Life above and below the surface: What makes a painting alive?
An honest appraisal of how much there is to learn.
If there’s anything that I’ve learned after 40 years of trying to learn how to paint, it is that I don’t know anything that is so concretely written in stone that I can’t find something, or someone in the art world, with the tools and knowledge, to turn the stone into dust! So, I don’t even attempt to blanket anything I think about, or say to others, that smacks of “THIS IS THE ONE AND ONLY WAY” to do anything concerning painting. I am sure about this. If I take that stance, sooner or later there’s going to be dust!
Following are some examples that give meaning to me in my own quest to know more about myself, and my painting.
“A Continuous Critique …From the moment I sit down to make a picture to the last stroke, the aim is to first create some quality of life on that surface, and then to keep the flame alive until the picture is complete. The force of the picture must be maintained at all costs; a visual excitement has to arrive early, and remain.” - Harry Stooshinoff
This quote is from an artist who I really admire, Harry Stooshinoff, and have collected, as have many others. He’s completely unique and making his own way, and has sold over 4000 paintings on Etsy! That’s really impressive. More impressive to me is his philosophy about being an artist and painting paintings. If you go to this link on his website, you can read the full piece that these quotes are taken from. It’s worth your time. Wonderful questions to ask yourself while in the process of painting.
Another quote from Harry’s essay… “Does the work look over-controlled through too conscientious an approach? Does it suffer from neat disease? Is there room for both highly controlled, and perhaps, more loosely entered passages? Does the quality of paint surface, determined either through the thickness of the paint, or the way it has been handled, contain an excitement and variety, or does it seem too consistent?” - Harry Stooshinoff
A little flash back…
I remember when I was in a workshop in Bartlesville, OK with the late Master painter, Richard Schmid. I asked him if he consciously considered what the paint surface looked like, the thick and thin of it? His reply was tempered with a little bit of aghast that I would ask that. To me it was part of the beauty of his work, my own ‘great unknown’ at the time, the push and pull between the transparent, washy parts, and the ‘like icing’ thicker passages. His answer to me was “No, that’s a natural part of the painting process. It’s a result of my reaction to the subject matter I’m painting.” I was sort of surprised back then because I thought that had to be a conscious decision, because I heard it all of the time… “thick juicy paint”! My paintings were very thin then. While out in the field painting during the workshop one morning, Richard walked by and gave me some encouraging words about my study. He added that if I really wanted to make the leaves pop on the piece I was painting, a scene of a fallen, dying tree along a bank, I should pick up a load of the yellowish green I had mixed up, and lay it on there “thick”. He did that and the painting sparked to life! I began sensing the confusion within my eager but confounded young painters’ head, that follows me still today. Was that a conscious, intentional mark? Or the result of the subject in front of him guiding him intuitively, and what’s the difference? Whatever he did was great, so it didn’t really matter, but I was curious.
Another painter who I studied oil painting with at Art Center College of Design was the great Dan McCaw. He walked by my painting one day in class and said “We call it ‘painting’, not ‘staining’!” He proceeded to take my biggest #12 Degas filbert and scoop up most of the paint on my palette (we were painting large still life set ups with Prussian blue, ivory black and raw umber and white) and create beauty. I didn’t eat that night because that was my entire budget for the day, but it was a great lesson. I still have that one by the way, a nice 30x24! At that time in my painting life, painters seemed to be admired for the volume of paint on the surface of the work. Or maybe that’s what I admired and didn’t have in my tool belt? In my own learning process I had etched that onto my list of things that comprise quality work, hopefully to be attained some day. It hasn’t been yet; I’ve always had to work towards that goal of surface build up on a painting. The artists who I know, admire and look up to who have that quality to their work, all seem to come by it in a natural way. I don’t. And I don’t think that there is any way for me to force it upon myself. I have come close to it once in a while, probably more when painting outside, where I’m more of a reactive painter than I am in the studio. But generally speaking, I paint thinly.
I need to go back to Harry Stooshinoff’s quote above… “Does the quality of paint surface, determined either through the thickness of the paint, or the way it has been handled, contain an excitement and variety, or does it seem too consistent?”… and practice more.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, partly due to my working so much with acrylics. Acrylics lose the volume of the brush stroke shapes, to some degree (depending on the type and maker of the paint), as the water evaporates and the paint dries. Oil paints retain most of their volume, and hold stroke shape, as the paint dries. The newest acrylics, like Golden Heavy Body acrylics, hold up brush strokes much better than the acrylics of the past did. But they’re still not as full bodied upon drying as oil paints, unless you add a medium or gel that allows the strokes to stay as the paint dries.
My surprise… I’m becoming used to this with acrylics. There is value in how both the surface and the image work in tandem. One isn’t better than other if either gets in the way of your ultimate goal in a painting. A cool thing about acrylics though is that you can have it both ways if you want to. With all of the gels and mediums, and the ability to layer on layer on layer… you can build up some amazing surface qualities in short amount of time.
Last quote from Harry Stooshinoff… “Do not fear that method will supersede intuition; your intuition will ultimately guide everything!”
Well, my quest to know continues. As I start this 48x60 acrylic, all of these questions come back to the quotes from Harry, Richard Schmid, Dan McCaw and many others, and play on a continuous loop in my head. Hopefully some of that wisdom will stick and help to see me through this one. No excuses!
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Happy Painting,
Marc
Nice, Mark .
Love reading your thoughts.
Interested that you are now using acrylics.
Look forward to hearing and seeing more.
Thanks for the great discussion, Marc, and especially for introducing Stooshinoff to us.( I checked him out on his web site and Etsy; what a treat to see his work! ) I'm enjoying your conversations about the technical aspects of your work but also the thought processes that inform your painting decisions. Looking forward to more!