This semester brought on many new
ideas for my artwork as well as many changes. Over the course of the semester
my work took on a new style, one which is very different from what I originally
intended after the residency. Some of the only aspects of my work that did not
change are my chosen subject, which is my children, and my medium. This is in
part due to the advice and suggestions of my mentor and also due to my need to
overcome the frustrations that arose with the original plan for my work. I did
a great deal of experimenting this semester and also a great deal of completely
starting over and trying something new. Although my current work is almost not
at all what I had envisioned after the residency, I am very pleased with the
direction my work is now going and I feel as though I have found a way to make
my work much more personal in the process.
My semester got off to a rough
start. I had so many ideas from the residency and I knew what I wanted to show,
but I was having a very hard time making it work on canvas. My goal was to work
on large scale paintings of my children, while experimenting with color
palettes and incorporating a much more detailed background to help give the
piece more meaning. I also planned on working in a very realistic style as this
is what I have always found to be most rewarding. My first problems arose with
my idea of paintings the large amount of details that I wanted to capture in
that very realistic style on such a large canvas. The project quickly became
incredibly frustrating and I ended up starting over on my first few large paintings
multiple times because it was just not coming together in the way that I had
pictured.
During my first meeting with my mentor, Katy
Schneider, she suggested that I put aside the large, detailed paintings and do
the complete opposite of what I had planned in order to help loosen up my style
and have something to show. She pointed out that I was trying too hard to show
too many details and I needed to give up some control. What she suggested was
for me to do several very small painting using only a palette knife and to
focus only on shape, light and color. While at first I was very frustrated by
the lack of control and small size of these palette knife paintings, I soon
began to embrace this technique. These new paintings are much looser than any
of my precious paintings and also much less realistic. However, I feel that
they are just as interesting, or even more so, than my other paintings because
of the texture and energy of the paint. Previously when paintings my children I
would try to control the chaos of motherhood by controlling the paint, but now
through this looser style I am able to express the chaos through the paint.
This is something that I have been avoiding, but I have come to find it very
refreshing. I have not completely moved away from realism, but with my current
paintings I am now doing a combination of both styles.
A few of the other suggestions from my mentor were
as follows:· Use lighting to help make the scene easier to paint. Plan lighting in order to eliminate extra details and illuminate only those details that I feel are important. This also adds more drama to the scene.
· Think about scale. Larger spaces surrounding the figures show how small the people are. This is especially important with paintings of children.
· Don’t be too literal. An eye doesn’t always look like an eye. Sometimes a suggestion of a feature is more than enough.
· Use more paint. Embrace the texture of the paint and make it an equally important part of the piece.
· Allow colors to flow throughout the painting. Use a repetition of similar colors to unite the painting.
All
of her advice was extremely helpful. I have been using lighting to my advantage
by increasing the contrast of what I paint, and therefore making larger dark
and light spaces. One of the reasons I was having so much trouble with my first
few paintings was because I was using full lighting. All of the details were
lighted which was making the scene much too complicated to paint, and also not
very interesting due to lack of drama.
Over
the semester I continued to paint from photos. The main difference is that I
began taking hundreds of photos with the intention of painting them, unlike
before when I would work from just one found photo. I have been taking multiple,
consecutive photos of the same moment and I then take all those photo of that
specific moment and lay them all out. I then work from the group of photos and
choose only the pieces that I find important to tell about the moment and use
that in my paintings. I give extra attention to thinking about lighting and
scale while taking these photos. Based on the advice of my mentor I then do small
palette knife paintings of the different photos before jumping into a large
scale painting. For some groups of photos I never move on to a large scale
painting and only do the palette knife paintings. Seeing all of the small,
loose paintings next to each other seems to perfectly capture the moment as
each of these moments with my children go by so quickly that even the memories
become blurred.
I
believe that my current work is now much more personal that my previous work
because I am now focusing more on what it’s like to be the mother of my
children, instead of just focusing on what my children look like. It was with
the help of some of the reading I have done over the semester that I have come
to realize that a portrait should be more about what a person is like and not
just what a person looks like. I am also able to get more of myself into the
paintings through the looser, more expressive mark making.
Some
of the artists I’ve looked at this semester whose work has influenced my
current work are as follows: Vuillard (placing figures in larger spaces,
figures become part of the background), Fairfield (flat colors, eliminating overuse of
details), Susan Lichtman (flat colors, eliminating unnecessary details, space
around figures), Giacometti (use of space), Hopper (use of light), Alice Neel
(exaggeration), Eric Fischl (realism, storytelling ability), Bonnard (placing
figures in larger spaces, repetition of color and background), Soutine
(exaggeration, use of color, thickness of paint), Mary Cassatt (children’s
portraits), Renoir (children’s portraits, paint handling, use of light and
Vermeer (details). Most of these artists were recommended to me by my mentor or
at the residency.
The
work that I have completed this semester all varies so greatly. My paintings
range in size from 2”x2” all the way to 2’x3’. Some of them are painting in a
very realistic style, while others are extremely loose or a combination of
styles. In some paintings I have used a limited color palette or even
completely changed the colors, while in others I stuck to the colors that were
naturally there. With this variation of work it is hard to say what direction I
would like to focus on for next semester. I have become very interested in the
expressive mark making that is possible with the palette knife and I know that
I would like to try to further develop this technique. I do still enjoy working
large and would like to possibly try to take the same loose method that I have
been using for the smaller paintings and do it on a much larger size. I would
also like to continue painting my children as they are such a huge part of my
life and will always be the most meaningful of subjects for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment