Letters to Students #8
This 'Letters to Students' blog post is composed of replies I wrote to real people who were studying with me at the time. they have been lightly edited, mostly for clarity.
I use more defined edges to make the focal point compelling and help lead the eye around, softer edges to downplay the subordinate areas.
Nothing pleases me more than to see someone developing an objective eye for their own work. The point of all this teaching is to teach people to teach themselves.
Don't worry at all about the 'copy'. Although I can't say I've done that much of it myself, copying a painting has been a time honored tradition for artists wanting to learn and many museums still allow artists to set up their easel and do that as long as they don't make the copy the exact same dimensions. Your arrangement was enough different that I didn't really recognize it as such anyway. Unfortunately I don't have a reference photo for that piece ---otherwise I would share it. Typically I don't take photos of my set ups since I'm doing the work from life. If you are on Facebook and go to my timeline, I think you can scroll back several years and find a couple of step-by-step demonstrations showing my process. Also if you go to my website and click 'articles' there is a scan of an article I wrote for The Artist's magazine with a sunflower demo. I have to add that a lot of people are out there copying without the primary intent to learn from it and so some self honesty is a key thing.
The way I work in oil is almost more like a watercolorist's approach, where the luminosity from the canvas or paper is an integral part of the painting and not something to let go of without a good cause. For that reason I don't work in layers although I will do minor finishing touches after the painting dries. Basically , if I don't have the parameters and edges of an object the way I want to leave it at the end of the day--I wipe that area off and tackle it again the next day. Often I am painting on top of that 'ghost' of an image and it doesn't get entirely covered up. When doing something perishable that might change quickly I try to complete that part but also establish some other static object such as a vase so I have something stable to relate to when I take up work the next day.
You are getting solid light and shade on fruit and bowls and now the challenge is to do the same on flowers. It isn't necessary to have every single flower defined well but getting a few key blossoms lit up and believable can help carry a whole bouquet.
Under the best of circumstances , learning to paint in one's own voice is an intense journey and there is only so much the teacher can do. Thankfully there are people out there such as yourself who recognize and appreciate the opportunity and are willing to put in the effort it takes to learn and improve.
It takes a lot of concentration to see things clearly and that can be mentally exhausting. That's just when the other part of your brain (that thinks it knows exactly how to do everything) makes the case to take over. You stop looking and start inventing ,noodling and blending, hoping to get lucky or just relying on something that worked in the past. If instead, you just keep concentrating as long as you can each time you will eventually get faster, it will feel more natural and you will build stamina. Alternatively, giving into the bad habits will strengthen those bad habits and make it more difficult to keep your concentration going the next time. It's a never ending battle within your brain but once you trust that this seeing thing can produce good results it does get easier. Letting go of the results can make this process actually work better. That's because when you have one eye fixated on the finished product, it only leaves one eye left to focus on what you are doing.
Leaving out the unessential has been a goal for many artists from all sorts of disciplines --music, dance, etc. Not simplifying just for the sake of simplifying, but so that the essential has room to speak.
