Ready, Get Set, Go!

Well, it has been a week since I began this blog and I have yet to lay out any paint and brushes and begin to place color on a surface. I struggled still with how to begin and in my quest for that starting point to ensure taking off in a different direction I decided to pick up one of the books that I had bought this past year but had only scanned when it came in due to pressures at my work and family medical matters.

The book I decided to check out was The Painterly Approach: An Artist's Guide to Seeing, Painting and Expressing (Northlight Books, 2008) by Bob Rohm. The title attracted my attention as this is how I've often expressed my goal: to paint more painterly. I began reading the book in the middle of the week and spent most of the day Saturday reading it through. Now that is not how I would normally use an art instruction book nor recommend to others to do. However, the way this book is written so perfectly matched my past experience, present problem, and future hope so well that I didn't want to put it down. It was a very easy read and I took notes as I went through page by page so as to get the content beyond the cognative level.

In the book are principles to follow and some great and practical suggestions for putting those principles into practice. While many of the principles have been found in other books I own, this book put them all into one place, explained them clearly and eloquently in a manner that fit me like an old, comfortable shoe. I now have the entry point for my journey and will start out walking instead of running by doing a good many small 6"X8" studies with just primary colors and a 1/2 inch brush as suggested by Mr. Rohm using the principles he has presented in his book. I can tell you this, if I can get to the point of painting with the dynamics of Mr. Rohm's examples, I'll be very happy. When I can do this consistently without having to think about each principle and each stroke I'll have reached the place I wish to go in my art. Thank you Bob Rohm for your book. It has already been an inspiration.

Where Do I Begin?

Okay, now that I've started the blog it is time to start the actual journey to that a place I don't know, a place I've never been.

Some favorite contemporary (in the time sense of the word) artists whose books I have and whose paintings I really like are (not necessarily in any particular order):

Kevin MacPherson, Fill Your Oil Paintings With Light and Color
Mike Svob, Paint Red Hot Landscapes That Sell!
Bob Rohm, The Painterly Approach, An Artist's Guide to Seeing, Painting and Expressing
Charles Sovek, Oil Painting, Develop Your Natural Ability
Steven Quiller, Color Choices, Making Color Sense Out of Color Theory; Painter's Guide to Color; Acrylic Painting Techniques, How to Master the Medium of Our Age
Rachel Wolf, editor, The Acrylic Painter's Book of Styles and Techniques (especially the work of William Hook and Joseph Orr in this book)
Tony Couch, Tony Couch's Keys to Successful Painting (plus I've talked with him on the phone)
Tom Lynch, Tom Lynch's 100 Watercolor Workshop Lesson Charts

One approach would be to go through their books doing exercises based on that content. However, the desire is to break from previous approaches to improving my art which have not proven productive in any permanent way.

I had private lessons from a Daphne Meister in Houston from nine to twelve years of age. All my work was done from copying prints using a very traditional palette of oil paints and a very traditional manner of painting. Here I learned many "rules" such as fat over lean, paint dark thin and light heavy, perspective, color mixing, and care of my brushes. Some of which I still own.

At the age of 16 I attended a week long (at least it seemed) pastel portrait workshop with Harry Worthman (1909-1989) in Houston. Harry Worthman was primarily a portrait artist and his paintings portray images of famous individuals, such as Lyndon B. Johnson, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, J.C. Penney, Alan Shepard, Ann Landers, and Texas governors John Connally and Price Daniel, as well as Norman Rockwell in the TMA-owned painting Norman Rockwell in His Arlington, Vermont Studio, 1946, (Tyler Museum of Art, 2003.23). Many other prominent families, primarily in Texas and Louisiana, but also throughout the Southwest, as well as in England, Mexico and Japan, commissioned Worthman portraits. I learned a great deal about portrait painting from him in that short time that has remained clear in my mind to this day.

Some of my best works have been portraits. I have done one of my father, an Assistant Fire Chief of the Edinburg Texas Volunteer Fire Department, one of a merchant from Edinburg, Texas commissioned by his family, and two of Roberto Pulido of which one was done for the charitible auction for a women's shelter in South Texas and the other was done as a gift to his dear mother and father. His mother is the sister of the elected official for whom I've worked for 26 years.

Portraits are fun but I also enjoy painting landscapes. This is where I seek the most change. One of the reasons I believe I paint landscapes is that it gives me a chance to "explore" places where I cannot travel to see myself. When one paints it is very easy to get totally absorbed in the subject of the painting as observations of color, texture, form, value and light are made. I love to dwell in peaceful wooded areas near flowing waters. This may be one reason many of my landscapes lack interest and drama. I need to think that through.

I have supplies on hand sufficient to work in oil, acrylic, gouache, pastel, and watercolor. While I am most comfortable with oils because I have used them the most, I also feel safe with them because I've got time to push the paint around. I believe I will start with acrylics in order to get out of my "safe" zone and also to give me the more rapid drying time that I would like to have to make the most of the little time each day I have after my long work day.

I am probably more illustrator than fine artist but what really is the difference? Permanence? Perhaps. Assignment? Maybe but there are commissioned works of "fine art." Many artists such as J. M. W. Turner painted to tell a story or report on a significant event.

My motivation? I love beauty. I love irony. I love interesting people, places and things with a lot of visual character. I love peaceful, tranquil, pastoral scenes. I live vicariously through my art. This is one thing that makes working from beautiful photographs that my daughter has taken (of France, California, Austin, Texas area) very difficult. I consider the photos art in and of themselves and rather than try to emulate that beauty I feel I should just frame them and enjoy them. She sees the light so much better than I.

Most of the books on painting I have most enjoyed have recommended doing value sketches (thumbnails) of your idea for a painting of a certain subject limiting the values to three and grouping intermediate values into larger shapes. I believe this is a practice I should begin with some great frequency until I begin to understand the compositional elements that make a really great painting. The goal here is to not focus on the details as much as to look for the big shapes of dominant values that can make up a dynamic composition.

Time to stop talking about it and do it. Let's see...where is my sketchbook?

The Journey Begins

Well, this is the first day of writing to this blog and not only does the journey to becoming the artist I think I want to be seem daunting so does the idea of writing to this blog daily to journal my journey. I was inspired this past weekend by the movie Julie and Julia and by the focus, discipline and success Julie found by making her committment public and accountable. My daughter suggested I do the same concerning my desire to be the painter I want to be at 65 years of age.
So, for the next year I step forward into an exercise that has become an intimidation to me when I've considered it before. It is good to make goals and be accountable. I have included a somewhat small, poor quality image of a 20" x 24" portrait I did for a charity event of Tejano singer Robert Pulido to reflect where I am at this time. It was taken sitting on my easel which is showing at the bottom of the image.
I spent seven years as a volunteer firefighter going into burning buildings, fighting brush fires, and doing rescues and this adventure puts more fear in me that all of those. I am going to stop trying to become "somebody" and just try to become the artist I think I want to be. I remember the quote from someone that goes something like this, "All my life I wanted to be somebody and now I realize I should have been more specific."
Hopefully, during this journey, the idea of what that is will become clearer and more focused so that I may chose a true direction and destination. Perhaps that is part of the previous problem. I might be wanting to be a different kind of artist when I should just try to become the best artist of the kind I am that I can be.

During this next year I plan to describe not only my actions but also my thoughts and feelings as I travel along this self-imposed highway to a destination not unlike the yellow brick road to Oz. I'm not sure I will find the place I want to be or just find myself, my own mind, my own heart, and the ability and willingness to just be me.