Making a Connection

The woman that owns this piece came in to see me. We had a great talk. She told me how much she loved this painting. I asked her why. She said, well it reminds me of Ghost Ranch, and it seems like there’s a little road, I don’t know if that’s right, and it feels so southwest to me.

This meant alot to me, because what was in my imagination really connected to this person; I’ve never been to Ghost Ranch. But the southwest inspired it. The mind can go to wondrous places. And the viewer can meet you there.

Look, See

This painting evolved from a section of a larger painting. This habit of “finding” imagery in a pattern or abstract image has been very useful for me. One has to start from something I think. Coming up with ideas out of thin air is tricky.

Here a tree-like figure gestures to something unseen or off the page. The branching arm also feels a part of the landscape horizon line at the right. The shadowed side, or left side, of the tree-figure, has hair at the top, or lines of motion, which were in fact splinters from the tree being cut. Those few marks convey a lot of meaning; the magic of art is its ability to be so layered.

The comical cowboy-hat -cloud adds subtle humor to it. The sky at right has a curious black, craggy line that acts like a window; or maybe rain coming from a cloud. The grouping at the bottom of similar forms is very much a landscape, but the figurative aspect makes one search for other life-forms in it. I really love things that exist in the middle-ground; I mean that exist between figuration and abstract. Marks that are made while in an unconscious state can end up being something profound.

Will you recognize Art if it calls?

Can’t you just smoosh paint around on a surface and arrive at art? That seems to be a good question. For a beginner, who hasn’t really mastered any understanding of the dynamic field, the answer is both yes and no. Will you recognize a great passage if one appears on your canvas or paper? Maybe. And what will you do with the rest? Yes, you might stumble upon some great passage, but maybe the rest of it is shit. Even in the most abstract work by William de Kooning , or Diebenkorn, we see structure, hierarchy, substance, order, risk.

We need both accident and intention. You’re better off trying to paint something like a still-life, or a landscape, where you can learn all the rules of the surface. This process teaches you how the surface works, how to create space, how seeing works.

What is meaningful for you will emerge over time. It takes time to make great art.

Below, watercolor and paper collage.

Inventing ideas: Numbers into Portraits

You can just draw with simple ideas. In this case I put numbers and equations randomly on a page. Then by extending some of the lines, and by adding stuff, I’m drawing until an image is suggested.

This kind of play is vital and helps your creativity. This solves the problem of wanting to draw but having no subject. Sometimes you have a strong desire to draw but the subject evades you. Or the subject is disconnected somehow. This also allows you to channel some love into line, line for its own sake, or color; the love of the elements themselves. I love a really good line, I enjoy carving the line into the paper. This is a way in, so you are not stopped by not having a subject. Maybe the subject is drawing.

What is stopping you? Find a detour around it.

Rhythms in Nature

This ink and watercolor painting was a result of experimentation with a fan brush. The marks were made from dipping the brush in ink, and letting it skip lightly over the paper. I had no intention of making a landscape, or even a painting. It was just for fun-to see what would be there. That’s an important point; I did not imagine what would happen, giving myself room to pre-judge, I just jumped in. Which is why experimentation works, you don’t know what you will get. Often I go looking for x, and I can’t find it, but I find y instead. And y may be just what I need. Go make stuff without thinking too much about it. Go waste paint, go waste paper, enjoy.

The Road Taken, 2019

Sometime in 2019 I started making some 3D pieces out of paper. I was working with collage, so I’m used to working with pieces of paper. I’ve long enjoyed the space created by collage, the pushing and pulling of space. One day I found a scrap of paper with a black edge, painted in ink. And an idea, more like a picture, formed in my mind. I made a series of shapes, blackened the edges with ink, and started forming something. I often think of art-making as a map, with roads and landmarks, places and territories. There are unknown paths, there are deserts. I tend to go where I am led. It doesn’t mean I can just go anywhere, there are limits. And stop signs, and fenced -off areas. I do think I just extended the flat picture-plane into the space I’m in. That excites me.

Finding your way back to Art

Have you been busy with other things? Children, spouse, career, houses, gardens, etc?

