Artistic Process

Picasso on the research "process" .....

"I can hardly understand the importance given to the word
research in modern painting. In my opinion to search means
nothing in painting, to find is the thing." (p.30)

It would appear he relied less on EXTERNAL triggers for
his art and more on INTERNAL cues.....

Later in the book the author writes.....

"When Picasso has found his subjects, he has produced a number
of masterpieces. When he has not, he has produced paintings
which will eventually be seen to be absurd. They are already absurd, but nobody has had the courage to say so for fear of encouraging the philistines for whom all art, because it is not a flattering looking-glass, is absurd."

art
Shepaints, I think the concept applies more readily to manual tasks such as in atheletics, typing, and playing musical instruments. Obviously, it has to do with very fast actions which move faster than the mind can monitor. But when I think about how some abstract painters, particularly of the Abstract Expressionist school, use(d) large gestures, moving from the shoulder (as Osso does with her larger representational works), it could be that such gestures tend to "codify" and become unconsciously habitual. I know that in my case, at the beginning of a work, there is a tendency to place my brush on a particular place on the canvas and move it in a particuar direction, as if I were writing my signature. I, therefore, try consciously to start somewhere else. I might even turn the canvas upside down or sideways, or use a long branch with the end hammered soft to serve more like a brush in achieving my initial sweep. This is to achieve a degree of freshness and aesthetic surprise (for me). Otherwise the painting feels hackneyed from the beginning, and I lose enthusiasm.

art
Shepaints, I don't know why but my answer to your question about "muscle memory" is posted BEFORE your question.

JL...thanks for supplying the term "muscle memory"...Can it
apply in anyway to a visual artist? Certainly, it seems that
Picasso's creativity was never turned off. There is a wonderful
photo of him sitting at a table in a restaurant. His hands are not visible but he has arranged all the bread rolls on either side of his plate to look like great big cubist hands with breadroll fingers!

Bogow...my typist friend gives herself away a little when she chats
sinces she sounds distracted....not ENTIRELY present.

Picasso's claim that he "sees a vision" reminds me of a composer
who suddenly "hears" a symphony. Certainly, I find that after struggling over some artistic problem, sometimes the "answer"
may occur to me at an odd moment, like when walking my dogs
in the woods!

It seems the brain is somewhat "ornry"; concentration relative to "right brain", creative functions is counterproductive; one has more "eureka" moments when busy with a totally unrelated task. However, for "left brain", practical/motor skill pursuits, the more focussed one is the better.

ossobuco and bogowo - I agree entirely with both of you.

I have an idea of how a painting is going, an idea I want to express - if i am working in the landscape i work smaller and look very very hard at the patches of colour and light, putting them down as i see them unitl eventually they knit together into something hopefully imbued with the feel of the day - windy and cold, stormy, sunny and hot, misty, calm, blustery, brooding .... What i want to catch is a particular time and feel with the subtle colours and light of that day.



In the studio i work larger, have time to layer colours, laying down colours to dry that will be worked over and only show through in flecks or scumbles, or be glazed over, creating a colour impossible by painting alla prima.

This will evolve and change and can be changed drastically right up to the time i decide it is finished. these draw on the work done in the landscape but move it on, sometimes abstract it, but always there is an mood, time, sense of place in my head that i am working towards. Marks and colours are like jazz - putting one down means another to answer it elsewhere, everything 'talking' to each other .

Must get back to painting now ....

I usually start off with the chainsaw or cutting disc to "straighten up" the piece of wood I´m working on.
Then I´ll create the rough form with said tools before I turn to my gouges and chisels.
I used to sand and polish my carvings but I´ve moved away from that.
Am now painting the stuff with shiny acrylics.

Yes, yes, I agree. I even said something like that somewhere sometime about making marks...and that was what I was getting at with my comment about call and response.

The work itself is like a crystal, reflecting prizmatically refracted motes which often bear no relation to the represented colour, but demand complementary corrections elswhere. Likewise the abstract form of the subject matter, if any, creates flows, and eddys which guide the weighting of colour, hue, and volumes of interplaying areas; until the whole settles into an immutable point in time, and all work must cease to capture this "event".

Yes, Bo....and the prism has to have some sort of internal
light to make the work come alive.....

JL...thanks for sharing your practical techniques for challenging yourself and reinvigorating your process...In that spirit I may
try next to produce something entirely from
(horrors!) memory and imagination....Scary for someone who relies to a great degree on visual references....

art.
You're most welcome, SP. I rarely work from nature, only that in my head. Therefore, my stuff is inherently ambiguous, just as my memories are. I just finished a semi-abstract depiction of my sense of a storm on a rocky beach. Much of what's going on doesn't make "logical" sense. The spray of water in one place suddenly stops and continues where in nature that would be impossible. But to me it makes aesthetic sense, AND in looking at nature I usually don't check it out for its logical consistency; I take that for granted.
Ambiguity in art to me can be a great virtue, IF it does not conflict with aesthetic impact. Indeed, ambiguity licenses the mind of the viewer to engage the painting more freely.

art
Farmerman, the following link is for YOU (but not if you have diabetes):
www.wtv-zone.com/grandstaff/harbourlights.html

Thanks JL, I needed that.

