Too Busy Means Too Busy

I have been too busy to blog, and am days late in getting this one out. I have been too busy to spend more than 15 minutes each day drawing (though I do break loose a couple of times a week for a few hours of drawing). Too busy to paint (just touch-ups and adjustments to my mostly finished paintings). Too busy to live life, and enjoy being an artist. Yuck!

I have been working hard at trying to increase my art business. I am venturing forth to teach art, as well as increasing the number of shows and competitions, I am trying to increase the number of drawing and painting drop-ins and classes. The business side of art is pressing the bounds of reason in terms of the time I am spending doing it. The business side of art is starting to eat its young (creating art), and I am not happy with that.

I know we are all busy, but I have always seemed to be exceptional busy, and I do not know how I create this problem, but I have a gut feeling that I do. I am struggling with balance. I need money to live, and I need time to create art. There is never enough of either. And then their are friends and family that I really want to see and be with. And what about me time? Time to heal and time to rest?

I am feeling tremendous pressure to do everything, as I keep having to shed activities. I know this is a big transition period for me time-wise. With September, all my usual fall, winter and spring activities are starting up again and this plus show schedules and contests are all coming alive again after summer.

I presume that this is a challenge we all face as artists. It is hard to balance life, and art. Right now I feel I am not doing enough art, and art is the reason I do the other things. I just have to put first things first, arrange my life around creating art, and then arrange the rest of my time to do the things I need to support my creating art. I have to get into my artist mindset, and out of my everyday mindset. What is life without art? Empty.

Using Drop-in Sessions to the Best Advantage

I had an active week this week, and soon the Fall will arrive, and with it I go back to my non-summer schedule. This includes drop-in drawing starting in October, and continued sketching outdoors, and continuation of a portrait drop-in drawing session I found this summer. I will also start going to the university when the weather gets too cold to draw outside, and go to their drop-in drawing as well.

I find the drop-in sessions to be lots of fun, and in many respects more productive than workshops. I love drawing and painting people, so the drop-in sessions are perfect for me. I find there are several types of drop-in sessions, and each has its own special value and things I can learn.

The life drawing drop-in session is what I would call a traditional drop-in session. It lasts about two hours, and we have a model. We begin with 30 second poses, which force us to draw quickly and just get the gesture of the figure. Then we go to 10 minute poses, then 20 minutes, and finally in the end we get about two 30 minute poses. This kind of session I find good to focus on fundamentals, getting the basics right, and observing the model for tricky areas to draw. There is not enough time to paint, and no time really to finish the drawing during the session. Sometimes if a drawing is really good, I might go home and finish it, but I really prefer to complete the drawing with the model there for reference. These sessions are great for honing drawing skills, creating masses, placement of the figure on the page, and learning to work fast.

The second type of drop-in I had a chance to do in the beginning of the summer was a long pose drop-in. Here the model took one pose and after each break she resumed it. These poses are usually sitting or reclining, because of the time the model spends in the pose. This session lasted about 3 hours, and there was plenty of time to paint, which I did. I still did not finish the painting, but I completed enough that I just had minor touch ups (artistic touches, not drawing or model related touch ups) to do in my studio. This kind of session lets the artist reach the finishing stages of the painting, and yet the time limit is still short enough that you have to work fast, and accurately the whole time. No photos are allowed at any of the drop-in sessions, so I have to get it right while I am at the session. It forces me to work directly from the model for the whole painting.

The third type of drop-in I have participated in this summer was what is called a portrait drop-in. This lasts two hours, and the model maintains the same pose for the whole time. This is less time than the long pose, but because there is only one pose for the two hours, I found the time adequate to draw a head and shoulders portrait, but not paint or do the whole figure. Others did paint or do the whole figure or both, but I do not think any of them were able to complete their piece in the time allotted. I was lucky, I got into the zone, and finished a little early. I had to resist the temptation to fiddle with the finished drawing in order to fill up the time and I did. I just started to cleanup quietly during the last ten minutes so as not to disturb the others. In this session, when we have a professional model, the model is nude, so it is like the life drawing sessions in that sense. Alternate weeks, one of the participants models, so we get a draped model, which I would like to do more of. I find clothing difficult to do, and drawing clothing needs lots of practice too.

I am sure that there are many other types of drop-in drawing sessions that I have not had a chance to experience yet, but I found these three provided a rich mix of opportunity that exercised unique skills with each type of drop-in. This kind of practice is a must for artists interested in drawing people or portraits.

