Imagination and Creation

There is a point for many artists when the hours and days they've spent studying repay the effort. By studying I mean the kind of visual engagement a painter or sculptor makes with the physical world. Artists build a visual library of everything from angular geologic forms in landscape to nuances of human bodies through considered seeing--in enough detail to allow them to invent believable shapes of people, buildings, streets, and so on without references. That is, many artists can invent a figure or a room or a landscape, even if only for a study drawing. Some still use models, once they've established a useful composition A century ago, during the golden years of illustration, someone like Albert Dorne could and did produce beautifully rendered illustrations for countless magazines and ads, many without use of models or photos.

For me, it's an interesting practice to attempt a painting from my imagination. Last week, having finished a large landscape and casting about for something new to paint, I picked up an old 11x14 panel with a failed portrait painted on it and without much thought began a landscape based on my memory of the painting just completed. That is, a memory copy of my most recent work. 

"Stormy Savanna," oil on panel, 11x14

The resultant work is necessarily considerably simplified in comparison to it's much larger predecessor. And because the failed portrait was in darker values (it never progressed to higher ones) the entire overpainted landscape is necessarily darker. The stormy dark blue sky was the remedy for the warm darks of the portrait, and the darkest greens likewise. The work proceeded in layers, each taking a couple of hours on several successive days. The trick was to imply a brighter light source slanting into the scene from the top left, yet keep the grasses and trees in mid- to darker values. 

Making images from memory is a worthwhile way to flex my visual muscles, seems to me.