Speed?
 

How fast do you like to work? Do you paint with great energy and speed or do you slowly contemplate each stroke? Do you feel you are working so fast as to always be on the edge of control (like a fast car going around a curve)?

I've gradually come to the conclusion that painting slowly is VERY important to me. I read about the working methods of people like John Howard Sanden (he insists that artists should "attack with forceful speed" and things like that) and it now sounds very uncomfortable to me.

I almost always produce garbage when I'm pressed for time. I tried some plein air work a few times over the past couple of years and whenever there's a rush -- as there always is in that type of work -- I want to throw the painting away as soon as I get home. Whenever I have a section of a portrait that I want to complete by a certain time (if I decide that the hands need to be done before I have to go pick up the kids from school, for example), I almost always end up having to completely re-do that section another day. Rushing to get the hands done turns out not to have been a time saver after all.

A year or so ago I attended a Tony Ryder workshop (www.tonyryder.com) and it was like a breath of fresh air. His pace was SO contemplative that the class felt like we were in a monastery. I can be a high energy person sometimes and thought that I wouldn't like that sort of thing. But it was a powerful revelation. Suddenly I had permission to slow my pace WAY down and do each section right (or almost right, at least!) the first time.

I read about artists like Sargent, whose work appears as if it was produced quickly. However when I read about his working methods, it turns out that he would stand motionless, brush in hand, staring at the painting for a long time, before advancing to the painting and placing one stroke. If it wasn't right, he'd scrape it off and do it again. Doesn't sound rushed to me.

Monet also writes,"People think I paint quickly but I paint very slowly." He's the last guy I would think would paint slowly.

Many people have the idea that painting is a creative explosion of speed and inspiration, but it's certainly not that way for me. Watching me paint would be so dull it would be like watching paint dry -- which is what it literally is!

And the best part is, since I decided to allow myself to work at what seems to be my natural snail-like pace, that my work has gotten much better. Ironically, I can complete a painting in much less time now, since there are far fewer revisions.

What's your natural speed of working?

What a great post Michele!

I think speed goes along the same lines as loose vs. tight. There is a natural speed for all of us, and it's best to follow that. I've been told I'm really fast, by you folks here....maybe I am, I don't know. I tend to think it's about the amount of hours I work. There are parts that flow rather quickly sometimes. I just try and go with it...whatever feels right at the moment. That sounds very silly maybe, but whenever I fight what what I want to do in paint, it does not come out well. And, each painting is a little different. One may seem like it will be a breeze, but it ends up taking weeks. It's all good.

It is a good thing you have decided what your own pace is.

I think I might be somewhere in the middle speed wise. I think I start off faster (but definitely not an "explosion") and then slow down as it gets closer to being finished. But, this subject reminded me of a wonderful teacher that I had in college:

A figure drawing teacher of mine would drive the class totally nuts. He was constantly changing the rules and telling us to use different approaches. One of the first days, he had the model change positions nearly every minute and ran around the room yelling "Faster faster faster!!" He was so enthusiastic, he would literally jump up and down and stomp. He would personally yell at each individual student as he went around the room. There was a flurry of scribbling and swooshes of paper turning on our pads. I remember feeling so stressed, it was like I couldn't breathe or even move my pencil as I saw him approaching.

For the 2nd half of the class he insisted that everyone slow way down, slower than a snail's pace. Again, he would spend time over each person's shoulder, their pencil barely moving, "Sslllloooooow doooowwwwwwnnnnn....."

I thoroughly enjoyed the class. :)

I usually draw and paint fast, but I don't like deadlines.
Sometimes I go very fast, other times very slowly. Sometimes I paint day and night, others... I keep just looking at an unfinished canvas for days...

I went to the Bank twice today and the result is below, ordinary pencil on ordinary paper and no eraser!

I'm pretty slow, and slower when I'm struggling with a new hurdle. But as I get over it, I find that there is a natural acceleration over time as whatever new techniques I'm trying become comfortable. I used to worry about it, but I don't much anymore.