In Awe

I did not post a blog last week, and I regret that. I wanted to, and sat down to several times, but got interrupted and never did so I made this week's blog a top priority. Having done that, it is amazing that I just had one of those artistic experiences that puts me in awe.

My neighbor came over and asked if I wanted to go to coffee. We went to the local coffee shop and got our coffees, but I could see my neighbor was restless. Excess energy, something. We decided to take our coffee out to a local park to walk and enjoy the views.

My neighbor and I are very close friends, and were walking in companionable silence. The park is Whiffen Spit in the village of Sooke, British Columbia, Canada. The spit is between the harbor and the Straits of Juan De Fuca. This morning there was a dense fog over the water-the spit was engulfed in it. I felt as if I was in my own little world, safe and sound. It was very beautiful - mystical, as you made out the shape of some boats through the fog, and could see the seabirds clearly. I have done this walk many times before by myself, but having a friend with me made it more companionable and relaxing.

What I found as I walked along in silence was that I felt in awe of what I was seeing and feeling. I could smell the salt water, feel the cool ocean breeze, hear the crunch of gravel under my feet, and see the sea grass waving in the wind. Each step revealed a new and beautiful vista that just begged to be painted.

Then the revelation came. I could paint for the rest of my life, and paint with my utmost skill for each and every painting, and never even start to reach the beauty of what I was seeing and smelling and feeling. I felt in awe of all the beauty that surrounds me and that I take for granted each and every day. I often laugh at myself when I go to sketch a very beautiful bay, and say to myself disgustedly "not another wonderful scene with sailboats, mountains and beautiful water." I have become jaded to the beauty that surrounds me and overlook so much of it in search of that perfect scene to paint.

My awe gave me great comfort. I can paint and draw for the rest of my life, and my efforts will be no more than a drop of water in the ocean of beauty surrounding me. The real gift of my art is that it is teaching me to see that beauty, to appreciate it, and to incorporate it into my being by painting my feelings towards it.

I find that I often get frustrated at my lack of ability no matter how good I get. I am learning a lot and very quickly, but what is left of my life is just not enough time to even come close to what I want to achieve. This is the curse, and the blessing of art. I will never run out of challenges, or beauty, but I will never even approach capturing in my paintings the beauty and feelings that have so awed me.

The solace I get from all this is that somewhere, somehow, my paintings will convey what I saw and loved to another human who did not have my experience, and in that way I can convey the marvels of my world to others. Words could never begin to convey my feelings the way painting can.

This gives my life purpose and my endless practice at drawing and painting purpose. Art will challenge me for the rest of my life, and help me appreciate the world around me. Sharing my art with others will pay back to some small degree the joy I have gotten from the sharing of other artists throughout the centuries with me.

Copying is Good for Learning

For the last week, I have been copying drawings by Kate Kollwitz. I really like the feeling and strength of her images. I was hoping if I copied her images, I would get a clue as to how she created so much feeling in her drawings.

Copying master drawings is a traditional art training activity and can lead to some powerful learning. Once I copied a Van gogh and felt really angry. It was the marks I was making that brought up the feelings. Another time I was copying a Holbein the Younger drawing, and realized the drawing just was not looking right. Then I put in a mark so faint I could not really see it, but once done, my copy looked right. (I was copying Holbein the Younger because of his mastery of the deft marks he made.) I copied a Tintoretto drawing of a figure, and I was amazed the next time I went to life drawing. I could only see the figure and its outline in the way that I discovered copying the Tintoretto.

I was surprised with what I have learned so far copying the Kollwitz drawings. As I did the copying, I was highly impressed with the free movement of the marks, and the limited use of lines. The drawing is quite elegant and minimal, but very strong. I got the feeling that the broad marks used to create mass were the main marks I was making. Light was left as white paper, and the darks created the shape. Less is more. The darks were just enough, and the lights said so much without additional marks. The few lines drawn were perfect, and again just enough to finish the drawing.

I think copying these drawings taught me a lot about how to see light and dark, to use mass as the main element of my drawings, and to limit my lines to only those necessary, and draw them so accurately that they say all they need to.

