George Frederic Watts

The School of Lawgivers, 1853-59, George Frederic Watts

There has long been a controversy as to whether artists are made or born. Of course that's all predicated on a similarly long discussion of nature versus nurture regarding human development in general. As applied to the arts, the question is simply, do strong "art genes" matter more than art training in the development of outstanding artists. For every child prodigy whose talent has developed largely without much training or outside input, there is likely another artist having absolutely no family background in the arts who goes on to exceptional greatness as the result of perhaps a decade or more of art training. The latter might be represented by an artist such as the French Academic painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau who did, in fact, spend nearly ten years studying art, as opposed to an artist such as the British painter, George Frederic Watts, who was born having no family background in the arts, who, against all odds, and with only meager academic training, became one of the most outstanding painters of portraits and allegories in 19th-century British art. He's sometimes been called "England's Michelangelo."



Four paintings from the House of Life Series, ca. 1884-1900

When we talk about Victorian art, which supposedly occupied the period from 1837 to 1876, though art historians tend to throw in the remaining twenty-four years of the century for the sake of simplicity. In any case, we today often look upon this era and its arts quite unfavorably. Though there were some less than profound painted examples, it's grossly unfair to lump all 19th-century British art into such disfavor. There were some important pieces produced by any number of artists during this period which ranged from really quite good to really outstanding. For all their occasional excesses and less occasional scandals, the Pre-Raphaelites are an excellent example of such greatness. Their era of remarkable achievement fell precisely in the middle of the Victorian period. George Frederic Watts is often lumped (or dumped) in amongst the works of the Pre-Raphaelites, though in fact, Watt's art transcends the movement.

Watts was never more insightful as a portrait artist then when painting himself.

George Frederick Watts was born in a quiet street in West Marylebone. His youth was fairly mundane with little brightness to enliven his story. His father, a maker of musical instruments, was poor; his mother died early; his home-life was overshadowed by his own ill-health; and the uncertain moods of other members of the family. Watt's education was casual at best, consisting mostly of reading books under the guidance of his father, who had little solid learning, but did have refined tastes and an inventive disposition. In his Sundays at home, where Sabbath rules limited his reading, young George became familiar with the stories of the Old Testament. He discovered for himself the Waverley Novels and Pope’s translation of the Iliad. He began from his earliest years to use his pencil with the eager and persistent enthusiasm which marks the born artist.

Energy, Rhodes Memorial, George Frederick Watts

Watts studied sculpture from the age of ten and learning to draw from the Elgin Marbles (which had once adorned the Parthenon in Athens). When Watts turned eighteen, he enrolled in London's Royal Academy, though from all accounts he needn't have bothered. He was a poor student hampered even more by poor instruction. Watts' career as an artist began in 1843. He was twenty-six. The British Government, not often guilty of fostering art or literature, can at least claim credit for having drawn Watts out of his seclusion at the very moment when his genius was ripe to bear fruit. In 1834 the Palace of Westminster, the home of the Houses of Parliament, burned to the ground. Architect, Sir Charles Barry, in 1840, was called upon to oversee the design and construction of the present day Westminster. With a view to decorating the walls with paintings, the Board of Works wisely offered prizes for cartoons, hoping thereby to attract the best talent of the country.

George Frederic Watts,
1849, Charles Couzens

The board had their work cut out for them when, by June, 1843, they had to judge among 140 designs by various competitors, awarding prizes varying in value from £100 to £300. Of the three first prizes, one fell to George Frederic Watts, who was practically unknown beyond the narrow circle of his friends, for a design depicting Caractacus Led in Triumph through the Streets of Rome. The cartoon is now lost. It was never used as intended. Instead, it fell into the hands of an enterprising dealer, who cut it up and sold fragments for what they were worth on the picture market at the time. Far more important was the encouragement given to the artist by such a success at such a critical time in his life, as well as the opportunity the money provided to travel abroad and enrich his experiences before his style was fully formed. Watts had long wished to visit Italy. After spending a few weeks in France, he made his way to Florence and its picture galleries. On the steamer between Marseilles and Leghorn (Livorno, today) Watts was fortunate in making friends with a British couple, who later introduced him to Lord Holland, the British Minister at Florence. Watts visited Lord and Lady Holland for four days. He remained there for four years. The Hollands were apparently very tolerant of long-term guests. In any case, Watts found a home where he could pursue his art under ideal conditions.

