One For You, One For Me

I recently re-introduced a space in my private painting life where I deliberately court the possibility of failure, and it’s paid real dividends for me. I wanted to share about it here, because

I thought it might be of value to others to ponder, and
because some very good paintings have come from it. ;)

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I can already hear a few of you that must be thinking, “Yeah, I’ve got enough failure in my painting life, thank you very much. I don’t need more of it!” :P

I get you.

I think it’s very natural to try and keep failure at arm’s length (it’s never pleasant, even now for me—it makes me quite grumpy, actually… just ask my family!), but there can be a lot of value in proactively setting up experiments and “open spaces” in your art life, where you tip toe up to the edge of what you know and assess what new paths you want to forge, rather than always hedging your bets for success. Particularly if you’ve plateaued in your painting development.

What I decided to do was logistically very simple, but emotionally complex— each week I make a painting for my Facebook group’s weekly challenge, and also a “painting for myself”. So, for one painting I pretty much know what I’m doing, and for the other I deliberately choose something where I’m interested in the photo but there are unresolved problems or new techniques and strategies to explore.

This has led to a very productive balance that has lit a fire in my gut. It’s also led to a lot more failures. It might do the same for you (on both accounts! LOL!), whether you’re a teacher (like me) or a student who has exited that initial phase and is stuck in a kind of educational morass.

The Safe Haven

Now, first of all, I don’t want to devalue the merit of painting something you have control of. A lot of good can come from it— mentally and artistically.

When I’ve had a string of subpar or really average paintings, it can be very affirming to step back and paint something joyful, that’s in my comfort zone. Some are average, but some are just lovely. And that’s ok, on both accounts. Painting isn’t only about the final product. It’s a centering practice too, a “paying attention to” activity. It’s about my own experience, as well as what I share.

So I’ve liked having this mode of engagement. With the weekly group, I keep myself painting and engaged. The subjects are iterated too- we’ve already done little daily paintings with them- so I’m acquainted with them, and am only repainting the best of the set. The percentage likelihood of success is high! :P

Living Dangerously

This is the other half of the dynamic. So, the goal here is to step out of my (perfectly lovely) teacher-role and paint for myself, to take chances, to approach subjects that I don’t yet have control of, that I don’t yet know how to tackle. To make room for failure.

And it definitely leads to more failures. LOL. But it has also fostered a feeling of liberation.

Now, failure is a matter of perspective too. I understand that. Some things that I paint now and am dissatisfied with, I would have loved to have achieved 5 or 10 years ago. So it’s all a matter of perspective. And yet, I feel what I feel. These are paintings I just couldn’t wrangle to my satisfaction.

The failure almost always comes from attempting a new unknown approach to a subject, and not having it work. Sometimes it’s my skill set that is not yet developed, sometimes it’s the approach that is wrong, sometimes it’s a limit of the subject itself— it can’t easily do what I want. Sometimes it’s the limits of the medium.

The issue, of course, is that you won’t know if the approach works until you try it. That’s the way the game works. Sometimes you don’t even recognize you have a problem until you’re in the weeds, and need to find a way out. It can be a real bummer, when you spend 2 or 3 hours on a painting and finish up with something you’re dissatisfied with. Of course, I try not to have the mentality that I “wasted 3 hours”, because this process of failing is also a process of testing. It is literally the only way I can stretch into something new, expand the subjects I can approach, and allow myself to more fully express my own voice.

The Dance

Truthfully though, although this is frustrating and annoying at times, it’s also been really invigorating. It’s good to sometimes not know what’s going to happen next. To be swimming in the current, moving downstream some. Not into rapids. That’s bonkers. But to have it be an exploration. Educators call it the “Zone of Proximal Development”, which just means that you need to be at the edge of what you already know, to best pick up new skills. Not too easy, not too extravagantly hard. I’m not walking up to the edge and base jumping! LOL. I say this to cue you into thinking about what sort of subject would be appropriate for yourself if you want to try this approach out, given where you area as an artist.

When I approached “A Little Patch of Light”, I did so because I wasn’t totally satisfied with my first attempt, and I wasn’t quite sure how to get it to work. But I had some ideas. Not that I didn’t like my first little painting. I actually did. But I knew it could be better.

Lots to like here but there were a few things I wished I could have done differently—

a little more nuance in the transition from shadow to light
a higher key for my most vibrant highlights
I wanted more freedom applying my washes, which was holding me back the first time

I decided to try out using masking fluid. I knew this was an experiment for me, right from the get go. I don’t really ever use masking fluid. I’d even say I’m sort of against it. LOL. Shapes often feel “pasted on” when you rub the masking fluid off later, which I don’t like. But I wanted to see if I could work with it, because I knew it would free up my washes. I started this up, just noodling around with the masking fluid while working on another painting. I did my first wash, and was done for the day.

Results at this stage were fine. Early days in a painting are always the easiest anyways.

When I came back I dropped in a second wash, let it dry, and rubbed off the masking fluid. Yikes! This is where I knew I was going to have to really try something new to get this to work. The contrast was startling. I was once again lost in the weeds. Wakka wakka! :P

I tried some scrubbing techniques, to soften the edges of the highlights, but it didn’t work. So I spent some time dropping in color to the white areas, getting the grass to glow and the flowers to have little pale shadows. At this point, I stopped for the second day. I wasn’t quite sure what the hell I was going to do. I was annoyed and sort of frustrated with myself.

When I started up again, I thought a bit about some of my recent exploratory failures. I’d done a few unsuccessful paintings of a meadow in Yosemite, and had been testing things out by using more gouache to build my shapes. I started working on the meadow in a similar fashion, just thinking about weaving my shapes together and bonding my masked area to the rest of the painting. All of this was done with either dark typical watercolors, or highlights where I was mixing a thick application of watercolor and white gouache.

This was a slow “building up” of layers. I’d pick a color- such as the pale yellow-brown of the grass- and start on the left, moving through the painting and across to the other side. Then I’d pick a rusty brown color and do the same. Then, the little bits of pale blue shadows, weaving it in to the painting, creating depth and color contrast. The goal is to get to the point where you’re not quite sure what are the original preserved highlights and what is the opaque application.

At this point, I stepped aside from the original reference photo, and started to think about what I needed the painting to do on its own. Light, shadow. Warmth, coolness. Pop, recession. I let go of detail in areas that weren’t important, and started to add more bits of chartreuse green foliage into the sunlit areas, and little pops of yellow flowers.

2.5 hours later, I stepped back, took a breath, and assessed. I like this piece. I never would have gotten here though, if I hadn’t dared to explore. And the making of it, the being in the making of it, was full of a great sense of flow.

Making Friends With Failure

One For You, One For Me

The Safe Haven

Living Dangerously

The Dance

The Benefits of Iterating, from Notan to Repeated Painting