Revision for artistic expression

I’m currently teaching an online workshop at The Winslow Art Center: “Loosen Up Your Paintings” and, as is always the case, I’m getting as much out of it as the students are. Teaching something always makes me a better painter. I have to be able to articulate and demonstrate concepts clearly which means that, first, I have to be very clear in my own thinking about the subject.

The most interesting thing for me was to first come up with a definition of “loose painting”. I realized that it’s not about the obvious: soft and lost edges and bravura brushwork; it’s mostly about editing visual complexity.

A painting can have firm edges around shapes yet still feel loose, as long as the internal details of the shape show thoughtful culling. Instead of every wrinkle on a face or fabric, or a every leaf on a flower stem, the artist painted only the wrinkles and leaves that served a purpose. For example, a suggestion of wrinkles at the corner of the eyes in a portrait are useful for showing that a person smiles often.

In the flower example, I’d only add the leaves that are useful compositionally - they direct the eye through their angles - and as necessary pieces of colour and value. The actual number and shape of leaves is completely irrelevant and putting them all into a painting simply because those leaves are all there in life, is unnecessary. It’s in the editing and manipulating of information that we show our artistic priorities and it’s also how we make paintings that feel loose and confident.

This simple banana painting went through a lot of editing and thinking. I allowed it to dry after the second pass and then returned to it with an editor’s eye and simplified it to its final version.

What I liked about the set up was the repetition of yellow in both objects, and the curvy shapes contrasting with straight-edged shapes. The value pattern also appealed to me, particularly in the darks, mids and lights of the foreshortened bananas.

Below are the stages that this went through. In each, I was trying to capture only the information that conveyed my interests, but you can see that it took me a while to come to an understanding of how much I could omit and what needed to be included and amplified.

My first pass is more like a rough draft for an essay: I put in a lot of information because I’m not yet sure of what can be left out. Once it’s all on the surface, I can remove whatever seems extraneous.

First pass: It’s all there and is relatively literal

Second pass: revised surrounding shapes and emphasized the glow of the yellow by moving more of it into the environment. I let it dry at this stage.

Final version: enriched colour and reinforced yellow with the addition of stronger darks and more purple overall. Added a sense of overall warmth by changing the blue-purple ground to a red purple.

You can see that the finished piece feels like a condensing of the first one. It’s an attempt to convey what I liked about the set up and no more. It feels as simple as I can make it now, and I’m content.

I’ll be doing a 1.5 hour demo on April 14: “Simplifying Complex Flowers” which is all about editing vast amounts of information to capture the essence of the subject. I hope you’ll join me!

Happy painting!