Speed?

[Alexandra Tyng]

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

[Henry Wienhold]

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.

[Tricia Migdoll]

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.

[Michele Rushworth]

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.

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.

[Carol Norton]

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.

[Terri Ficenec]

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 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! )

[Margaret Suddeth]

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.