Struggling

I have been very sick with a flu-like virus and this has made me morose, and introspective.  I am discouraged by the bad economy and the lack of art sales in general at the shows I have gone to or been in.  I am taking this time to hone my drawing and painting skills, and am really making progress, but at times I need to take a break from the disciplined exercise of pushing myself to be better, and just take a little time off to just draw, or paint or experiment.

I have started a drawing a day journal, I have just finished my first month.  Some days I am disappointed in the drawings, and some days I am really excited about them.  I have missed one day, but this journal is for me.  I do my drawing right after breakfast, before I even get dressed or shower, and it really helps set my day.

I find it is improving my drawing skills, and I use it to experiment in areas that are hard, or I still am shaky in. Even with the flu-like symptoms, I have been drawing more, and I do fun demos when I teach my classes.  My serious painting is slowed to a stop until I feel better, catch up on work, and have the emotional energy to make the final touches.  I have a still life that is just hours from the final update, but I can't bring myself to focus on it yet.  I dialog with myself about it, but the energy is still not there.

I have been doing better though.  My art is now working as therapy for me.  I can use it to cheer myself up when I am down.  The process, not the result or the learning seems to be the solution.

I need more money, and have had to start back programming.  This is creative, and I am going to try to increase my cashflow with that, and let my art just be focused on skill improvement.  My goal to to reach the first level of mastery- very accurate drawings that require very minor corrections as I go along, and mastery of the techniques of painting.  I feel once that level of mastery is accomplished, then I can really get started on the second phase of mastering my art, composition, creativity, and subtle statements of who I am and what my art means to me.

Reinventing Myself--Retooling Myself

It has been a while since I added to my blog.  My apologies to anyone who might have been looking for updates.  I, like so many artists, hit a necessary period of reinventing myself.  I became immersed in personal stuff, and changing my sources of income, and this initiated a self-examination of what was happening with my art and where I wanted it to go.  I tried very hard to look into myself to see where I wanted my art to go.
I worked on myself to be better able to feel and present those feelings in my art, but above all, I worked on a clear idea of what I wanted my art to look like, and what I needed to change to get there.

First, I left a free art workshop I had attended for years, one that was good, but not focused or headed where I wanted to go.  I decided I wanted to be a modern realist artist, and paint in the realistic tradition.  I decided that I had learned a lot of bad habits, and jumbled approaches and now was time to reassess my approach, break bad habits and create new good ones, and get an approach to creating art that was organized and progressive.

This was a major undertaking.  I had to search all over for artists that painted the way I wanted to, and taught what I needed.  I studied lots of books, and searched out lots of authors until I found a master artist who creates in a way I want to, and travelled to Seattle to take a week long seminar in figure drawing.  I learned a lot, about drawing, but the most important thing I learned was a time tested way to approach and develop a drawing, and this approach was consistent and could be applied to any and all drawings, and to paints as well.

I then struggled to find someone in my home town of Victoria, British Columbia who taught the same traditional approach, with the same integration into modern life.  I did.  His name is Noah Layne, and I have taken many courses with him, and plan to take many more.  I am working intensely on correcting bad habits and making sound measurement a natural part of me, but most of all I am challenging myself to do my best.

This may all sound well and good, but there is a dark side as well.  I was not practicing enough outside of class.  In fact, my practice was dwindling.  I struggled to find out why, and I just discovered I had lost my motivation.  I had made very satisfactory progress, the learning task is very hard, and my current results are quite satisfactory.  BUT THEY ARE NOT A MASTER'S RESULTS.  Like I have heard said before, the last 10% of a job will take 90% of the effort.  I have also heard it said that most people get 90% to their goal and quit.  That is what I discovered I was doing.

Well thank heavens it is coming up to New Year's and resolution time and I left my beginning New Year's Resolutions on the table.  My partner said my goals of drawing for 1 hour a day and painting for 1 hour a day was too aggressive, given my other obligations.  I responded that I just need to get better motivated, and put my art training first, and the rest of the stuff will have to wait its turn.  I don't know how well or not I will do with this resolution, but I need to give it my best effort.  I love my art.

I think the current economy is a help to me.  I won't be selling much art as things stand, and I do get teaching, but I want to focus on really mastering my skills at drawing and painting until they become second nature to me, and I have reached a master level at these necessary skills.  I feel at that point that I will be able to really start my study of art, the creative part, where I struggle to improve composition, feeling, expression, and communication with those who view my art.

My goals are focused on creating the best possible art I can, and that means mastering technique and then growing into a master's ability to compose, express and use the tools to maximize the feeling and communications.

I will try to blog regularly again, but I can only plan my journey, not the outcome.

