You've probably heard of writers saying that as they worked on their novels, their characters took on a life of their own and told their own story in a way that had never been planned. Sometimes a painting develops like this.
"In my case all painting... is an accident. I foresee it and yet I hardly ever carry it out as I foresee it. It transforms itself by the actual paint. I don't in fact know very often what the paint will do, and it does many things which are very much better than I could make it do. "
- Francis Bacon
There seems to be a fine line between planning ahead and going with the flow -- "listening" to the painting and embracing any accidents or mistakes. (But let's leave Francis Bacon's own paintings for another day -- or maybe never).
I've been on a roll lately, continuing with my "Flash Mob" series. I'd expected in this post to be unveiling the second in the series, "Twist and Shout." Here's my scale pencil study:
I know my work has a tendency to get too tight, and once again -- rather than do a methodical scaled layout -- I decided to plunge right out. I roughed in all the figures on my large sheet, and they seemed to be going brilliantly. But then I saw that I'd left far too much space between the sprawled figure at the bottom and the central figure with knees bent.
Well, what of it? I would just add another figure to link them vertically on the page. After all........
"The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything."
- Edward Phelps
And I *really* liked the way this figure began to shape up.
I also didn't like a large figure with outstretched arms from my very first pencil sketch. But I *loved* the results when I replaced it with this doubled-over figure, stretching arms over her back.
What the heck? I was working in a time-honoured tradition here.
"You have to know how to use the accident, how to recognise it, how to control it, and ways to eliminate it so that the whole surface looks felt and born all at once."
- Helen Frankenthaler
One of the constants from the early layout was the female figure on the right side -- and by golly, her leg started looking like something Toulouse-Lautrec could be proud of, I thought modestly:
At the outset, I hadn't quite seen how my complementary colours would take an adventurous turn, but it was happening.
"Only now I'm learning to enjoy not being in charge of what the next stroke will do to the whole painting. I'm still learning that there are no mistakes only discoveries."
- Fernando Araujo
But still, I hadn't quite solved the problem identified in Week One:-- the excess space between the two guys in the centre. I decided I'd better add another figure in there.
It wasn't quite right, though, even four days later. Maybe something larger?
I plodded along for another four days, and this wasn't right either. Remember the flash mob of impulses and ideas I've reported as showing up in my studio each morning?
They were starting to complain -- loudly. It was turning into a riot!! At the same time, one of the lights in my studio burned out -- but another light went on.
Face it:-- This was not working. Despite all my enthusiastic accommodation of the original mistake of too much space in the middle...........the whole thing was still a mistake.
I thought it over for 24 hours, and the next morning I turned the paper upside-down...
and painted the whole thing over:--
I've started again -- back at the original pencil sketch -- consoling myself with the thought that I've truly grasped the lesson of contemporary artist/writer Richard Schmidt, one of whose maxims is: "Never leave a mistake on the easel."
It can only get better, right? And Scott Adams, creator of "Dilbert," sets the bar high: "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." (It's worth following this link just to see what Adams had to say back in March about everyone's unfavourite presidential candidate).
You'll be seeing more of the "Flash Mob Series" very soon. And just look around you -- flash mobs are everywhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment