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"Control is not Honest - I was Hooked!"
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I knew I'd made the right choice when he opened his workshop with a brief talk about honesty -- honesty in painting. With his assertion that "Control is not honest," I was hooked.
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"Whoa!" It's already nearing the end of July. Summer is slipping past way too fast.
With all the goings-on that summer invites -- in combination with other routines we maintain here -- I'm afraid I pre-empted my own newsletter schedule. So it's been a while since I reached out to you, though I'm consoled by the faith that you've also been busily occupied.
For a few weeks, I focused much of my studio time on a commissioned piece that I'm excited about sharing with you - but more on that in another newsletter.
For now, I wanted to give you a glimpse into the three-day painting workshop I returned from recently. Each year I scout for a workshop within driving distance from our home (required workshop supplies travel better by car!). After some on-line research, I found a promising opportunity to learn from a well-established artist whose painting style I admire. And it turned out to be a solid choice. |
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And I can't say enough about Derek - about his skill level; his loose, intuitive painting style; and his expert and generous teaching manner punctuated by his quirky sense of humor. He endeared himself to me even more when I discovered that the Tulsa, Oklahoma, native had reached this level of artistic maturity (at about 20 years my junior!) without the benefit of academic training, opting instead for hard work and well-chosen mentors. |
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An avid photographer and traveler, Derek uses his own photos for painting reference, and offered a variety of his printed images for us to use during our afternoon break-out painting sessions. |
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You'd be justified in wondering why all this talk about theory and classical technique would even be important to me; how it would be useful in my non-representational painting practice. And why a class led by a more realistic, though impressionistic, painter would have been my workshop pick. I was, in fact, the only abstract painter among the students there. But without having had much formal academic training in painting, I was eager to better understand the fundamental principles of 2-dimensional art so I can more fully appreciate how these principles are used in all types of art, and to assimilate that foundational knowledge into my own abstracted painting practice.
Here's the best analogy I can come up with to explain it: A good understanding of the "chemistry" of cooking - the combined effects of seasonings, temperature, time, acidity, fat - will give you greater success at cooking [without a recipe] well, confidently, and intuitively. Likewise, a solid grasp of the basics of composition, color theory, the effects of light and shadow, of value, line, texture and edges, and of the properties of paint itself, will naturally and consistently inform one's artmaking, representational or otherwise. |
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While demonstrating these basic concepts, Derek also showed how he incorporates abstraction in his loose, sometimes specific but more often merely suggestive, paint strokes. In this way, the painter can use very simplified gestures to only "suggest" an item, making a mere stroke or two of paint read as a recognizable object. You don't have to paint with precise detail a boat on the far side of a busy harbor; your eye will read the suggested shape as such, in the same way that you can identify items in your peripheral vision without detailed input. It's amazing how -- given only scant visual information -- the brain can fill in the blanks, connect the dots. |
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Which brings me back to Derek's introductory words, "Control is not honest". I admit I'm in awe of the technical skill -- and patience! -- of uber talented photo-realistic painters. Few and far between, their painting style clearly suits them and thus must be less about control than just doing what they love. For me, abandoning control leads me to a different kind of work of the heart. So Derek's statement resonated with me. I'm inspired by his intuitive, spontaneous approach -- developed through years of practice and growth -- and how he trusts it. His work is honest and authentically of the heart. Not controlled and precious.
That's what I strive for in my painting process: To become better at letting go of control and trusting my intuition and the process, messy as it is at times. To honor the spontaneous, even the accidents. To be true to where my eye and the paint lead me. It just feels honest to me. |
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