As for the feeling, I get the sense that the drawings were done pretty quickly and directly. I find in my own work that if I can work quickly and directly it is easier to get the feelings down then when I polish the work, and slowly lose the feeling in myself and the work as well. To work this quickly and accurately, the drawer needs very strong skills in making the marks he or she wants, and needs to draw very accurately.

There are very powerful lessons to be learned by copying master's work. Of course, the artist should never claim the work as their own. If I show my Kollwitz copies I will indicate "After Kollwitz" to give credit where credit is due. The value in copying for me is the learning, not the drawing.

Note that the Holbein copy I referenced in this blog is displayed with the blog entry "Going Back to Move Forward".

Progress is Measured in Many Ways

I was pleasantly surprised when I thought I finished my last painting. I let it sit in my studio a day, and then looked at it again. I found what I thought was small correction, made that, and I became aware of two other small corrections that I did not see the first time. I made those, and was surprised to see three other small corrections that needed to be adjusted. Then two more, then one more, than two more, and so it went for some time.

Why did I not see all these corrections the first time? Why do I keep discovering new corrections after I make the ones I did see? It suddenly dawned on me, that I kept discovering new corrections because the earlier set of corrections created the need for the new corrections. In other words, my painting is a whole. If I change any one part of it, I change the dynamic of the whole painting. Doing this creates new deficiencies that I need to correct, or that become obvious after I have made the first ones. This is a wonderful, but annoying process. I think I am done, only to fix the problem and find it created new ones, and that this goes on for sometime. The wonderful thing about this is if I am making my corrections properly, the process eventually converges on a solution where I am happy with all of them and the painting is done.

The hard part of this process is to keep going. I find I try hard to convince myself at different points that everything is okay. That I have finally got all the changes I need, but then there is that nagging in my gut that is telling me I am not really happy yet. I think not having the perseverance to keep going until the painting truly feels done is what defeats a lot of novice painters. It is easy to feel tired of the painting, nervous that if I make the change I need to, it will destroy my painting, or that making the needed change will destroy a beautiful passage I have fell in love with. The answer though, is the painting as a whole is what I must be happy with, and a beautiful passage in the wrong painting is not a beautiful passage because it does not fit.

Now that we have talked about the hard part, let's talk about the really hard part. This is when I go to bed at night after checking the painting numerous times, and I liked the way it looked every time. Then in the morning, I get up and put the painting in the kitchen so I can look at it during breakfast, and it still looks good to me. And the same for bedtime, and any time I look at the painting for the next week. I declare the painting done. I put the painting in a frame, and maybe I hang it temporarily in my bedroom until the next big show.

The really hard part comes when I have done another painting or two, and then glance at the painting in the bedroom and think maybe its not done. In the last painting I did this or that, and perhaps this painting needs some of that treatment. This self-doubt is really hard to deal with. I think it springs from a growth in painting technique over time and several paintings. Yes, maybe what I can do now is better than what I could do when I did the painting in the bedroom, but as a whole the painting in the bedroom satisfied me at that time, and as a whole, it is consistent skill-wise. If I start monkeying with it at this point, because of learning I have done since I finished the painting in the bedroom, stylistically any changes I make will look just a bit out of place, and to get it right I really should repaint the whole thing.

At this point, I may no longer be as happy as I was when I first thought the painting was done, but it is history, so don't change it. This is a mistake that plagues novices as well. They have to keep fiddling with a painting until it is destroyed or loses all of its life. It become so polished that it looks dead. This is something every artist struggles with all the time and with every painting or drawing -- when to stop.

Not giving up too soon, or not fixing something that does not need fixing is a very important lesson to learn. If others say a painting is done, carefully consider their opinion. It may be that I have just gotten into the habit of making changes, and need to stop before it is too late. In the end, though, only I can determine when my painting is done, and that is a skill that requires constant honing.

Art is Feeling

I had a profound art experience the other night. I have always had troubles connecting with my feelings. I have trouble expressing them, and even feeling them. Art is a visual way of communicating on an emotional level. And how can I do this, if I can not even connect with my feelings?

About half a week ago I was visiting with my art teacher (she challenges me a lot and to the core). I was fixing a computer problem. In return for this favor, she took me down to a hollow on her property were we could draw trees. I hate drawing trees. I only want to do people, but I understood this was a gift in return for my help, and important to her. So off I trucked to draw trees, again being challenged to expand myself by this wonderful teacher.

