the new one even better. I
work around the whole painting trying to introduce a variety of shapes,
values and color temperatures. Anything that will help tell the story.
Anything that distracts is eliminated no matter how nicely it was painted.
When there don't seem to be any more problems to solve, I'm done.
AT WORK IN THE FIELD
Equipment:
2 Nikon D70 digital SLR cameras with 2gb Lexar Pro flash memory cards
2 1gb backup flash memory cards
5 extra li-ion camera batteries
1 28-300 Tamron zoom
1 70-300 Tamron zoom with a 2x doubler
1 Flashtrax 40gb flash memory card downloader / hard drive with two extra batteries
1 Wolverine 80gb flash memory card downloader / hard drive for backup
1 I-Sun solar battery charger
The idea is to be able to go into a remote area with no power and not have
to depend on recharging from a vehicle. I've ditched having to haul lots of
film around and pay for processing, but now need to make sure that I have
enough juice and backup to power everything. But I took enough images on my
safari to Kenya in October of 2004 to pay for one of the Nikon bodies already
and the pictures were far superior to what I would have gotten with film.
1 Nikon Monarch ATB 10x42 binoculars
1 Leica Televid spotting scope with 20-60x eyepiece and video tripod
Sketchbook
pens, pencils, watercolors
maybe oil paints, depending on location and time available; then I'll have
my Soltek easel too
As an animal artist, my photographic needs are somewhat different than what
I think of as "real" photographers. I need fast ISO's (what used to be film
speed) because I want to shoot without a tripod. So I'm willing to accept
more "noise" (what used to be called "grain") than a pro. I want lots and
lots of shots (I brought home 4980 images from the 16 day trip to Kenya safari
last October). While I want them in good focus, tack sharp images aren't as
critical because the photos are to be used for reference, not as an end product.
I keep everything because even a slightly fuzzy or not so great photo may have
useful elements like the detail of a leg.
However, I want my stuff in great light just like a pro and so, early morning
and late afternoon is prime time for me, too. I'll sit and watch, sketch and
shoot pictures from one spot for hours. I haven't met anyone at this point
who will sit with a critter as long as I will, so I travel by myself.
So far, I've done field work in here in Humboldt County and other parts of
California and Oregon, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Glacier National Park,
Mongolia, Kenya and Canada.
INFLUENCES
Here are some of the artists, both alive and deceased who have awed, inspired
and taught me through the years.
Walter T. Foster art books by Walter J. Wilwerding
Animal Drawing and Anatomy by Charles Knight
Wildlife artists:
Bob Kuhn
Charles Rungius
Wilhelm Kuhnert
Ray Harris-Ching
John Schoenherr
Early California painters:
Maurice Braun
Edgar Payne
William Wendt
English and French artists:
James MacNeil Whistler
John William Waterhouse
Edgar Degas
Alphonse Mucha
American artist/illustrators:
Frank Brangwyn
Dean Cornwell
American painters:
Richard Diebenkorn
Russell Chatham
Workshops with:
John Seerey-Lester
Paco Young
John Wilcox
John Banovich
Scott Christensen
© 2006 Susan Fox
|
|