Oil Painting

When I first left the studio to pursue plein air several years ago I would look for a variety of subject. Real variety. In the course of events I might paint a winding road, a lone tree, a bicycle, two old men in a diner, a summer lake at sunset, a tractor in the barn, a cow, a fence row – anything that caught my fancy.  I ended up with a lot of mediocre paintings that had nothing to do with each other.   My world was already full of mediocre paintings and I certainly didn’t need to add to that pile.  They lacked verisimilitude.  Veracity.  I didn’t know any of my subjects well enough to communicate my vision.

In my former life as a studio photographer I created reality from pretty much nothing every single day.  I once had a client come to me saying he needed an image to illustrate a wholesome breakfast.  To him this was an oversized muffin and a hot cup of joe.  This was the 80s and that was pretty much a healthy diet in those days.  So I gathered the props and baked up some blueberry muffins.  A dozen muffins gave me one very nice example; not perfect but near so.  Blueberries everywhere. I sliced it in half, placed it on a white saucer, then laid on a square of butter softened just enough to say piping hot. This was flanked by a fabric napkin (light blue), a diner type butter knife (generic, but proud), a cup of black coffee (very black with a small grouping of bubbles to say ’fresh, fresh, fresh!’) and a check from the waitress marked ‘Thanks, come again, Becky!”
I shot this on 8×10 transparency film, processed the image, and then delivered it to the client. He looked it over and said, ‘Boom! That’s it. Love it!  And my favorite thing…  the little pile of crumbs on the plate under the muffin.  That screams verisimilitude”.
Yes, verisimilitude – the appearance of being true.
Well, the whole thing was dripping with verisimilitude.  It had everything that read reality – the right props, the right angle of view, the right amount of selective focus, and the right lighting for a morning sunrise.  It had story. He had it right to single out the crumbs because in the end it is the detail that made the illusion hold up.  Without those crumbs, it would all have been sterile and certainly less convincing.

That experience has stayed with me and I think of it as I make paintings. To pull off a representational image one needs to have verisimilitude – a judicious and efficient use of details. If there is enough information to allow the viewer to relax and understand the point of view then the artist can play with how that image is presented, and do it with abandon.
Drawing is a big deal; Probably more important than anything else. Without a good foundational drawing representational imagery falls apart and doesn’t hold veracity.  No one believes it.  A poorly drawn building, or old tractor, etc. can quickly devolve into a cartoon version of itself.
Drawing is mark making that describes how objects fit in space. Line work – thick and thin – can tell the story on shadow and highlight. Edges, real or implied, depend on line.  My preliminary drawing is generally loose but heavy on perspective issues.  I can move things around easily to get the composition worked out.  As the piece develops I come back and re-establish my lines and edges.  You know, build the edges, knock ’em down, and rebuild.  But that structure, that foundational structure, needs to be there throughout.  If I have a painting that just doesn’t work it is almost always because the drawing has no interest or is just flat out wrong.

When I go out into the field I look for the unusual point of view.  Everything has perspective whether figure, landscape, or still life and that needs to constantly be heeded in the building of the image.  If that perspective is accurately built into the foundation one can hang paint all day long on the thing. Monumentality is all in point of view.  Angles – find angles that pull the eye into the composition.  And if possible, exaggerate those angles.  Stretch the thing and make it dynamic.  I look for ways to distort without a noticeable distortion.
I paint a lot of vintage cars these days.  I can’t tell you a lick about engines; my brain doesn’t go that way, but I do dearly love the look of an old car, particularly those that have gone to seed.  They are such wonderful still life subjects with almost universal appeal. It’s my ‘go-to’ thing to paint.
I recently had a solo show.  I wanted a cohesive series of work that would tell a story as well as showcase my interests and vision.  So it was cars.  I had over 40 plein air paintings of cars.  I edited this group down to a manageable number and then fleshed out the rest of the wall space with larger studio paintings done from photos, and field studies. What I came to realize in the course of things was that I was developing a comfort level with my subject that freed me to put more energy in the way I put marks on the page.  And that is really my thing, anyway.

I’m a process guy.  I came of age when DeKooning, Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns were still making stuff.  Those guys knew how to throw paint and create new ways of seeing art. Put it down, scrape it off, and do it again. Abstract Expressionism is a long way from the direct observation of plein air but the mark making should not be dismissed.  If the drawing is sound then the mark making process can run through the clover and give us new ways to see the world in front of us.
The point of all of this is to know your subject.  Know it inside and out in the same way you might know a piece of music. Own it with confidence. Your viewer will appreciate it.  They won’t know why. They’ll start with a comfort level that keeps them engaged with the image.  They’ll get it – and then they’ll want to dive in for the good stuff.