As we walked down into the hollow, she told me this is where she had had her daughter's funeral. Now, the thought of one of my daughters dying before me is unbearable. To know someone else I highly respect had gone through this was heart rending.

As we drew, she mused about coming to the hollow again, and drawing to work through her grief. This got me to thinking about another artist I knew, who disappeared from all art functions for about a year, who drew hundreds of drawings of children playing, to work through her grief. I always admired artists who could deal with emotions by drawing or painting, but I never could and this troubled me.

Two days later, I was at home, and previously had been copying Kathie Kollwitz drawings. The power, the emotion, and the simplicity of line really captivated me, and I wanted to feel what she felt when she made her drawings. This night, I decided that I was going to try to draw like Kathie Kollwitz from a picture of my deceased mother.

My mother had senility for years before she died, and at times could not remember who I was. This hurt. Hurting was not rational, but it still hurt any way. To me, it was like my mother was already dead, but I kept visiting each time hoping she would remember me, at least for some of the time.

I sat down and started to quickly draw my mother. I wanted to tap directly into my emotions, and not fuss with composition, etc. I never intended this to be a showcase drawing, but a primitive attempt at displaying my sorrow for the loss of my mother. The picture I chose was one that had that empty stare you see in the eyes of the senile. I remember the day of the picture well. There was a party at the nursing home, and Mom was having fun, eating ice cream, but the stare was there for the first time.

As I finished drawing the party hat, and started to draw the eyes, I remember hoping that I could capture the blank stare, so sad, yet so indicative of her state. As I started to draw the eyes, my emotional dam broke. I was overwhelmed with grief. I was crying so hard, I couldn't see to draw. I kept having to wipe my eyes so I could see, and could only make one mark, then I had to wipe them again. And my sobs made it impossible to draw any kind of steady line. I was torn apart, but was driven to get those eyes right. Then I realized I had, because they were what broke my dam. I finished off the mouth and chin, and they are not very good, but that wasn't important any more.

I was surprised when I was done. I was very angry. I pushed a coffee table across the room, threw my pencils around, and just caused havoc until I could get a little control. I ended with lemon tea, and pacing around the house for over an hour. I carefully covered the drawing with my Kathie Kollwitz book, because I was afraid to look at it again. It was too painful.

Two days later I have looked and the feelings are not there any more. There is a healthy regret and sadness, but not the overwhelming emotions of grief and anger I first felt. This was a first for me, and a big step towards getting my feelings into my art. The really nice part, was the healing that comes with art for those of us blessed with the gift.

Art and Art Shows

I went to a large art show last Saturday. There was 124 artists, and thousands and thousands of visitors. It was quite well attended. I stayed the whole time, and walked the many blocks from one end to the other of the show. There were all types of artists, and all levels of skills.

I was struck by one observation I made -- of all the artists and visitors there, I only saw about three pieces of art sold. There probably were other sales as well, but I would be willing to bet there were not many sales made.

Given the economic climate I am sure that art sales are down just like sales in lot of other areas.

This made me think. In all the years I have been in art, I have been in many shows -- juried shows, outdoor fairs, small shows, big shows, and public art displays. I have donated art to charity auctions and one thing that seems to be consistent among all the shows, is that a good show may sell about 11% of the art represented, and that is not much.

Yet, at most art shows, there are lots of people looking at the art, talking to the artists, talking to each other about the art, and in general there is a festive atmosphere.

At first I was upset for the artists. Some were my friends, and I know some made a big effort. One even hired an model for the show, and was doing a painting demonstration of her. It seemed so unfair that they were putting out so much effort, and the visitors just came to look and enjoy, but certainly the vast majority had no intention of buying.

Reflecting upon this situation further, I started to reconsider my thinking. Yes, people come to enjoy themselves, and yes, most did not come to buy, but they did come to see the art. The visitors appreciate art. Perhaps for some visitors, they could not afford art, and this is one of the ways they can enjoy art, even if they can't own it.

Like public art, these shows bring art to the public as well. I think these shows are really more than just opportunities to sell art. These shows are a way to give lots of people a way to enjoy art, to see art, to promote art in the community, and for the artist, a chance to become known, and to get positive feedback that we all crave and need.

I guess what I am trying to say is that these shows, and public art displays, are important events in an artistic lifestyle. It is a chance to share our creativity, our vision, and bring our work to those who really appreciate art. It may be hard to earn a living at art, but it can still be very rewarding.