Reworking an older painting on Bristol plate paper 22X30 |
Happy New Year to everyone! I wish you all a creative and prosperous 2012.
I have in the last couple of years been in keeping with the idea of working on a painting until I like it myself and would want to keep it and look at it everyday if it was hanging on my own wall. In fact I do actually hang them on my living room wall and live with them until I either think of something else they need, get sick of looking at it and take it back to the studio to figure out or "that nice boy I married" gets sick of looking at it and asks if I have anything new to look at. If no one is tired of it and it sits there until there is something else to take it's place, I deem it satisfactory and don't mess with it anymore.
That probably seems like the logical process now that I say it that way but what I used to do was get an idea for a painting, execute it, evaluate it for content and completeness according to the original plan and then call it finished. If I didn't like it or think it turned out as planned I just gave up on it. I never wanted to, for example, add acrylic to a traditional watercolor or collage to a painting of any medium unless it started out as a college project. I would never crop a painting to make it better or add line or anything that wasn't part of the original plan. My new attitude is if it's not working, start thinking outside the box and use whatever necessary to make it a better painting. I was very hung up on "Well it's a watercolor so I can't fix it or that is cheating." I like Chagall's quote of "I work with whatever medium likes me at the moment" and I will add my own "I like whatever process and medium gets me to an image I am satisfied with in the end"
I find that I am confusing people by doing what they perceive as several different styles of work but I am actually using abstraction to make my mind think differently in my figurative work. The abstractions started out as a means to an end but I discovered that not only did they help my other work but I really like the process and the paintings themselves and other people like them too. I usually have up to 10 paintings in the works at the same time so to me they all seem like they relate as I go from one to the other depending on which one I have figured out what to do next on. My methods are working for me and I am finding that I'm not that concerned if I fit into the basic "artist" mold. By letting go of some of those restraints and rules, I am finding the fun and excitement of painting again which I had lost for a while. What's your story?
Watercolor on Coldpress paper. Abstracted realism 22X30 |
Mixed media on Hot press watercolor coated with gold gesso 14X18 |
Actually, another older painting that was unfinished on Yes! Canvas 30X24 |