Mrs. G. F. Watts (Mary Fraser Seton),
1887, George Frederic Watts

Upon returning to England Watts propose a hemicycle fresco for the new Hall at Lincoln’s Inn being built by architect, Philip Hardwick, in the Tudor style. The new Benchers (lawyers) and architect alike cordially welcomed Watts’s offer to decorate a blank wall with fresco. Inasmuch as the work could only be carried out during the legal vacations, it proved a long project due to the difficulties of the process and interruptions caused by the artist’s ill-health. Watts planned it in 1852, began work in 1853, and didn't finish till 1859. The subject was a group of famous lawgivers, the chief figures being Moses, Mahomet, Justinian, Charle-magne, and Alfred. Titled The School of Lawgivers (top), and heavily influenced by Raphael's School of Athens (in the Vatican) it stands today as his most outstanding large scale work.

The Triumph of the Red Cross Knight, 1860, George Frederic Watts.

Aside from several outstanding portraits of high-ranking political and social leaders of his day, Watt's The Triumph of the Red Cross Knight (above) and Alfred Inciting the Saxons to Prevent the Landing of the Danes by Encountering them at Sea (below) also stand apart from the more modest efforts of his fellow Pre-Raphaelites. In the 1860s, Watts' work shows the influence of Rossetti, often emphasizing sensuous pleasure and rich color. However, Watts's association with Rossetti changed during the 1870s, as his work increasingly combined Classical traditions with a deliberately agitated and troubled surface, in order to suggest the dynamic energies of life and evolution, as well as the tentative and transitory qualities of life.

Alfred Inciting the Saxons to Prevent the Landing of the Danes by
Encountering them at Sea, 1946. George Frederic Watts

The All-Pervading, 1887,
George Frederic Watts

In 1891 Watts bought land near Compton, south of Guildford, in Surrey. He named the house "Lim-nerslease" (combining the words "limner" or artist with "leasen" or glean), then built the Watts Gallery nearby, a museum dedicated to his work, which became the only purpose-built gallery in Britain devoted to a single artist. It opened in April 1904, shortly before Watts' death in July. Watts's wife, Mary, had earlier designed the nearby Watts Mortuary Chapel, which Watts financed, and for which he painted a version of The All-Pervading (left) for the altar only three months before he died. Both Limnerslease and the chapel are now maintained, the house owned, by the Watts Gallery. In 2016 Watts' studio in the house re-opened, restored as nearly as possible using photographs from Watts' lifetime, as part of the Watts Gallery. The main residential section can be visited on a guided tour.
 

 

Tasting the First Oyster, ca 1883, George Frederic Watts.
(What a brave couple!)

 

Allfred Wallis

Three Master with Sea Birds, Alfred Wallis

Folk artists have existed...well, since the first Neanderthal started decorating stone walls with animal images some 20,000 years ago...give or take a millennia or two. It was based upon what these prehistoric artists recalled from their adventurous efforts to put a little meat on the table. Folk Art was, in fact, the first type of art known to man. I'm not sure when it happened, but sometime along the way, art veered off from recollections of the past to representations of the present. Artists chose to paint what they could see and touch rather than what they remembered. Art became centered upon realism and eye-catching technical virtuosity in imitation or reality. Folk Art didn't cease to exist, it just faded into obscurity.

 

A Wallis sampler

It's amazing, and perhaps amusing too, how narrowly focused those of the art world become when they start talking about Folk Art. I know that's the case with Americans and I'm guessing the tendency holds for other nationalities as well. When we Americans think about Folk Art, we picture in our minds only the work of American Folk Artists. We picture rural landscapes or quaint expressions of small-town Americana, usually from the middle of the 19th century to the first decades of the 20th-century, certainly no more recently than the 1930s Depression era. It might come as a shock to some Americans that Folk Art does not end at the Atlantic shore. Virtually every country in Europe has their own collection of Folk Art reflecting very accurately not just their particular culture, but also the common people and landscape of that nation. French Folk Art, for instance, tends to revolve around a broad variety of handmade items with painted decorations. Great Britain, on the other hand, has always been a seafaring nation. So naturally, there is a heavy emphasis on ships and the sea in all their Folk Art. One such artist who perfectly reflects this content was the St. Ives fisherman-artist, Alfred Wallis.

