Attempts at painting were made — ha!

The point of this, and hopefully future paintings is not to be good, but to help me regain my “hand feel” for the brushes, and the movement of the pain on canvas. I haven’t painted for pleasure all that much since I finished art school (the first one). I have gone through two art programs, one introductory to Fine Arts, and the other for Graphic Design. I’m not naturally talented, nor do I have connections in the art/gallery world, so being a self proclaimed fine artist fell flat before I had even finished my year’s long course. But I’m good enough that it gave me a leg up against non artists in graphic design, so I’ve worked almost exclusively with a mouse since 2006. I did a handful of paintings for my kids, one or two each over the last eleven years, so I’m fairly rusty. I did two or three for the fair over the years, but also not very good. I’ve lost the touch!

So going back to it I have been very explicit with myself about the fact that I am not aiming for good art, just finished art work. Working the brush edges, relearning how to layer glazes, trying to stipple, and sweep, and swirl, and curl complex shapes. Trying to get consistent with line weights, and control over the paint itself. All of it takes time. And the results are in the time spent, not the final product that looks like ass. If after the year is out, I find I like stuff more and more, then that will likely keep me coming back, but for now, it’s about doing the paintings, not looking for admiration, or applause for the images I produce.

Nobody claps for the pages upon pages of cross hatching practice we did in class, and for homework, but the skills you developed from that made your class work better. You could tell who was building muscle memory for repeatability, and who was just getting lucky here and there. How many isometric cubes did we doodle back in school, hundred? Thousands? It felt like busy work, but being able to draw straight lines unaided is super difficult. Takes years of drills, and practice. Nobody cares for that, just the clean crisp line work on a mock-up of a product.

You can certainly enjoy the admiration that good art receives, but if you hate to practice proportions, perspective, shading, line work, weighting, balance, colour theory, and how to handle your brushes, and pencils then you don’t live being an artist, you like being liked. Which is cool. You do you. But do much of what goes into it is unseen, and not glamourous at all. Sitting on a horse, or standing at an easel keeping the muscle memory alive.

I look to Alex Maleev, and Alex Ross for inspiration, not to compare myself against. Take hints, and tips from their body of work, not cry because I can’t replicate it with any fidelity. That’s nuts. I’m pulled in many different directions, and don’t want to try to become them. I’m trying to find me. What’s my voice. What’s my style. Where do I feel comfortable. Where do I excel. Where do I feel free to expand, and explore artistically. Trying to home in on that has proven very challenging.

I look at old work, where I can tell I was having fun, and going for broke. I want to get back to small brushes, small canvas, and weird characters. I have tried for years to capture realism, and failed miserably. It’s not in the books for me. I want pop colour, pop art nonsense. Robots, killer samurai teddy bear assassin’s, blood splatter, and organic shapes. I don’t do hard edge, hard sci-fi. Not with paint anyway.

Even when I sculpt I avoid cars, guns, machinery and the like. I like fat doughy bad guys, that are muscly but indulge in eating too much. Former champs that are no longer symmetrical hulks, but chunky monkeys. I like the stretch, and lay of fats, and tissue. I like lanky haired, massive beasts. Ropey arteries and veins on necks, and biceps. Those things tell stories, and are things I can adequately capture in clay. Play to your strengths.

So while my paintings aren’t classically good, by any stretch of the imagination, I’m happy about it (them) because I’m doing the thing. I’m building that muscle memory back up. I’m allowing for that outlet to happen. It gets too easy to not work because you become unhappy with the final outcome. Let it go. If you find peace, or happiness in the doing, then don’t linger on the ending. It’s just a picture. You can paint over it in white and go again. That’s the glory of a canvas. Go again.

We’ve had about ten inches of snow here since last night. Everything is cancelled. All the things closed. Dog walk at the farm postponed. I spent an hour or two shoveling in the minus twenty six windchill, and I no longer feel like doing much of anything. It is however still snowing, I see another round or two in my immediate future. Fun times!