I'd like to share a discussion from oil painting class today. The students all have projects for the next two months, and the theme this time is changing plans.
Whenever an idea comes, a vision for a creative project, or a period of harmonious work, it usually comes with an end result in mind, and a basic roadmap for how to get there. A painting can appear in the mind's eye very vivid, and a technique is followed to achieve that result.
However, if a vision is held too tightly the project will run out of steam, or will become slavish at some point. This is also true with finding a groove... where there is inspiration, confidence, and high skill. A groove will have a beginning, it will peak, and it will either fizzle or also become slavish. There is always an arc, and what we have been working with this session is how have an idea, believe in it, act on it, and at the same time be willing to let go of it, before it takes you down with it. This way the painter is always riding a shifting, evolving, vision of the work at hand.
This touch-and-go approach can be hard for people who want control, who want to have their palette logically organized, and to have an ordered creative process. It can be like giving into chaos.
I demonstrated this shifting approach by doing a very detailed and finished painting, then suddenly wiping it away with turps, "annihilating" it, so that only the ghostly image of what was there remained. Then this ghostly image became a very interesting suggestion for something new, and the seed of a painting that could not have been arrived at by other means.
I have been working on a digital project for a year, and it might take another year or two to complete it. Within this time the basic outline idea has remained, but with that broad outline, the vision has continually died and been reborn, with each vision having its arc. So instead of having fixed form being followed, the process has been a morphing, shifting, evolving vision that is as fresh and inspiring today as it was a year ago. Otherwise such a large and involved project would have ground to a halt.
I am really enjoying this class, and although a couple of students have had some difficult moments, they are all learning to touch and go. The work is also looking beautiful.
Gassho
Daizan
Sat today.
Whenever an idea comes, a vision for a creative project, or a period of harmonious work, it usually comes with an end result in mind, and a basic roadmap for how to get there. A painting can appear in the mind's eye very vivid, and a technique is followed to achieve that result.
However, if a vision is held too tightly the project will run out of steam, or will become slavish at some point. This is also true with finding a groove... where there is inspiration, confidence, and high skill. A groove will have a beginning, it will peak, and it will either fizzle or also become slavish. There is always an arc, and what we have been working with this session is how have an idea, believe in it, act on it, and at the same time be willing to let go of it, before it takes you down with it. This way the painter is always riding a shifting, evolving, vision of the work at hand.
This touch-and-go approach can be hard for people who want control, who want to have their palette logically organized, and to have an ordered creative process. It can be like giving into chaos.
I demonstrated this shifting approach by doing a very detailed and finished painting, then suddenly wiping it away with turps, "annihilating" it, so that only the ghostly image of what was there remained. Then this ghostly image became a very interesting suggestion for something new, and the seed of a painting that could not have been arrived at by other means.
I have been working on a digital project for a year, and it might take another year or two to complete it. Within this time the basic outline idea has remained, but with that broad outline, the vision has continually died and been reborn, with each vision having its arc. So instead of having fixed form being followed, the process has been a morphing, shifting, evolving vision that is as fresh and inspiring today as it was a year ago. Otherwise such a large and involved project would have ground to a halt.
I am really enjoying this class, and although a couple of students have had some difficult moments, they are all learning to touch and go. The work is also looking beautiful.
Gassho
Daizan
Sat today.
. But it is all in the mix.
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