 

Wallis' home at 3 Back
Road West, St. Ives

Alfred Wallis was "discovered" one afternoon in 1928 quite by accident. Two British Expressionist painters, Ben Nicholson and John Christopher "Kit" Wood, were strolling the back streets of St. Ives, a small "arty" town along the Cornish coast of southwestern England. They happened to see through the open front door of a small stone house, a number of odd-sized painted images of sailing ships. Being artists themselves, and thus naturally curious sorts, they knocked on the door. As a result, they came to know Alfred Wallis, a seventy-three-year-old, eccentric, little man who painted on pieces of corrugated cardboard using marine paints scrounged from shipyards in the area. True to form as with many Folk artists, he'd never taken an art class in his life, and had never touched an artist's brush until he was some seventy years of age.

 

Schooner, Alfred Wallis

Though Folk Art is as old as art itself, it might have forever remained a rather obscure, somewhat amusing, little twig on the tree of Art except for the chain reaction triggered by the development of photography during the latter half of the 19th-century. Photography freed art from the burden of always representing some form (actual or imagined) of reality. It allowed artists the freedom to draw from within for their content, rather than always seeking out the imitation of nature. During the early years of the 20th century, they came to call this new freedom Expressionism. Strangely enough, drawing from within was precisely what Folk artists had been doing in obscurity for thousands of years. It took the newly-minted Expressionists to come to this realization, and then to elevate its earliest efforts to the level of "fine" art. The results were long-overdue gallery shows of the work of artists such as Edward Hicks, Joseph Pickett, Mary Robertson Moses, Adolf Dietrich, Radi Nedelchev, and Alfred Wallis.

Lost work, Alfred Wallis

Alfred Wallis, ca. 1930s, Ben Edge

Alfred Wallis was born in 1855, near the town of Penzance near the westernmost tip of England. As a teenager, he was apprenticed to a basket maker but soon found the pay much better working aboard fishing ships running between Penzance and Newfoundland. In 1876, Wallis married a widow named Susan Ward (and her five children). He was 20. She was 41. Following the death of two infant children, Wallis switched to local fishing. The family moved to St. Ives, Cornwall, in 1890 where Wallis became a marine stores dealer, buying scrap iron, sails, rope and other items. In 1912, he closed his business, took on odd jobs, and worked for a local antiques dealer, which provided some insight into the world of objects d'art. Wallis' wife died in 1922. It was then, for the first time, he took up painting "for company."

 



Cottage Amongst Trees, Alfred Wallis

Wallis' paintings are an excellent example of naïve art. Perspective is totally ignored. Each object's scale is often based on its relative importance in the scene. Wallis painted seascapes from memory, in large part because the world of sail he knew had been replaced by steam. As he put it, his subjects were "...what use To Bee out of my memory what we may never see again..." He had little money. As a result he improvised for art supplies, mostly painting on cardboard ripped from packing boxes and using a very limited palette of paint bought from ships' chandlers. Insofar as Folk Art was concerned, Wallis' timing was excellent. When Ben Nicholson and Kit Wood came to St Ives in 1928 to start an artist colony, they were delighted to find Wallis and his direct approach to painting. Wallis considered that his images were never paintings but actual events. Through Nicholson and Wood, Wallis was propelled into a circle of some of the most progressive artists working in Britain at the time.

St Michael's Mount with Yellow Sailing Ships, Alfred Wallis

Alfred Wallis' tomb

Wallis may have influenced them, but he, himself, continued to paint as he always had. Nicholson described Wallis' art as something that has grown out of the Cornish seas and earth. Through Nicholson and Wood, Wallis was introduced to Jim Ede who promoted his work in London. Despite having been "discovered" by the British art world, Wallis sold few paintings and continued to live in poverty. To his dying day Wallis believed that his neighbors resented his fame, believing him to be secretly rich. In one of his last letters to Ede he wrote:

"i am thinkin of givin up The paints all to gether i have nothin But Persecution and gelecy [jealousy] and if you can com [come] down for an hour or 2 you can take them with you and give what they are worf  [worth] afterwards. These drawers [other artists] and shopes are all jealous of me."

Alfred Wallis died in 1942 at the Madron workhouse in Penzance. He was eighty-seven.

George Washington Portraits

George Washington Lansdowne Portrait, 1796, Gilbert Stuart.
The White House version has a spelling error on one of the books.

This is not about George Washington, whose birthday it is today. Perhaps no man in the history of this country, short of Jesus Christ himself, has had more written about him. As our first president, you don't need me to go on about his service to his country during the Revolutionary War, as President, or his impressive legacy. No, this is about those who painted George Washington; who were, perhaps, more than anyone else, responsible for the aura of historic presidential perfection--the leader of a brand new experiment in democracy that had never before been tried, but has since become a model for free world countries on every continent (yes, even Antarctica).



