The damming of "Pond" actually means "Pond" is shored-up, it just about as far as it can go. "Pond" is in the minor adjustments phase, a highlight here and a correction of a stone there, and a fix on a finger over there. This normally is the most tedious part of making a painting, as the major creative impulse is satisfied. I am surprised I feel so excited about these concluding days on the "Pond." I believe my excitement is anticipation of seeing my most complex work completed with all my skills utilized. I feel like I am graduating from a period of my life. I am anticipating new things made with skills developed through the education this painting has given me. Hurray for Education!
I celebrated my coming graduation with an excellent drawing. It came with ease and fluidity. Another great feeling on a good day in the studio! (Enjoy my exclamation points while they last!) I am not going to post a picture of the painting "Pond" till it is concluded. It is very close. Yesterday I worked from detail to detail and fit each within the whole. This is exacting, consuming work. I am surprised I am enjoying it. My excitement reflects quality. This is a really good painting and it gets better as I finish each portion. I'll go back into it today. Yesterday several hands and feet were repainted and each works better as form and within the general composition. I also corrected the central figure's right arm (on his left as you view the painting). If you look at yesterday's post of "Pond" you will see an over-elongated arm on the central figure. It now reads correctly. What astonishes me about changes in form, such as this, is their improvement to the overall composition as well.
I'll post the one drawing of the day. This is truly a simple "warm-up" drawing, in that it says nothing but this: "Let me exercise my ability to make details within the whole before I work on the big, and similar, problems of the day." I repainted the head and upper torso of the figure on the left 3 times yesterday. Today that head will be refined. I also further refined the head of the central figure, and the body and hand of the woman. There are more, albeit subtle, changes since the last posting of "Pond." I intend to go back into it today. I want to optimize it and put it behind me. I have many more paintings to make. One drawing was made yesterday. It is a revisit to the theme expressed in the first drawing of 9/30/2010. Yesterday was a good day, mostly outside the studio (nonetheless, I did make one excellent drawing). My studio time was broken by events of the day. In three separate sessions I completed the drawing I post today. This drawing, along with #3 shown in yesterday's post, are among my best. On my drawing wall these two drawings distinguish themselves by radiating completeness in idea and execution. (My "Drawing Wall" is a constantly restocked collection of drawings. It exhibits the 41 drawings I currently consider my most important. Every day I exchange at least one of my new drawings for an older one.)
Today is my day to complete the painting "Pond." Even if I do not live up to this self-proclaimed ambition, I will post a photo of its current state tomorrow. I did not intend it to happen. I thought I might go back into the painting "Pond" and finish it off. Instead I spent the day drawing. I felt very good making these drawings. They came easily. As I made them I felt celebration: I can feel and draw at the same time! My sense of time and place disappears when I draw this way. There are roots here deeper than consciousness. And the drawings get better, one to the next. The third drawing of the day is a marvel. Reproduction does not do it justice. This third drawing is satisfying in light, form, spatial relationships, and composition.
I have always believed the substance of my paintings has had to wait for the substance of my drawings. In other words, until I acquired a way to spontaneously manifest myself through drawings the paintings would be meager searches in semi-darkness. The painting "Pond" is important because I did not rush it to completion. Each element of "Pond" was not accepted until it had the air of truth. As I write this I realize how vague words are. This is why I make art, and this is why you must view my work to complete the ideas I attempt to communicate in words. The central figure in the painting "Pond" now has a new face and torso. No photo of "Pond" today. Otherwise I revisited a problem I had with the rib cage in the first drawing posted yesterday. I made a second drawing in which I jumped in and let the form of a woman reinvent itself. Take a look.
Being in the studio is getting easier. Up until recently there had been a substantial day to day emotional turning. Daily, as I walked into the studio, I did not know what to expect from myself: pleasure, despair, confusion. These range of emotions have not disappeared, but the degree of the swinging is far less. My optimism is rising as my ability increases. Since I began this blog in July 2010 my way of living in the studio has changed. Now there is a day to day enthusiasm, which has replaced uncertainty. My uncertainty was driven by feelings of ignorance and inadequacy. The day by day work I have sustained in recent months has induced replacement of uncertainty and ignorance with confidence and trust. I feel competent. Vincent van Gogh wrote, "What I want and aim at is confoundedly difficult, and yet I do not think I aim too high." He wrote this in July 1882, at the beginning of his artistic career. In 1882 van Gogh's great paintings were yet to be made. I have similar feelings. I am on the verge of making the art I know I was born to make. I do not believe I aim too high. The two drawings I made yesterday have robustness in approach, engendered by my feeling confident enough to challenge my manner of attack. A shift is occurring, instead of studies spawned by questioning my ignorance, these are searches for emotional reality. Looking at the painting "Pond": The head of the central figure is not quite correct. Otherwise the work to complete "Pond" seems apparent. There are no guarantees in making art, but "Pond" appears close to completion, with few surprises remaining.
As predicted, I did not work on the painting "Pond" yesterday. But, I made four drawings. These are prep drawings for my next steps, my next paintings. In the studio there are now two major blank canvases. One is 54 X 54 inches and other 60 X 72 inches. The canvases are ready. "Pond" is in its final days (I am taking the time to contemplate it). Yesterday's burst of drawings illustrates where I am better than any words, so here they are...
I ended yesterday's time in the studio struggling to draw. I had exhausted my ability to make art. When this happens there is a sense of my being in a quiet portion of my mind with little desire to communicate. This lack of incentive means good art cannot me created. The desire has been soaked away. It feels very curious and happens rarely. I have written about the necessity of taking one or two days between major changes on the painting "Pond." I am learning this inability to know what "Pond" requires is akin to this loss of impetus to communicate. It is exhaustion. It is not physical exhaustion, it is exhaustion in all things mental: emotions and intellect are equally "used-up." I post the current version "Pond." I will not work on it again for a few days, but when I do it will be to conclusion. Right now it is on the edge of being all it can be. The two drawings of the day are shown below. The first one was made before I worked on "Pond." It is amusing and energetic. The second was made after working on "Pond" and during my last half an hour in the studio. It is a standard drawing with some internal miscues. I was exhausted and used this drawing to "warm down."
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April 2024
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