STAYING SAFE AND DELIBERATE ACCIDENTS
Staying Safe and deliberate accidents
No, I’m not talking about the Virus. Painting is the subject, and I want to dwell a little on our tendency to be safe even when we paint.
I’m not referring to harmful chemicals in paint or solvents, it’s this irresistible urge that we have to play it safe, with a process that will cause no casualties even if we are completely reckless about it.
The safety thing is so widespread that it reaches the very top in the art world down to the those who have just begun their art journey.
It is really summed up in one word – replication.
The perfection of replication is the call that many take heed to. It’s a voice that is always present, even in those who have chosen to go down that impressionistic path.
Sticking to the painting reference is the safest thing in art. I’m talking about either photographic reference or painting from life. We can be so engaged in the safe practice of replicating, that any accident that deviates us from this path is seen as failure. We rub out, scrub out and sometimes start again when such ‘failures’ occur.
In other forms of painting, that don’t require exactness, those ‘accidents’ or errant brush strokes can become little blessings. Water colourists in particularly will be familiar with this, but other types of brush-painters will know this to be true also.
Painters of experience will have the confidence to be so bold with the brush that their happy accidents happen deliberately. They let the brush have a say while they roughly guide it. Brush strokes are left as they stand even though they may not be exact, and the energy of such things is quite incredible - even those who are not artists can sense it.
Personally, I find this all to be true with the treatment of figures in a landscape, where they are not the centre of attraction and relatively small. To try and ‘get things right’ with small brushes just never looks right. My method of using a bigger flat brush to approximate a figure as a silhouette works really well. The unstudied strokes make their own shape, and because I know I want a figure it is half artist and half brush. The shapes are half accidental with some guidance.
Accidents may be the enemy of perfection, but they are life-long friends to so many artists.
Now is a great time to let the brush have a little more say. Even if you are an exact painter, why not give something loose a try – no one will be harmed, I promise!
Happy Painting
Mike Barr
Goolwa Beach (SOLD) – with this many figures, any attempt to make them perfect would ruin the feel of the painting.