Preparation is Most of the Work

I have been making a concerted effort to make thumbnail sketches, value studies, color studies, detailed drawings, and work out problems before I paint. Doing this really does not take anymore time than just jumping right in and painting (even jumping right in and starting painting, I still have to understand my values, get an accurate drawing, and work out problems).

The big difference between the two approaches is I make most of my mistakes on the studies, and when it comes time for me to do the actual painting, I can paint it in one session, and be more direct and vibrant. The other big difference is I can study lots of compositional and value combinations with the thumbnails that I could not if I went directly to painting.

Also if I go directly to the painting, and it is not working, I spend lots of time trying to save it, and if it is a bad composition, or essentially a re-do to correct painting wide values, I often end up with a mediocre product because I am loath to start over.

I feel a great freedom doing the studies. They are all quick (except for the detailed drawing, and that is usually a keeper anyway), and so I do not feel bad if I reject one for another idea. I also have the freedom to check out lots of ideas, and see which one I like best. Sometimes the best idea comes from a mistake in the studies, but the resultant value changes or compositional changes can really enhance the final painting.

I believe that when I am doing the studies, not only am I experimenting with different approaches and ideas, but I am training my hand and mind for the final drawing. I also get more and more familiar with the subject so my final drawing feels more correct.

Painting to me is solving the visual problems of creating art. The more problems I can solve during the study phases, the more sophisticated the problems I can deal with during the actual painting phase. It is like my boss used to say -- "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." By doing studies I have basically reduced the "elephant" (my painting) into lots of "bites" (my studies).

When I first started doing art, all I wanted to do was get in there, and get painting. I wanted to create masterpieces, not practice. As a beginner, I did not know that the only way to create masterpieces was through practice. Now I have gone back to what I wish I had done in the first place. Practice, practice, and more practice. I make my mistakes in the studies, and deal with the sophisticated problems of paintings when I produce my finished project.

The old adage, practice makes perfect, was never truer than in art.

Draw Often, Relax and Enjoy!

When I teach art, I learn from my students. This is one of the biggest rewards for being a teacher. I am teaching a beginners drawing class at the local college, and I have a very good class, very enthusiastic, an interested bunch of adult learners. We have been together for four weeks now, and I am happy with their progress. They are all doing quite well.

I am beginning to realize from seeing them draw in class, that one of the hardest lessons for them to learn is to draw often, relax and have fun. I put that on the blackboard, I tell them several times in class, and yet when I give them an in-class drawing assignment to do what do I see? They hunch over their paper, they grip their pencil like they are going to write, they get deadly serious, and start drawing. When I approach them to look at their work, they start apologizing, or try to hide it. Their work is good, but I can see the tension in their lines, in their shading.

This has been a great lesson I have been given by my students. Up until a few years ago, this would have been me as well. I had been drawing for decades, but still had not learned how to relax and enjoy.

I am not sure where this approach to drawing comes from, but it seems to be ingrained into us all. I wonder if it was not built into us in our early formative years learning to write. As a child, we had to develop small muscle control for writing. We started with big pencils and big letters, and as we gained control, our letters and pencils got smaller. It was all about learning control, and we had to concentrate hard because we were getting graded, and it was important to Mom and Dad. We took it very serious, even for young children.

Somehow, this same grip on the pencil, and this same attitude of serious, hard effort seems to transfer to our early efforts at art. Maybe because by now this approach feels natural and familiar. Any way, this whole complex of feelings, and motor skills move immediately into our art.

I can remember as an early student of art, how I noticed the relaxed, sure and big motions with which the art teachers drew. I wanted to draw like them, so I redoubled my serious attitude, hunched more over my paper, and gripped my pencil tighter. Isn't this the way I learned to write better? The problem was that doing that did not achieve what I wanted to in my drawing.

The second contributor toward this get serious and draw attitude was that I did not draw enough. Whenever I would sit down to draw, I was bound and determined that the drawings I did were going to be the best drawings I had done yet in my life, and definitely something to frame and put up in the local art gallery. After all, if I only drew for five hours a month, I had to make the most of the time didn't I? No time to waste playing, doing drawings to learn from, or worse, drawings that would not make Mom's refrigerator door.

Thank God, I have reached a stage in my drawing where most of what I do is play or for learning. I realize now that eight or nine out of ten drawings are not going to be my best, and that the vast majority are needed to learn the skills to produce the really good ones I do. Do I still do "serious" drawings? Yes, I do, but some of my very best are play ones that spontaneously appeared on the paper, and these often have more feeling and energy than my "serious" ones. These spontaneous ones are a real joy and surprise. They are the true gift of lots and lots of practice drawings. The "serious" ones are more carefully planned, carefully executed, and appeal to my organized brain and are very satisfying in their own way. I need both to feel fulfilled as an artist.