 

“Sketch everything, and keep your curiosity fresh.”   – John Singer Sargent

“The more I paint, the more I like everything.”    – Jean-Michel Basquiat

As do you, I love to paint. I love nature, the experience of being outdoors. And I love many of the things I see around me, from morning to night: the sky, the light, clouds, people, water, plants, the city.  And then I travel and see more new things. So I want to paint them all! I usually find my easel set up in front of a landscape, but not always. There are just so many things to see, to enjoy—life will not be long enough for me to paint all of my ideas!

But wait a second: before I get trigger-happy, perhaps I should consider the advice of those more seasoned than myself when it comes to selecting subject matter to paint. Let’s see: “Paint only in series, to explore a subject thoroughly.”  “You don’t want any failures—only paint what you’re good at.” “Build your brand by painting one thing, so your collectors will know what to expect from you, and buy that.” “Practice so you can build a formula for making a quality product—that way you’ll know exactly what to do every time you come to the easel.”

There’s some wisdom in those words, for those who appreciate routine, want to avoid making mistakes,  are satisfied with their current work and don’t have the need to try anything new. After all, the choice of subject matter is personal, and one could reason—just as in the case of a musician—that the choice of “the wrong song” could end tragically.

I’ve painted the landscape most of my life. It’s not that that subject is part of my “brand”, really. And the subject is so vast that I will never be able to paint it just the way I intend during each and every session.

I must say here that I’m not creating a product, though, but original art. If I’m going to spend my life painting, then I’d like my paintings to mean something. And in each of those paintings, I would like there to be more going on than just a rendition of an object, or several objects. How about mood, or emotion, the particular way light plays on a surface, or simply the creation of a striking design? Pierre Bonnard held that, in any painting, “The principal subject is the surface, which has its color and laws over and above those of object.” Edward Hopper left us word that all he “ wanted to do was paint sunlight on the side of a house.” In setting my own course in choosing exactly what to paint, I am beginning to believe that, as Theresa Bayer puts it, “The subject is a means to an end, the end being excellence in artistry.”

When I look at the work of other artists, I am always intrigued not only by what they paint but how they paint it. It appears that Richard Diebenkorn was curious in that way, too, when he said, “One wants to see the artifice of the thing as well as the subject.” Contemporary artist John Burton echoes the counsel of J.S. Sargent above when he advises the artist to “Draw everything, so you’ll be afraid of nothing.”

You might have seen some of John’s  unusual concept pieces and world-building paintings that he has created, along with Bryan Mark Taylor’s ideas along those same lines. Both artists produce wonderfully large landscape paintings as well. But it is not so much their subjects that attract, or is the hallmark of their work: it is the years of perfecting their craft that comes through, be it a painting of a space vehicle, or a pinnacle in the wilderness. It’s that confidence from the daily solving of painting problems both technically and intelligently that we see in their works, no matter the subject.  Jim McVicker is another versatile master- artist who comes to mind, and who also paints a variety of subjects: boats, portraits, figures, cityscapes, still lifes, et al. He isn’t afraid to try a new subject because well,  he’s just not afraid to try it. As Jim has said, “There are a lot of things you could be afraid of in this life, but painting is not one of them.”

When you come to think of it, creating a painting is not a life-and-death matter, on the level of a surgeon operating on a heart, or a weapons specialist defusing a bomb (although I know that I have at times approached blank canvases in this manner). I want to be free within my own mind to try new things, to discover more of the world and why it appears the way that it does. And I also desire to improve my artistry, by expanding my repertoire.

This year I have intentionally done four things in my work as an artist that I have done very little of in the past. I went to New York so I could paint some cityscapes. I returned to watercolor painting as an “adjunct medium” and joined the National Watercolor Society for an upcoming show. I created three large-scale acrylic paintings, the largest I have ever done. And this month I took a still-life painting workshop with the still-life master, Jim McVicker. I am believing that these forays outside my Main Line will have cognitive, instinctive, and technical impacts across my body of work.

Bottom line: when we choose a subject to begin a painting, there are at least two levels of reality operating. One is the physical subject of the painting that we see (the Model). The other reality is the Design that we feel and create from that subject.  In Art, of course, the Design is superior to the Model.  No need to have anxiety about trying a new model, if you can design it the way you wish. At the very least, we could gain information or develop a renewed confidence that could be applied to our larger body of work.

So let’s go—it’s time to try something new!