George Washington owns the one dollar-bill, ever since 1869. It has had its ups and downs since that time. Traditionally said to be based on the Athenaeum (unfinished) Portrait of Washington (above-right), the question that keeps arising in my mind is, why was the image reversed during the engraving process? Does the printing process alone account for the reversal?

George Washington, The Athenaeum
Portrait, 1796, Gilbert Stuart,
National Portrait Gallery

When you talk about those artists, who have literally built their reputations and careers around having painted George Washington, the first name to float to the top is that of Gilbert Stuart. Over the course of his lifetime Stuart painted over a thousand individuals, including the first six Presidents of the United States. Stuart's Landsdowne Portrait of George Washing-ton (top), from 1796, hangs both in the East Room of the White House, in the National Portrait Galley in Washington, as well as the Old State House in Hartford, Connecticut, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum in Philadelphia. He painted the original then made three copies. If that sounds excessive, Stuart made about (no one knows for sure the exact number) 130 copies of what's come to be known as the Athenaeum Portrait of George Washington (left), which he sold for a hundred dollars each--about $666 in today's money.

Two of the many Gilbert Stuart copies of the Athenaeum portrait, the one
on the right having been finished shortly before Stuart's death in 1828.

George Washington,
1799, Rembrandt Peale

Gilbert Stuart may have been the preeminent portrait artist during the early years of American history, but he was far from being the only one who painted Washington for fun and profit. The Charles Willson Peale family in Philadelphia had a whole army of second generation painters, (mostly painting mini-atures). The patriarch, Charles Willson Peale had painted Washington two or three times, before and during the Revolution (below). His son, Rembrandt Peale, painted Washing-ton about the time of his death in 1799, rend-ering by far the best family versions. Notice to poor proportions of the 1780s portrait. The head in considerably too small for the body. In trying to make Washington appear heroic, the elder Peale succeeded only in making himself look inept. The artist was mostly self-taught.

The figure on the left, with its red uniform, represents a young Washington fighting for the British during the French and Indian Wars. The figure on the right is General Washington during the American Revolution. The anatomical proportions are grossly inaccurate.

George Washington Taking the
Salute at Trenton, 1856, John Faed

Two other portrait artists were much more successful than Peale at depicting Washington in his prime, during the Revolutionary War period. The 1856 painting by John Faed (right) depicts George Washington, mounted on horseback, Taking the Salute at Trenton. Though painted more than half a century after Washington's death, it is by far the best pre-presidential representation of Washington in a military role. American artists and their art made considerable improvements in that half-century. Sometime during Washington's two terms in office, 1789-1796, Edward Savage painted a perfectly charming family portrait of Washington, his wife, Martha, her son, Parke Custis, and daughter, Eleanor Parke Custis. The shadowy figure in the upper-right corner is apparently a family servant, either William Lee or Christopher Sheels.

George Washington and family, 1789-96, Edward Savage

Though Gilbert Stuart may be most famous for his unfinished portrait of Washington, he also painted an unfinished portrait of our first president's First Lady (though the titled hadn't been thought of yet). I've taken the liberty of merging the two, hoping Mr. Stuart will forgive my impertinence in creating a whole (though still unfinished) new addition to his life's work.

My version of Gilbert Stuart's unfinished portraits of Martha and George.

Washington by Jean
Antoine Houdon

During the past century, portraits of our first president have been as popular as during the days of Peale and Stuart. Washington's home at Mount Vernon, just down the Potomac from the capital city which bears his name, recently added an interactive museum. As part of that undertaking is a surprisingly lifelike wax figure of a very young, nineteen-year-old surveyor trekking along the western Virginia lands bordering the Ohio River around 1750 (below-center). The painting to the left depicts Washington offering the viewer a quill pen with which to sign the then brand new American Constitution. The portrait of Washington (below-right) is by the a young Russian portrait artist named Igor Babailov, com-missioned by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association, for their new exhibits. Babailov's portrait of Washington (below, right) may be the first instance where a painted portrait was done principally from a marble sculpture (right). At least the artist didn't have to struggle with a moving model.



Babailov's portrait is based on a life mask of Washington's face and careful reference to the standing sculptural figure of Washington made during the presidents lifetime by the French Sculptor, Jean Antoine Houdon, located in Richmond, Virginia.

Undoubtedly the most popular recent portrait of Washington dates from 1975, the work of Arnold Friberg titled Prayer at Valley Forge (below). So familiar was I with the iconic image that it came as a surprise when I realized it was little more than forty years old.