Now, I draw at least once, and some days, several times a day. I draw to work out problems, to learn, to play, to experiment, to create, and sometimes just to draw. With all this drawing, I have time to copy masters and learn what they have to teach through their drawings, I have time to make mistakes and learn how to do better, I have time to draw a thumbnail, a value study, experiment with composition, and then take a shot at the final finished drawing.

There is no substitute for drawing, relaxing and enjoying the process.

This is the hardest lesson for me to teach my students -- draw as much as you can, relax and enjoy. The more you draw, the faster you become better. Draw enough, and it becomes part of your life.

What Is My Objective?

I have missed blogging in the last two weeks. I was very sick with a flu, and had lots of work related things come together and a visit from my children. Insanity, and with it reflection.

Being sick gave me time to think, and think I did. This is the first time all year that I did not draw every day. I was very disappointed, because I even managed to draw during the last flu in the spring, but I just fell asleep and woke up the next day, so that was that. It was these events that upset me, and got me to thinking about what is my objective in art, and how am I doing.

Thank heavens for the visit from my children right after the flu. I restarted my drawing, I relaxed as I toured them around, and when I showed them my art, I got reconnected to it. Now that I am restarting, I get a chance to re-evaluate what I was doing, what worked and what didn't, what's most important and what is not, and most importantly, that I have to scale back because I didn't have any flex time to handle overloads, sickness and emergencies. So, I need to re-evaluate my art goals and give up my believe that I can do everything.

Before I got sick, I was growing rapidly in my art, and was very confused, and reaching out all over trying to find what direction to head in. Now that I am re-starting, I need to re-focus on where I want to grow with my art. My art goals are never clear to me. What I want I can't define. I feel it more than I can conceptualize it.

For instance, I love realism, but I want an artistic twist to it. I can look at abstract art now, and feel it, but can I get that feeling in a realistic piece? How real is real? How loose can I get? I guess I want to be loose, and real, and look artsy all at once.

I want to improve my techniques. I want to be able to draw anything from my mind's eye, and have it look very real. I want to draw people from any angle or position, move the light around, and get it right. Add a background of trees, or a room, or furniture, and get it all right.

I want to paint more, and study composition. Use what I learn in drawing to create my paintings. Get looser, look more real, and more like art than photography.

I want to understand why I seem to draw a lot and paint a whole lot less. I want to paint more. I want to feel the subject in my being, then transfer this to my art. What does "feel" mean? To me "feel" means feel the physical being, then feel my emotions towards that being, and instill both in my work. If it is a living being, I want to feel its feelings too, and bring that into the mix.

My prime goal is to improve my art and keep improving it. That is my prime directive and has not changed. But art is more that creating art. To me it is also trying to earn a living at it, showing it and giving something back to the community with it. These are my secondary goals. I still believe that without the prime objective, these other objectives become meaningless.

When I think about these, I feel I am on the right track, but I have trouble figuring out what I need to do to work on these objectives. This is where the confusion sets in, the impossible balancing act begins, and if I am not careful, where I lose my way.

I know I need to eat and pay my bills, but to stop all art to do it, makes my life meaningless. So to become a better artist, to keep first things first, I need to re-evaluate how I manage my life, what I need to do to exist, and truly make my art and my lifestyle one in the same, or I will get lost again.

I don't think this confusion, and struggle to work on my art objectives will ever disappear. I think this struggle is as much a part of life, as it is a part of art. I wonder if the great artists who have died, died in the struggle. I think so. Only after our death, does the success of our struggle become clear, for while we are alive, we constantly strive to improve, balance and manage. Life is art, art is life. The struggle gives meaning to life.

Growth in Art, Growth in Life

I find that my life and my art mirror each other. A recent reminder is my current situation. I have been trying to become more flexible in how I live, less rigid, and this is creating distress. The way I view life, the way I live life is changing, and this is disturbing. It is hard to be consistent, and always follow my new more flexible way of living. I still flip back and forth between the more rigid and the more flexible me.

What is so amazing is this same struggle is occurring in my art. I have a wonderful teacher who is stretching me to be more loose in my art and to see my art in a different way. It is working. I am seeing more in art than I ever did. I am doing new and different things, and trying my best to grow. However, this growth is causing me great confusion. I love realism, but am starting to look at more "artsy" artwork, and thinking I want to grow to do that. Yet, I don't want to stop doing realism. What I want to do is make my realism more "artsy" somehow, but I don't know how.

Just like my life outside of art, I feel uncomfortable with my art. I don't know where it is going, or where it will end up. I have to have faith that my art teacher will guide me along my journey while I am lost. I struggle to do what I don't understand, but can see, and now feel. I can not think my way to the next level of art, I must feel my way.