We’re inspired. Paint flies. Ideas run rampant and our only fear is one might escape before we get it on the canvas.  And then…nothing. Black nothingness. A post-apocalyptic wasteland. We’re left alone staring into our brain and see a gaping hole of rubble where yesterday flocks of ideas beckoned. The paintbrush feels like it weighs a hundred pounds and every stroke feels painful and kludgy. Panic starts to set in. Elvis…has left the building.
Stage 1 – Standing in front of a white canvas – paralyzed.
Stage 2 – Raw panic.
Stage 3 – You’re in a ball on the couch stuffing chips in your mouth reaching for the remote to binge watch Netflix.
What is it that inhabits our brain on one day pouring out ideas, energy and inspiration and then just up and leaves the next day? Connection to Spirit? A muse? Does it leave us or do we leave it? Will it ever come back? I stopped in to see an artist/gallery owner one day whose work I admired. She always seemed like an endless fount of inspiration. Year after year, fabulous work would consistently appear on the walls.  I sat down across from her. She looked up at me, said nothing for a few moments and then said slowly, “I’ve…got…nothing. It’s gone. There is absolutely NOTHING there.” There was a tinge of panic. It was a confession and plea. A confession of the secret we all carry that we aren’t the magical beings some people think we are. We aren’t the eternal fount of creativity with never a blip. It was a confession of the fear that the well was dry, that the ideas would never return. Just then, a mini-epiphany exploded in my brain, and though it didn’t diminish my empathy for her, it also made me feel suddenly not so alone.  This happens to all creative people. Perhaps more often for some than others. It may not be comfortable but it’s also not the end.
So, what you can do about it? How do you find your way back to productivity and inspiration? First, chill-ax. Take a breath. Stop begging your muse to come back. Your muse is just not that into you at the moment.  Quit acting like a jilted lover. Put a chip clip on the bag of chips, get off the couch, pick up a brush and just do the work. Be willing to do the work even when you feel….NOTHING! Feelings come. Feelings go. In true Elvis form feelings, “Ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog.” Okay, that sounds dreary but when you understand the nature of inspiration, the nature of your muse, you’ll be able to trim your sails, navigate the seas and actually begin to enjoy the vagaries of the wind and waves.
Think of your muse as a lighthouse. When it completes its circuit and its beam falls on you the world lights up. We then expect it to come to a grinding halt and forever shed its light on us. When it moves on in its never-ending arc, leaving us once again in the dark, we throw a tantrum. We greedily want it to stop doing its job.  We forget it left us with a gift before it continued on its circuit. A new idea. Something to be curious about.
Let the light move on, get comfortable with the twilight. Know that as the light swings once again through its arc, it’s searching the horizon, it’s gathering new ideas to deliver to you when it next visits.  Our psyche, our creativity, our passion needs rest periods. It’s only fear that the beam will never complete its sweep and fall on us again that sends us to the couch with a bag of chips.  When you learn over time that yes, Elvis has left the building, BUT he is scheduled to return, we can relax and use the time for a number of things. Reconnecting with nature. Doing some introspection as to why, exactly, you paint. Practicing some core skills. Doing a focused study – the painter’s version of a musician doing their scales. In other words, spend/use the time productively so that when the beam sweeps around and falls on you again you’ll be prepared!  Half of the secret of life is being prepared so you won’t miss the moments when they present themselves.  When you’re alert and fit you can race that train to somewhere awesome and grab onto the handrail as it’s leaving the station on a new journey. If you’re asleep on the couch you’re going to miss the train.
So how about some pretty pain-free techniques for breaking out of a serious funk:
1. This is counter-intuitive, but try making yourself NOT go in your studio. Limit your painting time to something ridiculously doable like 30 minutes. If even that sounds painful make it 15. Set a timer and stop painting even if the fog is beginning to lift and things are going swimmingly. The magic moment will come when you desperately want to work past when the timer goes off. Stop anyway. Stay hungry my friend. Pretty soon you’ll begin passionately hating the timer. Passion is back…even if it’s in the form of glaring at a timer. You’ll fling the timer aside and paint on into the night. The funk will have been banished like a roach by the light.
2. Set a specific intention. Choose a reason to walk into the studio. ‘I will learn about…’ ‘I’m curious about…’ ‘What would happen if…’ ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to try…’
3. Use your tantrum as energy. Put up a dart board in the studio. Throw darts. Then throw paint…at a canvas. Be physical. Stand up to paint. Paint with energy. Don’t slouch in a chair. Jump up and strike the power pose. (Feet wide and strong, chest up, arms thrust above your head in exclamation and face pointing defiantly upwards.)
4. Figure out what it is that’s intimidating you. Hit it head on. Wrestle it to the ground. Stop staying safe.
5. Demand nothing of yourself except to go through the motions. Mix a little paint. Sit on the floor and put your art books in alphabetical order for no particular reason. Lie on the floor, stare at the studio upside down and imagine what life would be like walking around on the ceiling. Congratulate yourself on whatever small thing you managed.
I’ll leave you with an image: “Havana Nights.” It turned out to be one of my favorite paintings of the year. It was waiting for me on the other side of some impenetrable wall. There was a literal war going on inside me. I had no idea what to paint. My internal tantrum was palpable. Finally, by sheer will, stubbornness or exhaustion from my own mental battle I made myself walk into the studio, pick up a brush and make one mark. Then another. Then another. Then there was no stopping. Paintings want to be painted and we sometimes just need to allow them to manifest themselves by the simple act of picking up a brush no matter how we’re feeling.
No one is exempt from periods of struggle. Don’t worry. Pick up your brush. The magic always comes back. The lighthouse doesn’t stop shining. And remember…sometimes our best work waits for us on the other side of the greatest resistance.