Richard Schmid on speed:

"Slow down for the hard parts. Slow down for the easy parts too. Their easiness can be deceptive. Try to develop an enjoyable steady pace as you work. Painting is not a race. Savor what you are doing. (You wouldn't gobble down a gourmet dinner.) Work only as fast as accuracy will allow. Speed will come with experience. Besides, it is necessary only when the subject is changing fast, and even then a slow, cool assessment of what is occurring, and careful paint application, are better than trying to frantically capture movement as it is happening."

Pretty good advice, to my mind.--TE

Well put!

Tom, as I think I mentioned in another post somewhere, some of the very best advice I've ever received came from you. A couple of years ago I was trying to find ways to save time in my painting process and to work faster. You said that sometimes the solution is to slow down. Ironically that turned out to be true: I now have better quality work and the work is "right" much sooner. Thanks again!

Michele, thanks...

Usually when an artist arbitrarily speeds up, it's when panic is setting in, either because the painting isn't coming together, or a deadline is looming, or whatever. The problem is that that's when thinking goes out the window.

Best--TE

Numerous artists of the past would spend as long as a year on finishing a painting. I think besides the individual own comfort zone or degree of experience, it also depends on the degree of detail in clothing and background setting. The more elaborate a work is, the more attention it needs.

Obviously the approach also determines speed, when layer upon layer is built through glazing, by nature you have to wait until the canvas is ready.

I don't perform well under time pressure either and prefer to take my jolly good time. This can sometimes be a very long time. :sunnysmil

completion time vs. speed of execution
 

This is a very interesting question! As I was reading everyone's responses I was thinking about how I work. People who come into my studio are are usually amazed at how "prolific" I am, but although I get a lot done, I don't actually apply paint quickly.

Recently I set myself a challenge to get more movement and "life" into my portraits by working faster. I discovered that if I was very careful about eyeballing the correct facial proportions and sketching them in with charcoal or even pencil, I could complete a head in an hour and get a good likeness. I have been much happier with the looseness and the descriptiveness of the brushstrokes. I also just came back from Maine where I painted for a week with an artist friend. We set up our easels and st ourselves a goal to capture the scene in one, two or three hours, which is really all you can do before the light changes too much.

What I realized, reading this thread, is that I don't think my speed of execution was any different in either of these situations! The difference lies, I think, in the speed of my decision-making, and the knowledge that I had to complete something in a given amount of time.

Was it Michele who said that if she tried to rush to complete something, she usually ended up doing it over later? Well, this happens to me, too. I think the problem is one of inconsistency. It seems logical that, when we form a concept of a painting in our mind, we include the degree of finish in the concept. And the degree of finish is related to how much total time it will take to execute the work. So if we are working on a large formal portrait that we are planning to spend a while painting, it would be inconsistent to rush certain aspects of it and spend a lot of time on others. But if we are planning to spend a short time on something, the whole plan of attack is different. At least it is with me.

But I still think I don't actually move faster as I am applying paint.

Alex

Speed
 

When it comes to painting portraits, painting quickly and pushing up the pace just seems unnatural to me. I like to think of it as being cautious, rather than slow. Whenever I try to paint fast and loose. I'm always dissatisfied with the results and end up doing it over.

This is such an interesting topic.
I am slowing myself down in the beginning, to make sure I have everything right before i go in with too much paint. I am learning to do this more & more & not to forget to check my underpainting out for imperfections first.

However, in a 3 day workshop situation , you cannot do this. You have only three days & then your props are gone. So the opposite applies.
I find myself getting looser & less precious & sometimes the results are interesting, if not marvellous. The workshops help me to loosen up, but my tendency is to be slow & precious. Therefore, they are a good exercise.

I often wonder about the professionals. I notice that it seems to take them months to complete a painting, judging by the paintings they post, even though they work at it steadily each day.

Thanks Michele for bringing this up.

It does take me months, but a lot of that is up front prep: discussions with the client, planning the photo shoot, (location, lighting, clothes, props), choosing the photos, fine tuning the composition, creating color studies, prepping the canvas, etc. In the case of the Governor's portrait, this sort of planning work has been going on, albeit not continuously, over the course of nine months, before the painting of the actual portrait began. That is, of course, an exception.

