Child in Garden - good or not?

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Hello again

I am trying to loosen up a bit in my painting - trying to keep the marks that come from the beginnings of my conscious: the marks I make when I first see a subject - the impressions I have such as shape, line, movement, areas of light, dark and colour. I did this as a result. I think I like a lot, but am not sure whether others would, so I though I would post it and get some feedback.

Thanks a lot for looking!

Thomasin
www.thomasindewhurst.artspan.com

[Allan Rahbek]

Tomasin,

I believe that the painting process can be divided in three parts: First, a hard one when you decide on the composition, second, the fun part where you try out color, value and texture, and the third and toughest is where you tighten up the whole thing and put in the accents, the darkest darks and highlights.

I feel that you need some accents, especially in the head and the near arm areas to make the figure stand out a little more.
I like your marks and colors and think that the light is wonderful too.

Have a look at Orpen, his accents are centered around the head and shoulder.

Accents could also be traces from the rough start of the painting like we see it in Degas. He would often rearrange a composition using coarse brush lines.
The hard task is to know what to hold and what to fold.

[Alexandra Tyng]

Thomasin,

I agree with Allan that the hardest part is the last stage of a painting, when you have to do a lot of standing back and carefully evaluating everything you have done and what you might want to do. In a way, that is exactly what you are doing by asking the question here.

I think you have done a remarkable job of painting outdoor light, and describing the feeling of it! You would not want to ruin that! My reaction is this: my eye first goes to her face (positive sign), but then I feel slightly let down because I do not see what I expect to see there. I'm not expecting carefully delineated features, but maybe a warmth in the "deepest" part of the shadow, around her eye/nose area, and maybe a suggestion of eye. Some yellow-orange mixed in with the blue would add depth without making it too dark.

This is very hard to do without going too far, but I think you of all people are capable of it. You might want to hang the painting up for a while in your studio and think about it before doing anything.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Thank-you Allan and Alexandra. The face on the boy (yes, he's a boy - my son, and has curly blond hair, so Mama hates to cut it) was the first thing that worked after the usual weeks of struggle and destruction, and so, being human, I didn't want to touch that. But then the background needed work - or, rather, needed putting in because, again, I am human and didn't put it in at the same time as the face (oh the horror). And when working on the background I was much more conscious of what I was doing and trying to repeat what went before and so it began to stand out more than the face and so on and so forth ... The thing is, I can't just put in an eye because that's like defusing a bomb for me - one false move and the painting's dead! I don't have the nerve. Might as well just deliberately euthanase the thing and start again. I am actually beginning to look forward to this starting again business, which is probably a good thing because it takes up so much of my painting time.

(This forum is like a studio wall in an artists' community. Put up your works and let your peers have a look. I am really benefitting from it.)

[Sharon Knettell]

Thomasin,

The color and feeling of light and life are beautiful.

One of the thing I had to learn how to do was to slow down. Each brush stroke should be an expression of wakefulness, of consciousness.

Trying to paint loosely does not mean whipping around a canvas at the speed of light. Each brush stoke can be very deliberate and take time to put down. One brushstroke done with awareness has more power than a plethora done in a frenzy. That way you have time to relay the feeling you have of the subject into your stroke and the whole piece becomes a reality, a living entity on it's own rather than a a copy of what is in front of you.

After a while the brushstrokes will come with more confidence, more accuracy and deftness. But remember deftness and facility alone are all to common and unfortunately worshiped as an end in themselves. It is a personal and original point of view, plus mastery that is very, very rare.

[Sharon Knettell]

Here are a couple of relevant (I hope) Frank W. Benson's.

Congratulations on your finalist award. It is a very sensitive painting.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Thank-you, Sharon, for your most intelligent comments and very relevant examples of free brushwork.

I have been painting a portrait since the child in the garden painting and what you said had occured to me as I was painting it. It is a smaller painting than I usually do so I didn't feel the need to rush through it - i.e one day I did about 1 square inch of satisfactorary work and left it at that. Didn't feel the need to move the painting on in leaps just to feel virtuous. I remained focussed on the essence of the painting - it's point i.e light from a spot light on the face, the shape of the shadows and light, and the expression; and since it was small (18' x 24") I didn't mind so much changing parts (rather that redoing the whole thing) to search for continuity within the piece. I focussed on what it was that I was really, illogically seeing i.e a blue line or a pool of yellow shadow outined in grey (the more abstract qualities of paint which make the painting work as paint but also contain the essence of the subject) where looking rationally there might not be one. For example, in Katie Musolff's third place award self-portrait from the 2006 Artist's Magazine competition, she mentions, in the December issue of the magaizine, a circle on the end of the nose which is her favourite part. That is because it is both stand-alone exciting paint and a genuine reference to visual reality. What I really want to do is make the whole painting a series of those marks.

I think my admittance of fear regarding the defusing the bomb simile is probably where my problem lies. It indicates a lack of trust in my particular mark-making; a fear of the painting not looking like something that has already been done by someone else. And thus rushing through the thing to avoid those fears. (One more painted canvas which I can turn to face the wall so I don't have to confront that fact of its not working) Having comments such as yours, Sharon, that my own thoughts echo really help my confidence. Thank-you very much.

[Alexandra Tyng]

Originally Posted by Thomasin Dewhurst

. . . a lack of trust in my particular mark-making; a fear of the painting not looking like something that has already been done by someone else.

I so agree with what you are both saying. This reminds me of a critique I got from Diane Burko when I was about 20. She looked at some of my paintings and said, "Don't worry about technique--that will happen naturally over time. Just concentrate on what you want to say, and keep focused on that."

This stuck in my mind because I realized that you can't help but be original in your brush marks. Everyone is. And the things you find most embarrassingly revealing about your work are often the the "marks" by which people identify your style. Even if you try to copy someone else's style, it will end up looking like your style.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

I think that's where critiques help: to find out out whether the feeling of discomfort we have when looking at our own work is coming from something not working or from a sense of embarrassment because the painting is so revealing of ourselves.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Originally Posted by Sharon Knettell

Each brush stroke should be an expression of wakefulness, of consciousness.

I've been thinking of this lately too. Someone told me to let my subconscious take over with my paintings, but I had to disagree. I think that really painting, like doing any form of art properly, comes from the beginnings of consciousness, a vision (with visual art) before it is explained by received symbols i.e words, pictures already in existance. I am not sure about the subconscious - is it only a Freudian idea or truly a human reality? And, in fact, it isn't really relevant at all because making a visual reality of a so-called subconscious idea takes it into the realm of consciousness. It's a bit like hypnotising yourself or drugging yourself, or even squinting to get a blurred and "more simple" idea of a subject. You're not going through the necessary mental struggle to achieve a real advancement.