Friberg's Washington has become an iconic image in little more than forty years.

George and Martha Washington both graced the back
(bottom half) of this very early dollar bill (silver certificate).
It's probably worth a bit more than a dollar now.

 

How NOT to Paint and Draw (pt. 2)

Michelangelo's "horns" on Moses.

Yesterday I went on at some length about the personal bad habits involving how not to paint and draw. Today I want to delve into some of the bad painting habits. Though probably not so overriding as the personal bad habits, are nonetheless the difference between creating "good" art and perfectly "horrible" works of art. Some are little mistakes which might easily be overlooked if and when they occur in-dividually. The problem is, that's seldom the case. One error in judgment very often leads to a second, then a third, sometimes to a lengthy string of errors which can quickly move a work of art from mediocre or disappointing to the godawful category. Where possible, I'll try to show paintings and drawings which demonstrate such catastrophic denouements. You'll probably see some such errors you've made in the past. Michelangelo made a doozie, carving horns on the head of his Moses (left). He'd mistranslated "rays of light" to mean horns. I know I've made at various times, virtually ALL of the mistakes below. So, having done so, I'm something of an expert on this subject.

 

Bad Painting Habits--

 

1. Poor composition: Compositional errors tend to fall into three categories: cheesy/cutesy, boring, and unbalanced.

Even on Valentine's Day, this is a bit much.

Cheesy/Cutesy--surprisingly, there are still students who attempt to create artworks containing hearts; glitter; prancing horses; leaping dolphins or bunches of roses. Usually such work comes from girls. I suppose, for the "tween" demographic, this sort of thing is to be expected, a sort of feminine rite of passage to be outgrown and cast aside by the age of 13.5. Unfortunately that doesn't always happen. It's more than just overly pretty, cliché and/or unimaginative subjects. That tends to fall under the heading of content. And, while the two often run side by side, compositions are more fundamental than content. The Internet is overflowing with adult, so-called, artists who seem irretrievably snagged on this compositional error. Decorating texts is one of many examples (though probably the most common). Just because medieval monks did it a thousand years ago doesn't mean it's okay today.

Bored Doodle--no center of interest, composition too complex for the content.

Boring--Even those who select appropriate common subject-matter such as portraits, are obliged as creative artists to make an effort to compose them in some innovative manner. Even highly experienced art students sometimes submit projects that make instructors want to yawn. By and large, amateurish painting techniques trump boring compositions every time. And just as bad, perhaps in some ways worse is the attempt to employ overly complex compositional arrangements far beyond those demanded by the artist's content itself or any instinctive ability to use them--something like trying to play poker with a deck of "Old Maid" cards.

Copyright, Jim Lane

Granddad's Place, 1970, Jim Lane

Unbalance--the mass of the house does not equal
that of the trees and outbuilding. 

Unbalanced--Every image, page and preparatory component of an Art endeavor should be arranged in a well-balanced, aesthetically pleasing way. My painting (above) of Granddad's Place is unbalanced in that the mass of the house on the right is less than that of the outbuilding and tree on the left. A small tree on the right was added later to improve the balance. Compositional balance can be a tremendous challenge for some, while seemingly intuitive to others. Nonetheless certain principles apply. For artists who dote on rules (and there are dozens of them), this is where they can excel.

2. Drawing from second-hand sources: Painting from photos taken by others is one of the riskiest strategies a professional artist can use. When noted, it sets off alarm bells for the examiner, indicating a lack of personal connection to a topic, a lack of originality, plagiarism, and a superficial depth as to the work in general. I was always relatively lenient in allowing this sort of thing with high school students, especially those with-out the means of procuring their own personal source materials. But drawing images from magazines, books and the internet suggests the negative attribute of an artist who cannot get off his or her backside long enough to find source material of their own to draw. Of course there are certain art projects in which drawing from second-hand resources is acceptable, or even demanded. However, this is an area which artists should approached with caution and careful consideration of the negative baggage it carries.

 

Negative space is not normally
so obvious.



3. Ignoring negative spaces: It is easy to get caught up in drawing content, such as the fingers and palm or back of a hand, while losing the essence of what you want the hand to be doing when the negative spaces are not accurately seen and drawn. At first the "negative space" example (right) appears to be a logo for a conservative political action committee (NGTV PAC). A second look reveals the label.

 



Too much concentration on the foreground, none as to background.

