Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Impulse Painting


While straightening up the garage yesterday, I ran across this painting. This is a detail of an "unfinished" painting that I painted some 20 years ago or more - so, apparently it is finished. I never even gave it a title.

Usually a painting is at least somewhat planned out before you begin painting but this one was a doodle-painting, where I just started painting and let the composition evolve. Some of my own work that I most enjoyed producing, and which seems most interesting to look at are doodle-works.

However, this one and another one are both 90% finished because there was no plan and I found it difficult to resolve the painting when I got to the end. Besides not having a plan, probably the more likely reason the paintings are unfinished is because I started to care about them. There comes this point when I stopped impulsively creating and thought, "Hey I like this. I want to paint a really excellent conclusion to it." And then I was suddenly stymied. Because the whole reason why the painting was going so well was because I wasn't overly concerned about it. It is the most allusive ability to tap into intentionally. But when it happens it is an absolute joy.

3 comments:

Dale Matson said...

Van,
I never thought of the creation of visual art in the same light as prose but now I see the relationship. by the way, the drawing of the boy with a bag on his head made me think of Ian until I saw this was a drawing of your older son. You never fail to amaze me with your skill sets. No wonder the manual acts of the priest are done with such precision and care.

Dale Matson said...

Van,
By the way, I have formed an impression from your drawings that indicates you focus on the head more than anything else. Maybe that is common for artists but suggests your cognitive approach to life and the "Spockian" nature you project.

Vanrensalier said...

You are very perceptive. I am fascinated with faces. To me they are the sum of who a person is. In fact, I have spent so much time drawing/painting faces that I am not as skilled at drawing the whole person or anything else for that matter. In pencil sketches where I have carefully drawn a person's face, I committed the most detail to the eyes, nose and mouth, and intentionally decrease the detail the farther I go from that triangle. This keeps the observer focused on the core of the subject's face. It is a subtlety that you could easily pick up in the original, but probably can't see so well online. Thanks for your comments.