Tag Archive for: automaic drawing

Starting Over

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Starting a new painting can be like starting over. The last two painting that I posted, “Floating Underwater” and “Big Waves” gave me immense satisfaction to complete. I really like them, feel good about the new direction they are pointing to and I’ve been inspired to get started on the next painting. In fact, in my mind, I had developed a whole system of starting new paintings based on my success with these two. Much to my chagrin, the process of starting has all the uncertainty and angst that it always had. Now that I am actually working, I have no idea where I want to go. I am making sketches and small paintings and each interests me in some way but none are the painting I want to do next.

I always seem to rebel against doing what worked in the past, and it pisses me off. For example, my latest successful work was done with thick, opaque paint. So of course I would need to go back and experiment with translucent washes using acrylic and oil paint almost like watercolor.

I just re-listened to a wonderful interview with writer, Nicole Krauss about her creative process. In it she says that once when she was having a hard time starting a new novel, she talked with the seasoned novelist Phillip Roth. He told her to resign herself to the fact that starting a new novel is always hard, it never gets better.  This isn’t a bad thing. In the interview she talks about starting in the dark, not knowing how things are going to come together and the process of discovery.

Nicole Krauss Interview

Here are some of my starts from today and yesterday:

In this sketch I was planning to build up a piece with with and burnt umber but there was something about the lightness of the touch and the way the paint sinks into the paper that made me stop.

 

Here is the next attempt. I was attracted to same qualities of paint, but I think I will continue with white and go opaque.

 

Here is a color study using thin washes of oil paint. I almost forgot that there was a theme that emerged from this – fertility. There was a figure resembling an ancient fertility sculpture (it got painted over). Then the colors that emerged made me think of fertile ground, mountain sides planted in tea, lush growth. I’m glad I remembered this!

 

I think this was influenced by photos of the space shuttle launch.

A swan – what else to say? I find it interesting that the composition is so clean and clear.

What’s the Story?

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Back from a brief sojourn into landscape painting, I find myself returning to the question that has taken center stage in the creation of my current body of work. What is the story behind the painting? I love stories and the way I am using the word, it can refer to a meaning or something that the painting is about.

My brief return to the landscape illustrates what I am getting at. I love painting the landscape and in a way it also has an inherent story or meaning. A good landscape painting exudes life and vitality and can also radiate a sense of calm. When I paint the landscapes I first choose a scene that awakens in me the feeling of being fully alive. After that I focus mainly of the composition, the color relationships, and textures that express this feeling. In my current exploration, however, I find myself reaching for something else – a more specific story, with people – characters in situations.

I have always come back to techniques developed by the Surrealists and Dadaists of drawing from the subconscious through automatic drawing: drawing that allows unplanned images to emerge. I begin by making seemingly random marks and wait until I find an image that intrigues me, then I develop and add to it.

The work that comes from this type of practice is unusual. I do find it intriguing and sometimes quite powerful, but I wrestle with the question of whether other people find meaning in it. I also find that I, myself often have little more than a vague idea of what the peace is about and I wonder if it is fair to present work that I don’t necessarily understand. For these reasons I have shown very little of this work and focused efforts more consistently on landscapes and non-figurative abstract paintings.

The intent in my current exploration is to bring the story out into the open. In some work I will start with an idea, a specific image that I want to create (see ‘Rooftop Dances‘) and in other pieces like the above I will work with automatic drawing and painting, but will make the effort to find the story and understand it myself. The challenge then remains to communicate my sense of meaning while allowing space for the viewer to bring in her own interpretation. One method could be a tablet or phone app, in the gallery, that gives viewers my write up on the piece only after they have submitted their own.