4. Concentrating on one area of the canvas while neglecting the rest (above-top): the whole of the canvas is important. I can't tell you how many times I've encountered still-lifes in which the artist has done a magnificent job in painting the intricate details of his or her subject then simply "fudged" the background and/or the foreground. One of the simplest rules I've always preached, even to elementary students, is to think in depth--foreground, middle-ground, and background (as seen in the second image, above-bottom). Otherwise, it's like trying to decorate a cake without first making, baking, and icing it.

 

Flesh tones are some of the easiest to "muddy-up"
by mixing the paint on the canvas as seen here.

5. Mixing paint on the canvas: That's what the palette is for. If you risk the palette looking better than the painting, then so be it. Frame the damned palette. Seriously, mixing paint on the canvas risk "mud." Mud is the inevitable result of red, yellow, and blue, usually with a bit of white (or worse) black. There's nothing wrong with any of those colors indiv-idually, or even mixed togeth-er, provided they're not en-gaged in a brutal battle for visual dominance. Allow one to be stronger, another weak-er than the rest. And if you're prone to earth tones, be especially vigilant in this re-gard. Use an intermediate color area to separate them from your more brilliant colors. The key is to plan and experiment on the palette (or some neutral, disposable surface) NOT on your canvas, especially when using oils. That is to say, acrylics, with their rapid drying time, tend to layer (which is often good, or at least seldom bad). Oils and watercolors tend to blend. There is, of course nothing wrong with blending so long as it is minimal and doesn't deteriorate into mixing.

 

Not only does the painting progress faster with a larger brush, but the entire work takes on a much more painterly quality

6. Using too small a brush: Unless you're dabbling in the ancient art of egg tempera, start with the largest brush you can reasonably handle, then stick with it for as long as possible until it begins to work to the detriment of the finished painting. Then, and only then, moved down a size or two, rinse, and repeat. For most work (unless painting miniatures) only one or (at most) two downsizings is optimal. More than that means you need to "brush-up" on your brush handling techniques.

 

Too much color. Color TV, in the early
years, was guilty of this.

7. Too many colors: Art instructors at the college level used to encourage students to paint with a minimalized palette of cadmium red, cadmium yellow (light), cobalt blue and white. That's extreme. As a practical matter, I keep handy burnt umber, burnt sienna, raw sienna, and yellow ochre plus Payne's gray (a weak, cold black). For intense primaries, I have alizarin crimson and pthalocyanine blue. I keep a tube of cerulean blue handy as well, as I'm not fond of the artificial richness of cobalt. Of course, the key element here is not what's in the paint box, or even on the palette, but the pigments that make their way to the canvas. The KISS principle applies (Keep It Simple, Stupid).

 

Notice the monotonous, overreliance on the fan brush in painting the palm foliage. The colors have also turned muddy either do to poor color choices, or their having been mixed on the canvas.

8. Poor brushwork: Don't scumble, scrub, or use monotonous, repetitive brushstrokes. If painting landscapes, learn to use the fan brush judiciously, twisting, turning, heavily laden, practically dry, even as a blender, but not as a printing device. The same applies to most other brushes, but is most often seen in the inept handling of the fan brush. Scumbling is a painting technique for adding a layer of broken, speckled, scratchy color over another color (usually dried color). Bits of the lower layer(s) of color show through the scumbling. The result is said to give a sense of depth and color variation to an area. Perhaps, but it also makes the work look cheap, stingy, fearful, tentative, and amateurish. Scrubbing needs no definition, either in adding or removing wet paint.

What color is snow? If you're painting in with pure, white pigments, you're using too much white. Compare the white border (above) to the colors used by the artist in rendering the snow.

9. Using too much white, and/or too little paint: White artists' pigments come in large tubes. That does NOT mean they should form the base for mixing all other colors. That inevitable results in a plethora of pastels, which results in weak, boring colors, which results in weak, boring paintings. Especially beware of various greens and white--use yellows to lighten them as much as possible. That's good advice in lightening earth tones, as well. Don't allow white to be a color crutch. As for too little paint, accept the fact that only about fifty percent of the paint you squeeze out, ends up on the painting. By the same token, never, ever, whatsoever apply paint to a canvas simply to avoid wasting it. It's better to waste some paint than to end up wasting a painting. Think about it; you wouldn't spend two hours in the shower, scrubbing your skin raw, simply to avoid wasting soap.

 

"Oops...hmm...we'll make it a bird. Yeah, we'll make it a bird.
Uhhh...THERE, its a bird now."

