Unfinished, underdone, unrealized, over realized, overworked, overdone, exhausted or bedraggled, paintings don’t spoil like eggs in the fridge. Chances are they were rotten to begin with. Let them go!
Sometimes it can be the “I’m not finished yet” syndrome along with the old “I’m still working on this one” that leads to the mounting pile. Remember friends, paintings are never really finished, they just present interesting places to stop.
Another condition is the constant and perennial need to achieve perfection. This tendency leads to a lack of vision and to possibility for self-improvement. Growth is stunted when the artist works from an ivory tower of perfection.
The opposite of this can be a factor as well. The “nartist”. The narcissistic artist is one who loves everything they make and treats every work as a special child and thus keep’s everything they make and the pile just keeps getting bigger.
Let the purge begin...
One way to start is to purge any paintings over two years old. By this I’m talking about unfinished, unfulfilled, undeveloped, incomplete, fragmentary paintings. Not the work you’re storing for sale. If you have a pile of half-baked and confused paintings that are over two years old, get rid of them. You are not the same artist you were two years ago. You are wiser and more seasoned and full of new tricks. All your newfound skills will clash with the old paintings anyway. Paint from the leading edge not the rear-view mirror.
Another way to purge older work is to crop. Look for well painted passages that might make a smaller painting. Try putting a smaller frame or a mat around select areas and see if anything sings. If something does, you may have a new painting to frame!
Fact is, you will not generally improve by misguided analysis of your own efforts. Brutal honesty is what’s needed here. Divorcing yourself from the majesty of your efforts and seeing your work as it really is can take time, mileage and a lot of wine but it is an essential task.
Compare the work in your portfolio that has met the standard with dubious work that is unfinished. Ask your self a few hard questions like:
- Will this ever meet my standard?
- Am I ever actually going to work on this painting?
- Do I really even like this painting?
- Might this idea work better if I had a fresh start?
If you’re still unsure, use the Robert Genn patented “three bins” technique by sorting the work into IN-OUT-MAYBE categotries. Then take a second pass and you will find that the work in the “maybe” bin will often tip to the “out” bin.
Another invigorating way to get rid of work is to T.O.D. it. “Time of Death.” Play a coroner, take a big black marker and write TOD 10:15 am. right on the painting in big bold letters. This is a very euphoric and liberating experience.
Lastly, one thing that’s always fun, is to have a ceremonial burning. Throwing unrealized paintings in the fire releases the bad energy and evil spirits that blocked you. Doing this in a group with other artists is very tribal, ethereal and freeing with lots of good karma all around.
How wonderful it feels when this thing is out of you life! Once you rid yourself of all the clutter in the studio and have freed up some cranium space, new work will begin to bloom. A good cleaning will spawn growth, fresh ideas and new directions.
For me it was spring that brought it on but anytime can be springtime in the studio. :)
Happy fresh painting!
Your friend in art,
Doug
There have always been painters who love the look of a brush stroke and who, as a result, are willing to sacrifice “accuracy” for the sake of suggestion and implication. It’s the age-old struggle between those who define and those who seek the fleeting impression. The conflict reaches far back in time. We don’t have paintings by the great masters of Greek art, but we do know that Zeuxis disparaged rapid execution and praised diligence and care, while Apelles was praised for his ability to know the value of the word “enough.” Ancient China saw the same aesthetic distinction: there was the Northern or “gradual” school and the Southern or “sudden” school – the school of intellect and the school of intuition.
Painterly painters believe that an abbreviated style is best suited to capturing elusive effects. But although they consciously strive to develop a rapid execution, their detractors often criticize this characteristic, dismissing their work as little more than sketches. The criticism creates more problems than it solves. For what is a sketch? More importantly, what is “finish”? The painterly painters labor under a disadvantage, since their idea of finish is not that of the general public. Robert Henri understood the problem: When people ask for finish, he wrote, they’re really asking for the expected. The problem has been worsened by the camera and the way its image prejudices the eye of the viewer. Our painters have little use for photography, and although some people claim the camera is the highest form of visual truth, the painterly painter declares it the most obvious example of the visual lie. One painter summed it up: “One eye, no brain.” Another declares he notonly can tell when a picture is done from a photograph, but he can also detect whether the film used was daylight or indoor! The painterly painters prefer to work directly from the subject or from sketches don on the spot. They have stacks of such pictures which they call their “brains”. They rarely sell them. In this, they’re like John Constable, “I don’t mind parting with the corn,” he said, “but not with the field in which it was raised.”
