Since my last studio update, everything has changed. I have gotten married, opened my own commercial shop, and moved the studio in with the web, effectively declaring myself a professional artist, without a single sale. Good thing I have other skills to back that up. Ive been working for a terrific San Francisco based web shop to hold down the fort while securing wall space and painting time in the other parts of my rented retail space. Last weekend I declared my first ever Art Bender - meaning I hit the paints every day and even a third time on Wednesday. There were a couple of elements that made this Bender different from other painting efforts.
I purchased 9 new canvases of 3 different sizes, brush cleaners and soaps, and new brushes, and had these supplies in-hand. The new canvas sizes assisted composition impulses. The brush cleaner held down the fumes until uncapped, and provided the right texture for bristle rinsing. The soap revived 12 11-year-old brushes (some still bearing the price sticker from the Washington University bookstore) The new brushes, purchased on a hunch of what I thought I needed, ended up being the perfect bet, and alongside a terrific resin, took painting from a technical puzzle to a sublime pleasure.
By declaring the Art Bender, I had effectively given myself permission to paint whatever, as awful as it might be, as long as I just painted. This proved to be successful for a couple of reasons: not only did I follow a structure to my worktime, as I felt would maximize productivity (rather than just getting caught up with what I should do, what I should finish, etc) but it also gave me the freedom to try other techniques with the latex, and to try new techniques with the oil too, as I had new brushes to try. With the oils, I prepped a canvas, began spiraling, then suddenly, I had the backdrop for a face.
In my post-college years in St. Louis I used to participate in a figure drawing group, lead by my then - boyfriend. As we drew torso after torso with a variety of media, we would increasingly tease each other about the single thing that would always appear in the drawing: a face. Since these times, upon seeing the face appear in my work, it reminds me of this time (which can be enough to remind me of what I dont like about being an artist) but also makes me feel that my work is too derivative to be decent. It reminds me of how far I have to go artistically to create work that is truly worth the time put into it. And unless Im painting a portrait, it discourages me from the track I was on, and I either deliberately sabotage that face, or give up on the piece entirely.
This time, however, I was running an Art Bender special on paint whatever. I took myself up on the offer, and turned this face into the portrait. This focus on the accidental portrait gave me everything I needed to take a really fresh spiral composition to the portrait level, as it was the right time to decide on and develop space and line density - to take it out of the sketch and take it to form. I sometimes have trouble here - as I dont always care to make a decision about this, and without such a decision, the composition suffers lack of any navigable logic, which leads to a less successful painting (or, in commercial terms, a painting that nobody likes, that never makes a difference. The proverbial waste of time.)
Having had this decision made this time, however, resulted in a true breakthrough. The personality of the woman ensued. She is old and off-the-rocker. She is politically motivated. She is a tea-partier. She doesnt think for herself all of the time. She is sick. The larger picture of politics, that I had never known or realized how to take aim at, was suddenly in front of me. Finally, the influence of Peter Saul, painting master and political satirist, among my favorite painters ever, was in my work. This was ready to go somewhere. FINALLY.
Wednesday I began a painting using the opposite process - start with the portrait, and abstract into a spiral composition - creating a recognizable persona with all of the sarcasm and intensity of the spirals. Sarah Palin. I had been waiting until now, the perfect climate and artistic direction, to paint her, but I am ready. I have already collected images of her and printed a contact sheet of them for visual reference, not being sure which one would be useful at the time. Im interested in her artistically, for the sheer fact that Im afraid of what her rise to fame and power means for the future of humans: she is beautiful, undoubtedly, but also very fashist in her views - and this combination of personal characteristics apparently justify the rise of fashist mentality for people who want that and need a leader who can weather the celebrity-worship climate with all the right stuff. My painting of her will ideally convey this, while providing visual engagement that strikes the viewer on the first-glance, yet hosts a continued study of the work somewhat comfortably.
Im really pleased with the state of the studio at this point. On Wednesday, while I might have otherwise been at a 9-5, I was painting instead. Ill have more and more chances to paint during business hours in the future - produce more and more, grow more and more. The studio is in full swing and working.GVT54C7EK6NA
Since my last studio update, everything has changed. I have gotten married, opened my own commercial shop, and moved the studio in with the web, effectively declaring myself a professional artist, without a single sale. Good thing I have other skills to back that up. Ive been working for a terrific San Francisco based web shop to hold down the fort while securing wall space and painting time in the other parts of my rented retail space. Last weekend I declared my first ever Art Bender - meaning I hit the paints every day and even a third time on Wednesday. There were a couple of elements that made this Bender different from other painting efforts.
I purchased 9 new canvases of 3 different sizes, brush cleaners and soaps, and new brushes, and had these supplies in-hand. The new canvas sizes assisted composition impulses. The brush cleaner held down the fumes until uncapped, and provided the right texture for bristle rinsing. The soap revived 12 11-year-old brushes (some still bearing the price sticker from the Washington University bookstore) The new brushes, purchased on a hunch of what I thought I needed, ended up being the perfect bet, and alongside a terrific resin, took painting from a technical puzzle to a sublime pleasure.
By declaring the Art Bender, I had effectively given myself permission to paint whatever, as awful as it might be, as long as I just painted. This proved to be successful for a couple of reasons: not only did I follow a structure to my worktime, as I felt would maximize productivity (rather than just getting caught up with what I should do, what I should finish, etc) but it also gave me the freedom to try other techniques with the latex, and to try new techniques with the oil too, as I had new brushes to try. With the oils, I prepped a canvas, began spiraling, then suddenly, I had the backdrop for a face.
In my post-college years in St. Louis I used to participate in a figure drawing group, lead by my then - boyfriend. As we drew torso after torso with a variety of media, we would increasingly tease each other about the single thing that would always appear in the drawing: a face. Since these times, upon seeing the face appear in my work, it reminds me of this time (which can be enough to remind me of what I dont like about being an artist) but also makes me feel that my work is too derivative to be decent. It reminds me of how far I have to go artistically to create work that is truly worth the time put into it. And unless Im painting a portrait, it discourages me from the track I was on, and I either deliberately sabotage that face, or give up on the piece entirely.
This time, however, I was running an Art Bender special on paint whatever. I took myself up on the offer, and turned this face into the portrait. This focus on the accidental portrait gave me everything I needed to take a really fresh spiral composition to the portrait level, as it was the right time to decide on and develop space and line density - to take it out of the sketch and take it to form. I sometimes have trouble here - as I dont always care to make a decision about this, and without such a decision, the composition suffers lack of any navigable logic, which leads to a less successful painting (or, in commercial terms, a painting that nobody likes, that never makes a difference. The proverbial waste of time.)