The actual painting takes me around 100 hours for a one figure portrait, three quarter length, with background, on average. Sometimes I can do a full figure portrait in 80 painting hours, sometimes a more difficult three quarter can take 150 hours. There are also a few days of follow up work involved too. (Delivery, possible tweaks that the client might request, billing, thank you cards, etc.) If there's an unveiling party that can take a lot of time to help plan, too.

In addition to that there's marketing which takes up about 25% of my time. There's admin time (doing quarterly and annual taxes, buying supplies, organizing my studio, etc.) which takes up another 5 to 10% of my time over the course of a year.

All told, then, the amount of work time I spend putting brush to canvas for the actual commissioned portrait is probably no more than half my working hours.

It must be LOVE!
 

Michelle, your response to this thread was really clarifying to me as a freshman in art as a business Thank you.

Artists frequently are asked the question, "How long did it take to paint that?". One of my teachers said that he responds with "30 years". Answers of 100 hours to a CLIENT necessarily couldn't include all of those components that you listed. They just want to know the time it took from when your brush first touched the canvas until the final stroke. Listing all the necessary planning stages, evaluating compositions, obtaining resource photos, business, marketing, etc. are the tip of the iceberg. Added to that are the untold, ongoing hours spent learning and absorbing information gathered from multiple sources such as workshops, books, videos and, of course, The Forum. How about just painting paintings that either work or don't work - "The burn pile" paintings, Bill Whitaker called them in his workshop. A $4500 portrait that took 100 hours of painting time, adding in all the necessary steps that go into the final project could be....just a minute...let me get out the caluculator, ...below minimum wage? It must be LOVE. :thumbsup:

Michele, thanks for starting this thread! It's got me to thinking about this question and how I work... and what's more effective/efficient.

When am being smart :) I work more slowly and deliberately as a painting is approaching completion --once have gotten the essentials and likeness in place and am to the stage of 'tweaking'-- and things can come along fairly quickly. Slowly and deliberately means spending a fair amount of time studying what's already there, comparing to references, and making lists of what little things want adjustment, then going in, fixing those things and knocking them off the list. If I'm being not so smart :bewildere and don't spend the time studying and deciding what really needs doing, but go in directly with a brush and tool around just generally 'fixing' things I can spend literally days (don't laugh!) reworking things and accomplishing virtually nothing (pictures taken before and after can be hard to tell which is which) or, worse --can be progressing backwards where 'before' looks better than 'after'! (Uh-oh)

Very rarely, there might be something I've procrastinated on and left 'til then end that might come together very quickly if am smart enough to have at it, then leave it alone. (Leaving things alone when they should be done is the hard part for me! :sunnysmil )

This is such a great question to contemplate! I've enjoyed reading the responses too.

I also hate that question, "How long does it take you to paint something like that?" My answer (which is the truth) is, "I don't know I don't track how long I take on a particular painting." I guess the reason is very much akin to what Carol wrote about Bill Whitaker's quote. Who wants to trivialize their work down to price per hour?

I believe I work at my best somewhere in between. Either too fast or two slow I find myself tensing up--not a way to produce an outcome I'm happy with! When I'm fast it may because I'm pressed for time; too slow and I may not be sure of what I'm doing. In between, I'm confident, relaxed, in the groove so to speak.

I enjoy working fast with outdoor watercolors and sketches. China is filled with interesting characters, especially in the summers. I spend a lot of time in the streets painting older men playing cards in the street. Old sofas are thrown out and left on the sidewalks so older men congregate and play games or just watch. Some street corners may have as few as two or three men sitting together, and some may have as many as six or seven games going with a total of fifty people including gamers and viewers. Sitting on curbs, leaning on each other, one foot on a sofa, leaning over bicycles, the poses are limitless. With the hot summer months here, men often go without a shirt on, or with their T-shirts rolled up around their chests. Then, for the finishing touch on a sketch that would make the average American or European look on with interest, the men with their pant legs rolled up around their thighs in an effort to cool down.

I finally got a digital camera, and would like to send photos of some sketches, I need now to learn how to download images or whatever else may pertain to the job of sending images to the forum.

Enjoy,
Anthony