The Studio Journal: Wide Horizons

One of the chief pleasures in making things is learning how to do it. Kids who tinker with machinery--motorcycles, or clocks or whatever--probably get as much enjoyment from learning how things work as they do from actual building or rebuilding the device. We've all known kids who loved taking things apart, of course, trying to see how they work. Learning the craft associated with art is like that. Finding out how oil paint behaves and how its properties can be modified drove many budding artists' interest. Technical matters are attractive for some. The "secrets" of the oil painter are sought again and again, generation after generation, and we love being seekers. Of course we learn soon enough that the magic of the masters was in their hands and heads and not their paint.

Lascaux Horse

"Folds on Seated Figure," (after Leonardo) charcoal, 2015

Making pictures is one of the basic things we do as humans, and we've done it for many millennia. A lot of early images are startling in their realism--for example the famous cave paintings of Lascaux. Learning to make pictures of the actual world--to make a picture look real--is probably an innate desire. It's not that we can make things innately, but we have the innate ability to learn skills of that kind.

That means we have to learn to see. Learning to see one's subject is the firm basis for realistic art. Most art teachers advocate drawing from life, although the atelier system also employs drawing from the work of others as well--plaster casts of sculpture, drawings of the masters and so on. Seeing and drawing is the beginning. For me, as for many, copying the masters from all eras let me find a way into their thought processes and methods. Copying is one way to learn.

Once a person can draw adequately you can apply those skills to a wider range of materials an methods and in that way broaden your vision. There are those today who find art in the conception alone, the idea, but for me art is also in the personal execution of one's vision. Ideas are great but until someone does something with the idea it is no more than that. Craft precedes and produces art.

If an artist becomes proficient or at least adequate with a medium, the artist may stick with that medium for all time. Oil painters continue to use oil paint and so on. The same goes for subject matter. Thomas Kinkade made a fortune painting cute little cottages with trees. Nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, seems to me that seeking wider horizons is a good idea.

One way to grow as an artist is to explore new media or new methods to use the old one. Drawing with charcoal is a start, but there are many other ways to make marks. Graphite, chalk, pastel, metalpoint, ink, and pixels are a few of them that can be explored. You can paint with oil, but why not try watercolor, acrylic, or casein? People carve wood, shape metal or stone, or even fold paper into shapes. The key is trying something new. It builds different creative muscles and stimulates different ideas. David Hockey, the famous British artist, has done that very thing in using digital programs on smartphones and tablets. Of course, none of these experimental journeys into the unknown has to be shown to anyone. Studies and sketches are only to extend knowledge. Show the ones that work out and ditch the others.

"Studio Bottles," oil, 6x8, 2013

Using different mediums teaches me new things. The medium may or not be the message, but the medium results in different ways of working and completely different results. Using paint and paper in a transparent way with watercolor forces a different kind of work flow (to use a contemporary term) than oil painting. The watercolor picture is brought together in a very different way than oils. Casein paint dries rapidly, which is a boon and a challenge. A charcoal drawing can be quick, spontaneous, and energetic while a metalpoint picture requires patience, planning, and a very gentle touch. Digital works allow easy revision, many shortcuts and exceptionally quick opportunities for manipulation. With digital works you can try out all sorts of ideas without ruining the work in progress, so digital work fosters experimentation and new horizons.