Pigment to surface
There must be nearly as many ways to apply pigment to a surface as there are varieties of facial expression. I’m not talking here about “water colour” versus “oils” or “plein air” versus “photographs” . I’m talking about the way we actually push the paint around (or the pastel) on the chosen surface with the intention of producing a painting. What choices we make and why, not so much in terms of the colours we squeeze out onto the palette and the mixes we make (more of that in another post soon to come) but more importantly how we use those mixes, how we actually get the paint, the brush or knife and the surface to interact to produce an image. A favourite generalisation is “loose” or “tight”. Another is “blended” or “not blended” . I get a bit fed up when I read some painters implying that “loose” is better and then you find people who are perhaps not as experienced saying things like “I really need to loosen up”. I mean “why?” (From this point of view maybe the Impressionists have got a lot to answer for, LOL.) I have even heard painters saying “This is the right way to use oils” or whatever other medium. There isn’t a right way. I am reminded of my years of teaching computing. I encouraged the ones who quickly got the hang of things to move around the room helping out their less experienced peers. When I spoke to a colleague about how beneficial I found that he replied that he thought that was a dangerous practice because the “poorer performers” might be shown “the wrong way to do things”. Oh, help. There isn’t a wrong way or a right way. There are thousands of ways. It’s just pigment, application tool and surface. Let’s not forget that. Nor all the great Masters who have gone before us showing us a thousand million different variations, all of which can work to produce miracles.
Views from all you practising painters and anybody else out there more than welcome!
Ps. Working on a bigger Garden scene – 24” x 24” – I might be some time, LOL. Got to sharpen the secateurs.
Views from all you practising painters and anybody else out there more than welcome!
Ps. Working on a bigger Garden scene – 24” x 24” – I might be some time, LOL. Got to sharpen the secateurs.
posted by Sheila Vaughan at 4:34 PM
16 Comments:
Wonderful post. I love the act of moving paint around in all it's wonderful mysterious ways. I remeber asking a friend "a printer" to grab my brush and just move the paint around on the canvas. I am sure he thought I was nuts, but I still love the thrill of applying paint to canvas.
The only wrong way might be NOT getting the paint to the surface. thanks for the reminder.
Sheila, good point and yes i agree. and it is not so much pushing the paint that is important as the vision of where to push it:)
I enjoyed this post very much. It is so true that painters are often trying to 'loosen up'. The whole abstract expressionist movement was about that I suppose and indeed things did get quite loose. I personally love to fill in a space with just the right amount of paint. I like the feel of the paint as it comes up to a line and caresses it. I love to blend colors. With my new small paintings I am finding new surfaces to work on and what that means to the sensation of putting paint on. It is even fun to watch charcoal disappear from the surface as the paint is applied if you are working on a very smooth panel. When working with canvas at one time I painted the whole painting twice. First coat a contrasting color. The contrasting color peaked through the finished work as the top coat was applied very dry. This created a soft feeling and was very satisfying to paint. I used no medium at all so the top coat did not go into the weave. This is an example of that work. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_qoqQLh_NU3w/SWJxgH_JY0I/AAAAAAAAABY/JJSKNS2lAYg/s1600-h/chair+shadow+large+for+prints.jpg
Bravo, Thank you for addressing this important issue! There are ways to achieve a particular effect or illusion, but they are not necessarily "right". At the end of the day it's all about what you are trying to communicate (feelings, emotions, ideas), and it does not matter if you use a brush, palette knife, a twig or toenail clippings.
I whole heartedly agree! Loose is great but so is so-called "tightness." I use both in my work. I have also heard many times about being prolific and getting a "lot" of work out there - sometimes being slow and steady is just as wonderful as finishing first. Why the rush? And I am not talking about the same things as a piece that is overworked, which can happen. Many of the most beautiful gems of art from the past had countless hours devoted to them.
I completely agree with your post. No right way or wrong way...just discoveries about what works best for the painter to arrive at what is to be said...once 2 people viewing a townscape painting were discussing whether or not that was the general store in the distance or the school,...i said "Well actually it's a bit of brown paint". We had a good laugh. Gotta keep it real.
Completely agree! I like to combine loose and tight (as well as dripping or pouring) ideally but that's not the RIGHT way - it's just what I like to do. Thanks for your blog. It's nice to hear news and views of a fellow painter. www.deborahburnstone.com
Thanks for sharing your views everyone. It's really heartening to know there are some like-minded souls out there, also people who feel comfortable working in a variety of ways. As Steve says, the only "wrong" way is to give up altogether!
Thanks for the thought-provoking post, Sheila. There does seem to be something of a dogma developing in representational camps suggesting that a loose, painterly approach is "best." Of course that's nonsense. Any approach--tight, loose, or anywhere between--is potentially valid. Thanks for reminding us of that fact.
Good to hear your support on this one Don. I'm really enjoying your Maui paintings.
Here is a friend of mine who uses loose paint very well while still maintaining structure with lines often dug into the paint.
http://www.stuartshils.com/index2.html
Very true - there are way too many ways around it then one can even think of. Unlike computing, the end results in painting are even harder to measure, therefore the successful means to the end are impossible to pin down.
Nancy, thanks for the pointer. I have seen Stuart's work before and really like it. Nice to be reminded.
Olha, yes, it's that intuitive, unknown factor with painting. You're just never quite sure how it's going to go and I'm never one hundred per cent sure of the ways in which to get there. I suppose that's what makes it such an interesting activity.
You're quite right, of course, there are no correct ways of painting. I tend to aim for a degree of looseness, or at least less definition in my work because I was trained in the "Better to suggest than to describe" school, but I suspect my turor now thinks I'm being overly descriptive. I do still find the kind of excessive tightness associated with photographic realism a bit pointless, but freely admit that's a personal prejudice.
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