10. Fixing every "mistake": Some very good paintings are full of "happy" accidents that the artist refused to ‘fix’. Don't think too much. Painting is usually a feeling thing as much or more than an, intellectual endeavor. If you make a seeming error, first try to make the most of it, incorporating it into the general nature of the work. The well-known TV painter, Bob Ross (above), was famous for turning little blobs of paint accidentally dropped on his landscapes into "birds." Especially when painting in the more "unforgiving" mediums of oils or watercolor, "fixing" even a tiny mistake ineptly runs the risk of ruining the entire work.

Leonardo--the jack of all trades, master of most. Yet, he made mistakes...some HUGE.

Those are the "biggies." There are dozens more, mostly less common and less serious bad habits involving painting. Listing more then ten bad habits, either personal or painting, would probably cause even Leonard da Vinci (who had plenty of both) to consider another vocation. Actually, he did. Besides being a painter, Leonardo was also an engineer, inventor, anatomical illustrator, cryptologist, and sculptor.


























 

 

How NOT to Paint and Draw (pt. 1)

Mistakes or mistreaks?

Art and freedom comes from both ends of the pencil.

I'm a little reluctant to get into a topic like this. It makes me out to be some sort of painting guru who has "been there, done that" insofar as having made every mistake in the book. That's not the case. I've made my share, believe me, but there are still hundreds, perhaps thousands, of mis-takes I haven't made. Some I've learned to avoid. Others I've just not had time to make yet. When discussing mis-takes, virtually all of them fall into one of two categories--those made in creating art, and those made after having done so. I'm not going to get into the latter. Virtually all of those involve marketing in one form or another, and though I've had some hands-on experience in this regard, not to mention having read lots about it, I don't feel qualified to go there in the first place, and of the two categories, it's by far the most tedious and boring. My experience, my strengths have always been in the "how to" realm and in this case, the area of "how not to."

 

I've taught artist who were not just mistake
prone, but accident prone as well.

Even in discussing how not to paint, the discussion breaks down into two fairly distinct areas--bad personal habits, and bad painting habits. The two are closely interrelated but not inseparable. The first group are often common-sensical, though, as they say, common sense is not all that common. The second group has more to do with what goes on inside the artist's head rather than what happens with the artist's hand holding a brush. Today, I'll deal with bad personal habits. Tomorrow, bad painting habits. In having taught art for more than twenty-five years, I've seen every one of these mistakes dozens....usually hun-dreds...of times. And don't get the idea only beginning artists or amateur artist make such mistakes. I've seen many professionals, including myself, fall victim to such errors. Sometimes I'm even shocked to see those who, by rights, should know better, prove that, in fact, they don't. The thing to remember is that as artists progress and mature, they tend to make fewer mistakes; but never do they get to the point of making no mistakes.

 

Science has put off looking for a cure.

1. At the top of the list, and far and away the worst mistake an artist can make in painting a picture, is in not painting it. In my book, Art THINK (available at right) I refer to this as the "P" word--procrastination. There are dozens of trite prescriptions aimed at curing this ailment. And, in fact, it IS much more closely related to a mental illness than a bad habit. We all have symptoms from time to time. If they become chronic, or acute, the artist is literally dead in the water. Ideas are not art. If procrastination prevents them from getting outside the brain, no art gets produced; no other mistakes are made. The artist dies, or at least ceases tobe an artist.

 

Self-taught versus classroom instruction

2. Teaching oneself. I know, some fairly famous and successful artists have done so; but thousands more have tried to do so and failed miserably. In any educational pursuit, the mantra is, "learn the basics," but in art (and probably all other areas as well) there's far more to it than that. Starting a car and not killing oneself and others in driving it--that's the basics. There are refinement far beyond the basics one can only learn through extended personal experience stretching over hundreds of paintings, OR by absorbing the teachings of a trained professional skilled in imparting such extended experience in small, simple, repetitive, and very numerous doses. Taking art classes costs money (for both instruction and supplies), while also demanding self-discipline. If you lack either, forget about becoming an artist.

 

Just before he sets up his easel to paint his back yard.

3. Trying to be perfect. In other words, make mistakes. Without mistakes, learning from them is impossible. One of the most frustrating experiences an art instructor can encounter is trying to teach a perfectionist. Some people, in fact, give perfection a bad name. In any case, perfectionists seldom complete much artwork; and even when they do, they often hate the results: "It's not quite right." Learn to recognize mistakes and learn how to correct them, but also learn that some mistakes are too major to correct, while at the same time, too minor to worry about. Let them go. Move on. Learn what not to do from them.

 

Art need not be a lonely pursuit.