THE CORN GROWS
THE LEAVES BLOW
AND I BLOW LUNCH

It all goes together with an appreciation of Tommy the K

I just picked up a little fascinating book of dialogues with about 40 artists of the last 50 years.Its by selden Rodman and is called....
"Conversations with Artists"
Ill probably finish it tonight and , from what Ive seen , the "artistic process" ... at least as followed by these individuals, is the topic of the dialogues..
Andre Wyeth, for example staes that he tries to separate his work from the outward tracks of the media he uses (egg tempera). He is, obviously a nut case about NOT wanting to show any brush strokes. The way he got that way was a trail that led to his childhood as a chronic sufferer of all kinds of kidney, and pre arthritic conditions. (The point of his talk sounded to me that he is full blown OCD )
Also, if you see his works , he focuses on the lonely person experiencing something (lonely was his word) in the world. Brings to mind Hopper and his focus on the experience of aloneness. ANyway, Wyeth came out of a childhood of dotage and almost hysteric care because of his recurring illnesses. He was a type section outcast kid with few friend and one outlet that was dictated by his King-Trog of a father. (trog is my description of nC Wyeth)

I think that, after careful consideration, I probably dont really need many more disturbing Kinkaid paintings for this life, but I thank you anyway for that one.

Sorry all, in my eagerness to give the background of A ndrew Wyeths painting style, I failed to make a point. point is, Wyeth"s process involves a total focus on not disclosing the footprints of his brush. This is not a point that Ive ever noted before in his work. now, when I go to the Brandywine, like a nutcase myself, Im gonna take a loupe along and see whether I can detect his technique ,
.His early works in watercolr were wet , quite available to detect techniques, focused with lights and darks, and very satisfying to the experienced viewer, except , apparently to the Times critic Howrd Devree. So, in some sort of response to New York critics, Wyeth made a huge departure from free style watercolor and into the tight, more darkly poetic temperas of personal journeys. In these he made a decision to try to make his work appear a sans brush style. He did this in about 1940.
Wyeth admired a number of artists but was particularly less impressed by Sargent. He said that Sarent had "some" talent buit never delved into anything. I find Sargents work "Gassed" the most poignant painting of WWI, so, even though I like Wyeth, I sure dont agree with many of his views

Saw an article in one of our Architectural Digests on the Wyeth's compound in Maine, severe and interesting, well, but to me sterile, but then I am not a shaker. Ne'er mind, I am not so much a dumper of ways of being an artist. Just don't like slick ones, as previously noted. Not that any of these people in your book, farmer, were slick.

At least one person I know has actually tried to be slick, and it isn't so easy, you have to catch the wave...

Im on Kenzo Okada and MArk Rothko. Got done with Wenberg, Kline, Lipschitz, Wyeth, Rivers , and lebrun. Im just skipping around. most of these guys had really NUTHIN TO SAY. eg
"My aim is a continuous, sustained, uncontrived image motivated by nothing but passion"-Lebrun ( I remember getting a lot of instructor critiques that sounded pompous and empthy headed like that one. I am not impressed with artists pomp. I only got a bit of insight from Wyeth and foun d out he was a scared kid. AND-he said it in a way, that let you know that he wanted you to know he was a scared kid. Very refreshing by him.
I read Pollocks stuff, and the word that comes to mind is vacuum.

Personally I like to see the marks, gestural and expressive - i relate most strongly to emotional, painterly images.

I can appreciate the quieter type, egg tempera, no brush marks - they just don't have the same energy and expressiveness or hold your interest for as long.

Vivien; I would like to respectfully point out that in Wyeth's case you may have missed the point;

"I like to see the marks, gestural and expressive - I relate most strongly to emotional, painterly images."

In Wyeth's gesture and expressionless surface lies the strongest of "emotional messages"; he is expressing the loneliness of a gesture free, expressionless existence!

Art is "emotional communication", but you will not always find the "message" in the same aspect of the work!

no I wasn't missing the point - merely responding with a differing viewpoint. I appreciate the isolation and loneliness can be increased in these images by the lack of brush marks - I was simply saying that i relate more to more to other work - Rothko to Prentice - but passionate.

Ah, Rothko

And you must find a wealth of cool warmth in Morris Lewis work.
[Oops; American "colourist" "70's" I just noticed you're in England, I've no idea how widelyl known his work is.]