Holidays vs. Art

I love the upcoming Holiday season but know that every year it puts huge limitations on my time normally devoted to art.  There were even a few years in the past when I didn't paint, draw or even think much about art for a number of weeks because of heavy personal and family commitments at this time of year. Each time this happened I found that my ability to perform regressed. I lost my working momentum, the rhythm of my process and even became unsure in my skills. It took weeks to regain all that was lost. This lapse combined with others of shorter duration throughout the ensuing year delayed my growth as an artist.

I finally came to realize that I could not afford to allow this to happen.  Instead of beating my breast and feeling guilty I decided to break my time into small segments that were manageable and develop a schedule I could keep.  My formula was simple, it consisted of deciding what I needed time wise to maintain my skills and rhythm at a working level. 

In general, I knew personally I needed at least 4-6 hours a week to just keep my skills honed to a passable working level.  That broke down to doing quick studies for at least 30 - 40 minutes each day. That was reasonable and something I was able to do even on the most busy of days

One of the biggest misnomers among my students is that they feel  they must create "paintings" whenever they pick up a brush.  That's wrong!  It is far more important to do studies and small exercises to keep up skill, grow and be able to preform when called upon to do so. Anyone can do a drawing, a series of 4-5 thumbnails, work on a value or color study, etc., etc., in a 30 minute period.  That is far more important than waiting until you have a "block of time" (which may never happen) when you can "paint".  Part of all this is simply mind set.

The bottom line is that if you do nothing with your art over the holidays you will most assuredly regress.  If you dedicate 30 minutes per day you will maintain for a few short weeks before regression begins and if you work an hour or more each day you might even be able to build more skill in certain areas.

If, throughout the year, you take art classes and/or work regularly in your studio then why jeopardize that investment? Isn't what you do important to you...important enough to maintain it through a busy time?  Surely you can tweak your schedule to guarantee just 30 minutes a day for your art?

Beating the Positive to Death!

I had lunch the other day with several friends who are also students of art. The topic of negative and positive space came up. Their general agreement was that their focus gets caught up on the positive and that they often forget about negative shapes. My comment to that was, "...one of my frustrations as a teacher is seeing students ignore the negative while beating the positive to death". Well, this made everyone laugh and they all agreed that this had to be the subject of my next post.

"The Road to Somewhere", 18x14", oil on canvas

by Sharon Griffes Tarr, copyright 2009

First, let's assume that everyone, at least intellectually, understands the difference between negative and positive shapes in art, ie: the horse, the tree, the building, etc. vs. the negative space that surrounds these shapes. Due to the way we have been trained to see since childhood, we humans naturally focus on positive shapes. This is our nature. This is also where unskilled painters get into trouble. Because they see only the positive they will continue to erase, redraw (repaint), erase, redraw (repaint), erase, redraw (repaint), or incorporate fussy fussy, dibby dabbing, and mindless pencil marks or brush work to correct a positive shape until it is beaten into submission. Unless reminded they will never look at the negative as a moderating or correcting tool.

There are certain truths in art that are, unto themselves, self evident. This is one of them... if a negative shape is not correct, the positive shape next to it will also be wrong. It cannot be otherwise. So, for seasoned artists, when a positive seems wrong the first thing they do is look at the negative space(s) and correct the shape.

James Reynolds is an American icon of western art following in the footsteps of Remington and Russell. Formerly a Hollywood screen illustrator and later fine artist extraordinaire, Reynolds passed away this past year. What I find interesting about his beautiful oils are the small passages throughout his paintings that show slightly altered color shapes and brush strokes in negative passages that clearly demonstrate his attention to correcting and enhancing positive shapes. His style of work makes it easy to find these alterations. His positive shapes remain clean, crisp and fluidly beautiful by comparison because they are not beaten to death. His adjustments are most often made in the negative. His negative shapes are as interesting as his positive shapes. Reynolds work is well worth studying, if no other reason, for this one aspect alone, simply because his brushwork is so readable. However, I would hope anyone taking the time to study his work would also recognize his phenomenal command of draftsmanship, sense of color and composition. He was clearly a master of his craft and should be studied seriously.

In "Road to Somewhere", above, I spent as much time if not more creating interesting negatives. My positive shapes are the small hills on both sides of the road and the road itself. All the remaining shapes including the fields, roadside grasses and sky are subordinate or negative. However, note how interesting each of these shapes are. They are quite clearly, part of the whole and what creates the "finished" quality and unity in the painting. Without them, this painting would have very little impact. The are effectively important to the overall look of this work.

So, the next time you find yourself struggling with your subject, take a moment and look at the negative space around it. You just might improve that tree or building by creating a better negative.