Art is so unique, and not easily replaced with anything else. You have that desire to be creative, in any form it takes. It also enables you to escape a little bit, into your mind, your imagination, your loves. I think it’s necessary to put yourself first. There are ideas swimming around in there, if you can just access them. And silence the critics. You can’t be both the critic and the artist. The joy of painting is its own reward. It will take time to find what really engages you, and you will need to try to paint/sculpt/draw frequently. Then you can start to see the path forward. Starting is hard, but not not starting is worse.

detail, Orange and Blue Beat

This is an older piece, and it shows more of a direct influence from Stuart Davis.

It was made by severe restrictions on what I would do. I would lay color side-by-side only. It could have a few larger shapes, lightly penciling in the borders. I would pre-mix all the colors., including neutrals mixed from complements. I would start with nothing in mind, just adding shapes at will. I would think about music.

Where do my ideas come from?

People often wander in during First Friday (before covid) and ask where do my ideas come from? It’s easier to point out specific connections when people come in. Most of my ideas come from looking at art, from my own work, from observations of nature. In this one below, this started as a large non-objective ink drawing, just random marks (although one could argue this point) in india ink on a large page. Then I would crop and review the page, looking for any areas that seem to suggest something larger-like a bit of landscape. Two points to consider here- this process takes practice. And what I would see in a bunch of shapes and lines is likely not what you would see. In many ways this process relies on my experience as a artist, my training and perception. This manner is much like psychic automatism, a Surrealist method for creating imagery not based on observation, but seen by the artist in something else, like when you see animals in cloud formations.

Relative Trees. Watercolor, ink, pencil on grey paper. 2020.

A band of tree-like forms all drawn together, side by side. The tops of the trees are stylized and abstract, almost like letter forms, but also like strange cartooned figures. The branches have been reduced to a line and placed in the centers of the trunks, and placed in the spaces between the trees, compacting the space, slowing the cadence. I’m especially fond of the bottom, where the land shape becomes another tree at the far right. The bars along the bottom make a playful road. The pebbled texture of the grey paper shows up in the pencil shading, not alluding to light and shadow, just a design element. The darkest watercolor shapes start the action on the left side, and finish it at the right.

3 ways to explore intuitive methods for generating abstract pieces

Let’s say you really want to make better abstract work. When you try to do this, it’s not full of the deeper meanings and suggestive forms we crave. You can use some of the approaches from the Surrealists, which were adopted by many of the Abstract Expressionists. Ok -so here are 3 ways:

1. Physic Automatism: This is where you just begin with shapes and lines; not having anything in mind, just to see what happens. This is much harder than it looks. You are trying to let chance play into it. Try using just line, or just shape, for better results. And do it a lot. Stand up for for better arm movement.

2. Take an object with a detailed surface, like a piece of wood, or pattern on something, and mimic it on your paper. See what else you could do with it. Apply this detail into an abstract composition.

3. Work in collage with torn and/or cut pieces of paper, with no imagery on them, or bits of imagery, as long as it’s haphazard, no pictures of anything, just lines or shapes are OK. Tear up failed pieces and re-use them in an abstract piece, drawing back over the pieces after gluing.

Perfect Sequence in Blue

Perfect Sequence in Blue is a watercolor and ink painting of an abstract landscape. This work is a response to Paul Klee’s Park in Lucerne, 1938. I enjoyed drawing the linear aspects of this and using just a little area of a warm orange to balance all the cooler blues and greens. It has a horizon line and a few other subtle spatial cues, all very minimal.

Swing. Collage, watercolor and ink on paper. 20 x 28". 2015.

This 22 x 30” collage was inspired by the work of Stuart Davis, who combined a type of abstraction with American influences like jazz and New York. I like to make new pieces that are inspired by, but do not necessary look like, master works. This was piece was done from collaged pieces of a destroyed painting and re-assembled on a pink watercolor ground. The negative spaces between the collaged pieces have been darkened to bring that background forward a little, creating ambiguous and dynamic figure-ground relationships. Pink and yellow are usually reserved for a more dissonant color schemes but here they seem harmonious. What strikes a great note is that yellow-violet contrast. I also like those black ink lines, which have been cut-off from the original painting; but add continuity and a beat across the surface. There are middle-valued grey shapes, which occur in many of my pieces, as they cool off the color a bit and provide balance.
The center area is the focal point of a deep blue shape lodged near the center. It is the largest dark shape in the painting. It has an interlocking shape on its left side, helping to hold it in the center, almost like an arm holding it in place. You never want to put the darkest thing in the middle of a painting, so that is me taking a little risk. The center has too much visual weight and the viewer would not see anything else. I think both the dark-valued purple shapes and the left holding shape prevent this from happening. These decisions are made on the fly, spontaneously, so I am delighted when they succeed. Like I tell my students: just trust yourself and do it. It’s only paper, after all.
I also like the little X in the lower right corner. Almost like a signature. Davis used letter forms a lot in his work and I do as well, sometimes I use shapes that mimic a letter and a figure simultaneously. Like the letter K, which seems to have legs to walk about with. This piece has never been shown or framed, but I would like to someday.

