|
Painting loosely seems to be a bit like singing to yourself as opposed to singing in public. At the start, if you are a public singer or a professional painter, the things you sing to yourself seem so far away from the dignity of professionalism - the silliness, the putting of your all into a bad note loudly, the singing of songs you would never admit liking in public etc. When you sing in public you start by making all the right choices based on what seems to be acceptable and admired.
I think that as you go on there begins to be a blurring between your private artistic self and your public one, and you start to get tired of putting away the instinctive movements of your arm, and instinctive workings of your mind.
I find with myself that the beginning stages of a painting these days are lasting longer and longer - i.e the stages when I am fooling around with paint, not committing to a professional-looking composition etc. At first it seems like I've finally lost it and I really am bored with painting, but, in fact, I think it is a rebellion of the mind to working against its natural creative impulses.
There's a real passion and soaring feeling when you are singing to yourself, a real transcendental experience which I never get when I am singing correctly and publicly. But this feeling actually comes from assimilating the techniques of traditional singing so one day you find yourself singing with everything you have and it actually sounds in tune, clear and conveys the emotions accurately. It is the same with painting, I think. At the start when traditional technique is not second nature, when you take your public and peers too seriously, and your private and professional artistic selfs have not merged, there's a lack of flow between your need to paint and the paint that is put down. When your technique is more a part of you, or you allow your natural responses to the subject to be put down without interference, and when the opinions of your public and peers don't matter so much, then, I think, your paintings may be less static. It's a bit of a leap of faith to let yourself continue to doodle or mess around with the paint through those many precious hours of studio time. You also need to let your mind be receptive to bits of the painting that work according to your gut feeling and not the received ideas of your contemporaries. Something glorious will happen, if you let your instinct lead you and you let yourself learn from it.
|