Many viewers have trouble agreeing with the painterly painter’s hand. They find brush strokes confusing – and some how insulting. The brushstroke is like a piece of the painter’s handwriting. Of course, rough pictures demand something from the viewer. But such a demand indicates not contempt for the viewer’s wishes but rather a respect for his or her intelligence. The viewer is asked to join in the creative process. All painterly painters agree on the fact that they’re in a partnership with the viewer. What the viewer brings to such paintings is almost as important as what the painter puts into them. The painterly painter uses the viewer’s experiences to give life to the work. Instead of being a passive receiver of information, the viewer becomes a participant. As one painterly painter noted, the highly finished picture exists whether you look at it or not. It’s as alive in a closet as on the wall of a house. But the painterly work needs the viewer to complete it. Since half the painting is suggestion, the “completion” varies with the viewer. Some paintings, one of our painters observed, look as if all the air has been sucked out of them: others give you room to breathe. After all, he continued, it isn’t the painter’s job to give people what they want but rather what they ought to have. One of his painter friends has a rough portrait of himself hanging over his sofa. “I made the artist stop before he thought he was done”, he explains. “He’d put in all I needed – all I could use.” Another painter sums up the question even more tersely: “Do you paint to be understood, or do you paint to understand?”
Because of the painterly painters’ belief in their subjective definition of “finish” – a quality that cannot be judged by outside standards – they often make quirky teachers. How do you explain the inexplicable? One school says that if you study great art and figure out how it works, you can apply the lessons to your own pictures. But our painters tend to take the opposite view. They say the mast is a master precisely because you can’t explain his or her work. Explanations don’t add – they diminish. What counts is the fresh view, the personal vision. Be a spider, one of our painters used to say, and spin your own web. “The word,” Constable wrote, “is full enough of what has already been done.”
If the aim of art is to see nature for yourself, to discover how you feel about what you see and how you can interpret it, then style becomes a direct expression of the personality of the painter, and the brush stroke is like a piece of the painter’s handwriting. Pictures are large pieces of calligraphy, written as much as painted. With this sort of attitude, it’s not surprising that the painterly painter’s approach usually becomes progressively more summary and expressive with the passage of time. He or she moves toward greater and greater simplicity of statement. The greatest sinner, from this point of view is the instructor who hands out pre-packed brush strokes and formulas, thus short circuiting thought at its most critical and important stage. One of our painters refuses to touch the work of his students, fearing, he explains, that the student could mistake his brush stroke for the way to paint an eye or a tree. It might take the student ten years to find out differently. The situation is much like that described by Eugen Herrigel when he tried to learn archery from a Zen monk. Unable to discover the “trick,” he cornered his teacher and demanded practical guidance. The master replied that if he gave techniques at the price of the students’ experience, he’d be a terrible teacher and should be fired. It’s this extreme emphasis on the experience that characterizes all painterly painters. An Old-timer once noted that he loved the work of a friend because he saw the most familiar things in the most unfamiliar way. That’s why Hawthorne told his student to paint studies that would surprise him, that would make him feel the shock and thrill of their discoveries about the world and themselves.
The painterly painters, as usual, feel quite differently. With everything depending on experience and alertness, the work is bound to fluctuate with the disposition of the artist. One of our painters destroys four out of every five picture declaring that “a dud is a dud”. All of them ignore the idea of “skill” when defining “talent” and prefer more generalized terms. One says it’s “simply a liking for something.” Another, that it’s “enthusiasm,” and still another, “interest”. The difference between a commercial artist and himself, says on e painter, is that the commercial artist can do a job and repeat it over and over again. He can’t. He tried once, when money was scarce. A dealer suggested doing pictures by the gross. He tried to do ten of a certain subject. The first was good, the second, not so good, the third, terrible. “Some people think painting is painting,” he explains, “and that all practice helps, even doing a hundred of the same thing. But that doesn’t make you better – it makes you worse.”
Adeline Halvorson Artist Bio
Chantel is currently the Tennessee State Ambassador for the Portrait Society of America, and is also a member of The Chestnut Group, and the American Impressionist Society. She is past President of Artists' Link in Memphis, Tennessee.
NOTE: We are very honoured to have Chantel teaching a workshop at Swinton's...