4. Working alone. Despite what I just said about taking art classes, I've learned far more from other artists, some with far less experience than myself (even from my students), than I have ever learned from art instructors. Of course the two go hand in hand. You will seldom meet or get to know other artists outside a classroom setting. In any case, learning from others takes time. A brief conversation with another artist at an art show in insufficient to obtain the interactive feedback and inspiration one gets from others in a classroom or club-like setting. Plus, a class has only one instructor, but many teaching assistants...like yourself.

 

For occasional use only--a reference, not a source.

5. Relying on a visual dictionary. The visual dictionary resides in the left hemisphere of the brain, helping us to recognize and discern the difference between a hand and a foot. One of the biggest handicaps an artist encounters is in not letting go of this visual history to really LOOK at the hand or foot you want to draw. We see hands and feet daily. Thus we have a tendency to make assumptions when drawing them. Let the intuitive, right side of the brain rule in drawing. Look, draw, look, draw, look, draw. Nowhere in that routine does it say "think." Nowhere does it say "recall" or "interpret." Drawing from life is all guesswork. "I guess that's how it should look." "I guess it would look better if I made the toes longer." Guessing does not involve "counting the toes first."

 

Paint what you know, but know what you paint.

6. Skipping homework. No conscien-tious artist-parent would let their kids get by ignoring homework assign-ments. Just as you wouldn't try changing the oil in your car not know where the dipstick is, neither should you try painting roses without having studied your subject matter. I men-tioned above not letting go of your "visual dictionary" but that does not mean you refuse to own one. You can draw a rose simply by looking at it and thinking it's a tulip, but the result will be neither a good rose nor a good tulip. The more complex your subject be-comes, the more absolutely vital becomes the absorption of the back-ground understanding of that content. Think of your visual dictionary as a reference book--a rule of thumb, not a bible.

 



All things in moderation--even art.

7. Knowing when to stop. Everyone who creates something is guilty of this. When you step back from your nearly completed painting, you will inevitably notice that spots where the color is weak, a section with a bit of canvas showing through, a tree lacking a bit of foliage. By all means, correct simple, glaring errors. But if you let yourself get drawn in to painstaking examination of everything you do, you'll never be finish any of it. Quit while you're ahead. An overworked painting is just as bad as one obviously unfinished...and to some eyes, far worse. There's an old saying, "It takes three people to create a portrait, the artist, the model, and someone to clobber then artist when he or she is finished."



 

 

Stuart's unfinished painting of Washington
the most famous unfinished work in the world.

8. Unfinished work. You wouldn't take a college course, attending class faithfully for ten to twelve weeks, then not show up for the final. Yet some artists, in effect, do just that when it comes to painting. They make a decent start, get perhaps half-way through, then, unaccountably lose interest and quit. This is the opposite of not knowing when to stop--stopping way too soon. As a former art instructor, believe me I know, even adults have varying attention spans. Some students feel that if they don't complete a painting in a single sitting or a single class session, then to hell with it. It's for such people that God gave us acrylics. The artist severely lacking in persistence is tantamount to one lacking eyes.
 

Fearing the new, rather than embracing it.

9. Fearing to move on. As with a physical workout, when starting out, it’s important to stretch your drawing muscles. Push yourself. Take risks. Don’t limit yourself to a particular set of subjects – only drawing landscapes or flowers, for instance. Don't become infatuated with a particular style of drawing, or even to a single medium. That's how you discover hidden talents and find you like drawing things you never thought you would. Coupled with this is the fear of starting a new painting. I've seen students literally paralyzed creatively, by indecision and fear of failure. This is especially true if a student has had some surprising success with one or more early works. The thinking goes, "I've painted a pretty good horse or two so therefore I can only paint horses, and only standing horses...preferably looking away from the viewer."

 

Copyright, Jim Lane

An artist copying a painting in the Louvre. The Louvre hires the artist and sells the copy to other museums.

10. Imitating others. Pursue inspiration, not imitation. Unless you plan to become a professional art forger, you need to seek your own style and perspective...build your own boat then row it, so to speak. In the past, many artists have tried to learn painting by sitting up their easels in museums and copying famous masterpieces. That method of learning is now so antiquated as to be comparable to painting outside so as to observe the growing of grass. Study the work of artists you admire, online or in books, but don't spend a lot of time trying to draw or paint like them. By all means, choose favorites, and learn from them, but adapt what you learn to your own unique style and process...don't copy. Copying is the antithesis of creation...it's re-creation, or at best, art recreation.

Art recreation