Art, Inspiration, Creation

Do less, Accomplish More

11/29/2017 8:12:53 AM

Yesterday in my studio, I  look around at a mound of paintings. All of this accomplished over the past year, sitting on the floor, hanging on the walls, propped on shelves, paintings in progress on my easles. I sigh. In August of 2016, I decided to take a sabbatical from the public domain, I closed my large art studio in a thriving town, to take it to my country home, where my only visitors are my dogs, cat, and on occasions my family or friends. 

I felt the need to focus on the production process that was emitting from my soul through my hands onto canvas. I have always been a prolific painter, but this concentration, made me even more of a prolific painter, with 90 day  painting-a-day challenges for myself, plein air events, (usually 2-3 paintings per day), and residencies. Peering deep into myself to see what might come out, and laughing with friends about the adage of "Did you find yourself.... in there?"  

Instead of "finding" myself, I would call it "clarifying" myself. I am now recapitulating my sabbatical and asking myself questions such as: What do I do with all of these paintings, this list of discovery? Did I accomplish what I set out to do over a year ago? Was my journey into my studio and self, really a journey into more artist frustration? 

Well, I would do it again! I have enjoyed the challenges and learned a lot! My art, I feel, is a better description of what I see. I thought I would open this secret door to unexplored worlds, but rather I met an old familiar friend, me.  another sigh. 

Looking at my work, laying uselessly around my studio, I am reminded of the Law of Least Effort, "do less, accomplish more". No doubt my persistence has paid off with establishing habitual processes, but I might need to settle down, get myself out of the way, and let the law of least effort take over. According to Deepak Chopra, who refers to the Law of Least effort as meaning "my actions achieve maximum benefit with minimal effort". I am reminded to look at nature, and see how effortless it moves from one season to another, how water fills the stream and moves effortlessly down the pathway to larger streams. This need to assert all my effort into paint has become....exhausting.

So now, living in my piles of persistence to accomplish something, I look back  at my 200+ paintings and can pick out the 1-2 times that I settled into a moment, and didn't resist my inner voice telling me, 'wow...you should paint that!' What we resist, persists! This is flow. The flow of life. In the past 15 months of hibernation, I am ready to join in the flow again, and not worry how many paintings I have, but rather the quality of what I have. It is time to do less, and accomplish more. Who am I trying to impress? My old familiar friend is the one who I need to live with, and I am grateful that she showed up in this journey. I had a friend a long time ago give me advice when I was trying to decide what crossroads to take and he said "Stick to the knitting". I totally didn't get it then, but now I do. The knitting is the flow. 

This doesn't mean you just sit back and wait for life to happen, you happen with it. Set goals, have aspirations, but don't be desperate about it. Have faith, have discipline, but if another door opens....do not be so head strong not to at least walk through it, like a stream that swells up and creates a new small creek. It may be temporary, or it may turn into another large body of water that provides life for an entire community filled with opportunities. 

Guess what? you are not an island, there IS a bigger picture, and a bigger plan.

Happy painting, and quit resisting!

Freedom in Discipline

11/5/2017 3:23:22 PM

Have you ever heard the term "there is a method behind the madness"?

Growing up in a small family manufacturing business, I learned early on, that without a "disciplined process", the end products would not be consistent. The same is true with art. I listen to many wise sages, because I truly need the guidance. Recently I was listening to a youtube video of Sadhguru, and he was speaking of the "freedom in discipline". He went on to reveal WHY this was over the next several minutes. Those words echoed in my head! Everything he said, I could apply to my paintings, as well as my life. Today I was researching information about Sargent, one of my art gurus. Specifically about his METHOD. 

I stumbled across Keene Wilson's blog on Sargent and he wrote this:

"He painted a head always in one process, but that could be carried over several sittings. He never attempted to repaint one eye or to raise or lower it, for he held that the construction of a head prepared the place for the eye, and if it was wrongly placed, the understructure was wrong, and he ruthlessly scraped and repainted the head from the beginning."

The PROCESS. The Discipline of doing a process, will help you tremendously when you sit down to create. Discovering the process is the FUN PART. Once you discover the process you like, do not deviate from it until you have exhausted it. Until you can say you love it or hate it. The point is, when you can create without thinking, this is where your paints and brushes become MORE creative. It allows intuition to come into the picture. To complete something over and over in the same process, will also identify you. Take someone else's method, or two people's method, and change it slightly, put your own twist on it, and make it even better than before.

Below are some of Sargent's notes on HIS process. I have a different "process" than his, but my roots come from his process. You must familiarize yourself with our great master's processes, so you can begin your own journey into "freedom in discipline".

Sargent's Notes

     1.   Painting is an interpretation of tone. Colour drawn with a brush.

    2.   Keep the planes free and simple, drawing a full brush down the whole contour of a cheek.

     3.   Always paint one thing into another and not side by side until they touch.

     4.   The thicker your paint—the more your color flows.

     5.  Simplify, omit all but the most essential elements—values, especially the values. You must clarify the values.

     6.  The secret of painting is in the half tone of each plane, in economizing the accents and in the handling of the lights.

     7.  You begin with the middle tones and work up from it . . . so that you deal last with your lightest lights and darkest darks, you avoid false accents.

     8.  Paint in all the half tones and the generalized passages quite thick.

     9.  It is impossible for a painter to try to repaint a head where the understructure was wrong.

      SARGENT'S PALETTE: Silver White, Naples Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Ochre dew (English Red), Red Ochre, Vermillion, Ivory or Coal Black, and Prussian Blue.

Sargent's notes above are from Keene Wilson     via George Pratt  via James Gurney. He found these nuggets in the library when he was a student at Pratt Institute.

Below is a detailed painting of Sargent's "Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (detail)". Can you see his process unfolding?