Simple secrets for boosting creativity

Hi There,

I bet you are wondering how to do more with your art. Here are some ideas:

Be sure to look at great art before starting.

Instead of getting really inspired, making a complicated drawing, getting discouraged, and then abandoning it: start differently. Begin offhandedly, unprepared, not knowing and doubtful. Go with this.

Your first idea may be too predictable.

Get someone to look at your work and talk about it. I can do this.

Get inspired by art history and do a version of one of your favorites.

Take a successful composition and redo it; but focus on just one element, say, line or shape…

Work in a series.

Combine two things that don’t normally go together, study paintings by Alex Colville first, he made a career of this.

Turn things upside down. Look for things that are unexpected. Get someone to look with you.

Crop an image until things are almost unrecognizable. Now paint that.

More on creativity:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2020/02/25/m-c-richards-centering-creativity/

Have a good week, Jenn

image: Alex Colville. Horse and Train. 1954.

How do I make better abstract paintings?

We would all agree that much of abstract painting looks generic and boring. We somehow would like to engage with it, but it has no sticking power. Sadly, we want it to add up to more. We want to be inspired. We want it to suggest things that we have no words for, powerful things. If you want to make that kind of art, there are some tips you might try. First, give up on controlling everything. It’s actually better to give in to the subconscious here than try to depict everything. The power of the medium itself can lead. What really interests you? you’re going to have to answer that question. Try cropping bigger pieces to find interesting parts. Cut those down or try to repeat them on another paper or canvas. Sometimes too little is not good, just as too much isn’t helpful either. To succeed at editing, there has to be something THERE FIRST. Put it all in and then crop it down. Be careful of repeating elements too often; add contrast. If you’ve too much order, disrupt it. Lack of order? Add a continuous line, big shape or grid. It still has to come from something. Try abstracting from reality, simplify. Do collage, it will school you on decision-making.

What's the difference between Acryla gouache and regular gouache?

Acryla gouache contains acrylic, so it behaves differently. First and most importantly, when dry it is not water-soluble. So it makes a perfect first layer or under-painting , where a permanent surface is desired. Regular gouache remains water-soluble even when dry. The acrylic also enables you to thin it with gel medium, as you would any acrylic. Regular gouache can be thinned with water, but the opacity is what most artists want. You can mix them together but you’re losing the best properties of each, so I don’t recommend that you do that. They brush out slightly differently too; regular gouache responds differently to the brush than the Acryla. You will like the bigger tubes of Holbein Acryla however, and the large range of colors. Leftover regular gouache on the palette can be re-wetted the next day, but you will notice it’s more transparent, but Acryla is permanent.

How can I make my abstract work better?

Great question, and one that comes up repeatedly. First, I want to remind you that you probably have the answer already. Being brave enough to acknowledge it , and then act on it, is something else. All of the rules for representational art apply here, don’t they? How does one make representational art better? It’s not adding more detail. It might be making it more personal, more unusual. We see so much sameness in art. For myself, going on a limb, and venturing into the unknown can work. That means risking everything and destroying what I’ve made. You must change, if change is what you seek. So begin differently. Don’t allow anything in a picture that you can live without., be ruthless. Stop caring. Be bold. Keep looking for the language you want to speak in. Finally, use math: add, subtract, divide and multiply. That’s all I have for tonight. Happy painting!

One of the Big Secrets about Making Art

You don’t have to be a great artist to make art. Art is for everybody. Art is made by flawed human beings. What if your art could be more like you? Why shouldn’t your art reflect you, including your flaws? If you made enough art, the act of just doing it would produce good art. You can make art even if you feel that you’re not good enough. In fact, feeling “not good enough” and caving to that feeling is a sure way to not improve. Art making could be a habit. And over time, you will accomplish things you never dreamed. So ignore those feelings of doubt and say to yourself, I’m doing this because I enjoy it. It’s just for me.