| Author | Message | ||
  drollere |
knowing when to stop, for me, is a question of balance, for example when you balance on a bike or on a downhill rush of skis. in painting as in skiing, balance is not something you can put into words, but something you learn at a level below or beyond words: you can either do it or you can't, and you can do it better in less challenging situations. in painting as in skiing, balance often means fighting very strongly the natural thing to do, which is either to add more paint or to fall down. in painting as in skiing, balance is greatly helped by not going faster than your level of skill, or your certainty about what is coming next. (you fall down in painting or in skiing when you keep going even though you can't see a clear path ahead of you.) in painting as in skiing, the only way you learn how to keep your balance is to paint or ski a lot. (sutureself said this already.) simple rules, such as Webb's "telegram" idea, always are relevant only to a specific style of painting. it wouldn't work for dense painters such as brady or rocco or pearlstein. they each have their own sense of balance, and stick to it. | ||
RAINBOW |
I am new to this board but...I thought I was the only one. I painted a landscape for my hubby's office recently and he has dared me to touch it again. What great help this thread will be. | ||
Kukana |
No Fair... | ||
Mike Scott |
I quit. | ||
Kukana |
Mike and Dake, with both of your dry wits we'll all be in for a treat (Or trick??) Interesting....about 6 weeks ago at a show I was wanting to demo to "entertain the crowd and suck them in!" I quickly, without thinking much, drew out a group of women standing around me. I started splashing on paint. I really had very limited colors on the piece, not by plan but just by virtue of the fact that I was talking to the women and laughing and having fun with them. The piece turned out really nice. Everything about it was spontanious and fun. I decided to send it to print and put it out for sale. I had forgotten about it and hadn't written anything to go with it. (All my WWW have stories) At the last minute, I quickly wrote a story and put the whole thing together and took it to a show. It instantly went to the top of my best sellers. Now my point is, maybe I've simply been trying too hard rather than trust in myself and let the creativity flow. When I did, I turned out something really good. For me, spending hours struggling over words and paint don't pay off near as much as just letting it flow. Now, if I can just learn how to apply this. NOw I sit down and say to myself "be spontanious...BE SPONTANIOUS...BE SPONTANIOUS Of course..then I can't! I'll post the piece in question in the posting are so as not to slow up the 'upload ' on this thread. K | ||
Mike Scott |
Dake, just joking about not posting painting. I'm new to this internet/discussion board thing; my extra-dry sense of humor doesn't translate too well. Actually, I feel like I hit a goldmine on this discussion board with all of these artists who are willing to share their wisdom. I am learning when to quit on a painting, but I don't think I'll ever learn when to quit joking. Thanks. | ||
Mike Scott |
What Dake said about changing the way you see things really makes sense. My best paintings have usually come to me when I have had a clear or unique vision first. At those times, I don't think about which brush is best to use, etc... The painting almost paints itself. Wish that could happen more often. I suppose the answer is to paint a lot and to constantly cultivate ones skills of observation along with that more nebulous quality of "inner vision". | ||
John Preston |
Wow! If this thread was in book form we'd all be ordering it from Amazon... what a privelage to tap into so much artistic wisdom. Thanks All! | ||
Dake |
Thanks Suture, I agree that no amount of advice can imprint the upon your visual language banks as well as constant painting...at a point along the journey you begin to recognize automatically, without having to ponder whether you have anymore to say. But if you get distracted by other events in the pull of life's tide(working in a non art field, family time etc), and leave your brush ...even for a few days it takes time to reestablish that link with your finely tuned visual hard drive. I compare painting to elite athletics. That few 100ths of a second improvement from your previous best takes as much preparaton and training as it took to make the team in the first place. It's good to hear such advice from pracitsing artists of Sutures ilk, it does so much to reinforce my own thread of thought on such matters. Mike...doh! Don't let me stop you from posting stuff mate. It really gives the board environment life...whether it's your best or otherwise. You should see some of the stuff i've done lately...pushing myself to change, trying to develop a broader ouvre...most of my recent work hits the bin before i get a chance to photograph it. It's slow progress. The hardest thing to change is how you see things not how you do things. | ||
SutureSelf |
I used to suffer from "one stroke too many syndrome," where you bring the painting to a certain point of completion and then decide it needs just one more stroke and suddenly you see that instead of improving the piece, you've only brought it one step away from its point of highest quality. Now you're at a crisis point. Do you make another stroke in an effort to correct the "one stroke too many" or do you leave well enough alone? More times than I'd like to admit, I've made the correction stroke, only to find I needed to correct the correction. Pretty soon, the painting is corrected into the dumpster. Over time, I've learned to leave well enough alone. More and more, I've even learned when the next stroke would be the one too many. My "good words on making yourself STOP" are these: paint a lot. Only through practice and experience will you learn exactly what visual information you want to communicate in a piece and how to communicate it in an economy of work. That's kind of vague advice, I know. But only you can know when you've said what you've intended to say. Once you know that, you'll know when to quit. Picasso said that the difference between a good artist and a great one is knowing when to stop. | ||
Mike Scott |
This is a very interesting topic. Recently, I painted a scene consisting mainly of sky and white clouds as a kind of excercise in shading clouds. The painting is rather mediocre, but I could not stop looking at it. After a couple of days, I figured out why. I quit at the right time; something I don't often do. It was as if the bright white of the clouds grabbed me by the collar and said, "Do you finally get it? Save the white, dufus!". Dake, I'm not posting this one! I'll wait 'til I have something more solid. | ||
carol |
another point picked up from Jeanne Carbonetti was, if you hover over you painting with paint brush in hand, and don't know whats going to happen... put the brush down and look at the painting with different mats. let it rest a few days, or however long it takes. | ||
Kukana |
I learned a valuable concept at a workshop once, from Frank Webb. He said that your painting should be a "Visual Telegram" In otherwords, convey to the viewer , in the fewest strokes possible, your message. The less, the better. When your work has declared it's message, its done...It doesn't need footnotes,definitions and explanation. I have used this theory many times, put my brush down and walked away. Sometimes I even go so far as to mat it and frame it even before I think I should and I'm almost always glad I did. If I'm not, nothing says I can't take it out of the frame and tweek it some more. But at least I haven't overworked the painting. | ||
Dake |
If you're painting in the studio, have several on the boil at once. You tend to be less precious about any one piece and can put them aside to dry or for time consider. Put them up, sit back have a coffee or a beer, listen to some music make yourself comfortable and contemplate the totality of the work from a distance so that detail or lack of it doesn't distract you. If you're still not sure put it away and repeat the process in two days. If you're still uncertain if it's finished... IT IS! Even if do this you will sometimes still go back and overwork things....so i think that if you have to think about what to add then it doesn't really need it. I find that if the composition and light are good and you have preplanned your painting then this completion anxiety happens less.A value sketch can't be overvalued. | ||
Judy3x |
Hi, I have ruined more paintings (which I turn over and practice on the back)by continuing to paint long after I should have quit. Does anyone have any good words on making yourself STOP? Thanks, Judy |
