Online Musings: 2°

As I write more it seems my processes for creating merge. Sometimes they merge directly, sometimes they flirt with one another, circling like a predator and prey, or perhaps like future mates. But here’s the strangeness I have come up against: In drawing and painting it is often pushed upon young artists to be direct. Be deliberate. Say what you mean and say it with authority. But in writing it is very common practice to write a draft and spend weeks or months editing it. Fine-tuning. Nuancing meanings and subtleties. It is common practice to put something down knowing full well that it will change in time. This process is often considered a waste of time in drawing/painting. Of course it also has to do simply with the current phase that art is in.

Classical purists might argue that this approach, this subtle build-up of form and volume and weight is the only real way to create the sensual illusion that is true painting. Perhaps I just naturally meander toward this Classical opinion. I like to start a sketch with very fine lines. Wispy like webs. From there I begin to delineate form and light. This is how I’ve drawn and painted for as long as I can remember, yet for the longest time I was afraid to change something once I’d written it. I didn’t understand the value and the importance and the process of my proclaimed rule of 2°: Take your first idea and push it two degrees off. This might mean revising it twice or making it more subtle, and more subtle again, or referencing something that nods toward “X” instead of just directly pointing at “X”. This might involve writing a description and adding another layer a day later and another layer a day after that. The reason for this is, by my reckoning, that when we embark on any given creative challenge, be we novices or masters, there is only so much we can process at any given time. The more advanced we are, the more we can accommodate in our conscious mind because we have naturalized enough skills through thorough practice. Hard work and lots of it is always the key. So, as I am writing or drawing or painting I can only keep so much information in my mind at one time. Thus once I have put down that wealth of information I come back later and add to it with new information I did not have room for, mentally, before.

I have become very comfortable with this in my writing now. In fact I enjoy it. I love coming back and changing single words and adding paragraphs and typing in a layer of grit to hopefully create something compelling. As a sketch artist in advertising I never have the time to do this. Much to my dismay. We all know that this has become an instant-gratification era. The idea of spending a full day refining a sketch and another day creating a beautiful drawing and another two days painting it up is just unheard of. If I get to spend more than a day on one image I feel like the world is my oyster, like I have the time to create a masterpiece. This contrasts heavily with my personal work be it painting or writing or drawing where a panel might sit on my easel, half covered in paint, for weeks as I ponder it and go through the process over and again in my head until I know exactly what needs to be done. I might spend an entire day cautioning through a couple paragraphs and the next day might fly through five pages. I have discovered that my professional work is a respite from my personal work and vice versa but both add to one another and when I have a new realization in my visual art it almost always translates directly to my writing and back again. I suppose creating is creating. And blogging is blogging ;) Here’s to typing out loud!

~D/L