It is no wonder that I cannot get much done. Constant interruptions and family duties call me away from productive painting sessions in my studio. Then when I have a day or two, I am still so distracted that my sessions produce nothing worth keeping. In frustration I usually start tearing up my work. In fact, I have made the mistake of trying to take unfinished works only to end up destroying them. Everything ends in the trash can.
Painting for me requires me to be in the right frame of mind (I think). I have tried so many times to just push through a bad session but ultimately I'm driven to quit and walkout fiercely frustrated. Then that fear makes it hard to enter the studio again.
Thankfully, this life drawing session is saving the day for me. With absolutely no planning, no expectations, I just go and do it. If something good happens fine but if not, it doesn't matter. Now it's the holidays...forget doing anything serious for me.
December Life Drawing...
This is from December Life Drawing ... I wish I could get better images. These are somewhat overly contrasted next to the originals.
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7 comments:
I know exactly how you feel about needing the right frame of mind and your own space.
I frequent Marc Hanson's blog and he mentioned a book called "Art and Fear"...have you read it?
I'm looking for a copy the next time out, it looks like something I need to read, and soon!
Here's a link to Marc's blog.
http://marchanson.blogspot.com/2008/11/few-good-ideas.html
Regards
Eugene V.
Thanks so much Eugene...
I will read that book you suggested. I'm desperate to become more productive. Is there something wrong with me?
I read the book: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven where the author warns of allowing yourself or others to sabotage your times and interfere with producing art.
I just don't know how to do that.
What is wrong with me...am I kidding myself I often wonder?
Rob is always warning artists about allowing their work to become "precious" ... I don't have that problem ... I'm far to critical and trash most of my work... and if I get a critique ... well I might as well put it in the trash because their solutions which are usually right on ... are well ... not mine and when I follow theirs or mine the art always goes south ... aaaaargh.
Yeah...I'm pretty frustrated and unproductive. I keep wondering if I had a studio out of my home that I would do better...maybe not.
Thanks Eugene...
Patti
If there's something wrong with you, then there's the same thing wrong with me!
Have you considered that you really do care about your work and your "quick to destroy" actions are not that you consider your work "worthless" but actually you do care ALOT about your Art?
Such emotional responses often indicate that we care to much about the thing we say we care nothing about! I have the same problem...so much so that I often "trash" a painting before I've even physically painted it. Its been trashed in my head before it has even been given life!
If we really didnt care, we would be blase about it and we wouldnt get so angry and frustrated and tear it up and just want to scream and punch something...erm maybe thats just me. :-)
Rob is very pragmatic and doesnt seem to get so emotionally involved with his work...which is great when you want to "Illustrate" something and one is used to deadlines...Maybe its cause he's been doing it as a "job" for 50 years...not that I'm saying Illustrations cant be great works of Art...or that Illustrators cant be great Artists...
Emotional people like us cant work that way...well we can but I think it "limits" our quality of production...there needs to be a balance between "get it done" pragmatism and outpouring of our emotional content. It's the Emotional aspects that appeals to us.
I am reading Dan McCaw's book "A Proven Strategy for Creating Great Art".
Chapter 1 "Opening Your Heart" is really interesting. There is a particularly poignant thought on Pages 17 and 20.
"The opinions and idea you give voice to do not have to be revolutionary - they only need to be sincere. Someone else out there in the world will respond to what you have to say, to how you view the world.
Consider this: Some people go to the Grand Canyon and are amazed by it, enthralled by it, excited by it. For other people, it's just a big hole. Some people can go to a museum and see a piece of art that moves them, while others can look at the same piece of art and move on as if it doesn't exist. Why is that? Objects don't give you an emotion; you already contain that emotion. An object just brings the emotion out. Art is the same way. It provides a reason for that thought, that mood, that feeling that exists within you to surface. It connects and awakens that part of us that we already posses."
I hope you find some inspiration from it.
...I'll write more when I find what I'm looking for in another book...its eluding me...now I'll have to read the book again just to find it. lol
Eugene
Eugene,
You don't know how much your post has encouraged me. (I will also get that book.) This sounds awful, but I am thankful that you feel the same way I do. A selfish position but it makes me feel better. Don't kid yourself, Rob is going through some of that right now. Where is his finished work? There isn't any in the past year and half.
I used to have a great deal of self confidence (like Rob) but honestly, I'm feeling a little shattered in that area at the moment.
I think some productive work will really help me if I can just break through. I am analytical so I may be just over thinking but I do think good planning improves painting...or maybe not....AAAAAAAAARGH.
Thanks Eugene
Eugene...
WOW...Dan McCaw's book "A Proven Strategy for Creating Great Art" is expensive...up to $600 a copy. I found one used for a little less than $100.
It must be a classic. I look forward to reading it.
Been thinking about the idea that I care about my art...I'd rather create one great piece than a hundred mediocre ones. Yeah ... I do care about my art.
Patti
WOAH that much?! I had no idea, I bought it new from http://www.international-artist.com a couple years ago...it didnt cost that much back then!
I hope you arent disappointed with it after spending so much...my pristine copy could be worth a small fortune!
I know how you feel about "I'd rather create one great piece than a hundred mediocre ones."...the problem is that we need to paint 100 mediocre ones to get to the "great" work. And I know how hard it is to slog through the chaff. Because we value everything we do so much and want it to be perfect it hits us hard to see that it is crap...and we are just wanting someone to criticize it so we can trash it in a fit of Pique. ;-)
Do you think all of Da Vinci's paintings or Picasso's hundreds of thousands of works are all "Great"? (I dont like any of Picasso's art but thats beside the point lol) They too had to wade through lots of "failures" until a piece worth keeping emerged.
Oh, I thought Rob was working on a massive 100 figure/portrait piece which was taking up all of his time...thats what I last read he was doing.
Eugene.
Eugene,
I haven't bought that book yet because I can't find one under $160. It is out of print. I'm looking.
I hadn't thought of that like that...paint 50 bad to get 1 good. Hum. Maybe it is a false pride overblown ego issue. Perfectionism is an inhuman goal that has plagued me. I recognize there needs to be balance but it is hard to attain.
(Okay, I am over analyzing again.)
Another thing you said, "we are just waiting for someone to criticize it so we can trash it in a fit of Pique." Hum. I do that!! And if someone says it's a good piece, I always respond with "thanks but it's not that good" and begin picking it apart. So no one says anything who knows me. I have always said that I don't care what people think but that really isn't honest. If Rob ever said anything positive about my posted work, I'm not sure how I would take it...and I really respect his opinion of
You know Eugene, I've had this blog for a really long time and very few people ever comment one way or another on my art; I just assumed a negative response which continues to foster my belief that all my work is mediocre. You know what, I wouldn't have posted anything that I didn't think was fairly good. Hum.
Regarding Picasso ...abstract/modern art... I dunno. I hold that and other contemporary work up to the past and feel disappointed every time. I'm being honest.
There is so much idiocy in art. Images that have nothing to them are bantered to be great art. Slap a few colors with a brush and call it art. Paint something disgusting and get rave reviews. I believe art critics have done more to harm the development of art than any other entity and they get away with it because our people are culturally undeveloped in the arts.
I also think that that is why I chose Advertising Graphics as a career instead of Find Art when I was in school. The current "fad" in art then didn't excite me one wit...and ya had to follow that thinking or die on the vine in school and the art world...I'd starve ... I thought.
Now I am pursuing art...my real passion...and feel cheated that I didn't get the training nor was allowed to follow that passion in school because of this nonsense.
Rob is suppose to be working but I really don't think he is at all. I could be wrong.
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