Most of the art classes I have taken were classes I could understand with the thinking part of my brain. The lessons on mark making, using color and brushes, and techniques are all good and have all moved my skill set forward to where I am today, but like my life, it is no longer enough to think my way forward. I need to start feeling my way forward.

I am confused about what feeling my way means. Does it mean feeling my emotions toward the subject, feeling the shape in three dimensions (like feeling the shape with my finger), or feeling the effect of the art that is being created, and learning from that, or all of the above and more I still can not understand.

I look at my art lately, and it does not look like my art. I see similar approaches to various masters, but I am missing from my own artwork. This adds to my confusion.

I work hard at being loose, and my teacher reminds me I must not get too loose. It is finding balance between feeling and thinking. Up to now, I have only existed on the thinking side of the continuum. Finding this balance is a difficult task at best.

My eyes are opening in my life outside of art, and my life in art. The journey is full of uncertainty as I fluctuate between how I always acted in the past and how I am learning to act in the future.

The only solution is fearlessly moving into the unknown, being honest with myself about my art, and not letting discouragement take over as my art goes through the same confusion as I am. In the end, I will see myself in my art again, and my art will grow with me. My art can only grow, if I grow in my life outside of art. I can not separate the two, nor would I want to.

As one of my favorite philosophers (Singhe) said "The only way out is through."
My mission is to get through and not give up along the way. This is my artist's path.

The Pitfalls of Plein Air Painting

I was humbled and learned a lot this weekend when I traveled to a Salt Spring Island to paint with my sketching group. There was a mix up, so I ended up driving myself out to the island. I was suppose to meet some of the sketchers in a Ganges, but as it happened, there was another mix up and the group that was suppose to come to Ganges, missed the ferry, and went to Ruckles Park where others of us were sketching. This left me to my own resources in Ganges.

I thought I had spare time, so I took one small side trip to Burgoyne Park, to take some pictures. I then went to Ganges, which had a fair, and a fall festival. No parking in the village, so I had to park on the outskirts and walk into the village. The first foray into the village was a scouting trip to see if I could find a place to paint. This is when I made my first mistake. I took my painting gear on the scouting trip, thinking I would save a trip back to the car. I had my gear in a shopping cart, except for the canvas, and a platform board that attaches to my easel. These items I had in a bag that swung around and generally got in the way.

The gear slowed me down in the crowd at the fair, and getting to the information center. At the information center, I got great information about where to go to paint. The closest spot was on a dead end street on the other side of the village. It was too far to walk to, so I needed to go back to the car anyway.

The next mistake I made was to get a wonderful lunch, but it took me too long to get the check, so valuable time was wasted waiting for the bill. To use the time, I sketched during and after lunch, which helped me pass the time, but it may have given the waiter the impression that I was not in a rush. I loved doing the sketch, but should have reserved the time for the painting I wanted to do.

The third mistake I made was taking too long to scout out my painting spot. I checked out the market and walked the whole village before I decided on the spot the information center had suggested. I spent too much time scouting. I should have been very decisive and moved out quickly for the painting spot.

I drove down the dead end street the information people suggested and found a beautiful little beach at the bottom of the street. I think this spot is only used by local people (like neighbours). I got my gear down to the beach, and set up to paint. I set up about a foot from the water, thinking that should be fine, and started painting. About two or two and a half hours later, I had moved the easel out of the water three times, and my paints and brushes back twice. I almost lost one of the brushes in the water. I just caught it in time. The lesson I learned from this is set up to paint as near to the high water line as I can. If the tide is coming in, valuable time will not have to be spent moving myself up the beach.

This quiet, private beach was all mine for about the first hour. Then one of the neighbours came down from his house to the beach, and I startled him and his child. They walked by quietly, trying not to disturb me. That was very nice of them. Next, a family came down the public access, and I could see they were disconcerted when they saw me, but shuttle by, with kind comments about my painting. Then I met Alan.

Alan is the local homeless person who sleeps on the beach. He stopped and we talked for quite a while. He liked art, and had had friends who painted. I felt as if I was painting on his front lawn, and thought he had a great place to live. I had to stop the conversation though so I could finish the painting. Getting into long conversations while painting can eat up the painting time fast. Another lesson learned.

The last mistake I made was setting up a time to meet with the rest of the club for a critique. I had a deadline, and that caused me to stop painting before I felt finished. I did join them for the critique, but another hour would have made a big difference. Painting would have been more satisfying than sitting for critique and coffee with my friends. I could have brought the painting to the next meeting, and got my critique then as well as my chance to chat with my friends.

Plein air painting is interesting and fun, but it does have its unique challenges. Wind, rain, insects, heat, cold, people, and now I have discovered tides and time. Still the colors are lush, and working from life, inspiring. The mistakes of the past become the wisdom of the future.