Pause for Thought

"Let us consider your mind for a minute, because it can be the single biggest problem when creating artwork.  Rational thinking may say that you have to do 'good work', whatever that is, to justify the time you spend, and then you should show and sell your work for it to have value.  Get off that channel.  See the worth in the process itself.  You are participating in active meditation - think of it as exercise of the spirit.  Your work and your spirit will grow together regardless of the results."

Peggy Macnamara

It’s not the amount of work, it’s the amount of time at the easel

Kerry Daley
Hand
Watercolour on Paper 23cm x20cm

Artists work, they don’t just think about it. Vincent Van Gogh produced more than 2000 pieces of work in the last ten years of his life. He said, 

“If I were to think of and dwell on disastrous possibilities, I could do nothing. I throw myself headlong into my work.” 

Don’t think about the work, just do the work! We think too much, we try to hard. We need to give ourselves permission to make work that may not be good.

We don’t have to make a lot of work, but we do need to spend a lot of time working. Make quantity the goal. Make it measurable. ‘I will paint for one hour each day’ – It’s a start, it’s something I can measure, something I can achieve, something I can tick off on my list of things to do today. 

Alyson B Stanfield at Art Biz Blog, gives excellent advice to artists about the business of art making – read what she says about devoting yourself to your studio practise.

Don’t think about the end product. It gives us an excuse to stop – “this work is not good, this painting is not going well, I can tell that it will be a mess. It would be better for me to leave it now and start something else. No gallery will ever look at this rubbish.” The best way to get work done is to focus on doing the work and doing a lot of it consistently. 

The issue is not whether the work is good, it’s whether there is any work at all. Every bit of work is like a little tick next to your name, good little budding artist, you did it, well done.

Practise Quantity NOT Quality Control

Artists often become experts at quality control, we look at our own work and that of others, very critically, eager to point out aspects that can and should improve. We hone our critical skills, certain that this will ensure better and more meaningful paintings. Many become so good at controlling the quality of their work that, instead of making a painting that might not be good enough, they don’t paint at all. Quantity is the secret of better work. When we make a lot of work, we become experienced at what we are doing, we become more familiar with our medium and our materials, and we become more intimately acquainted with ourselves through the work. Our work improves, our understanding of our work deepens, and our confidence increases. When we are confident in our ability to handle our brushes and are familiar with our materials, we are daring and open to other possibilities, we don’t hover over our painting terrified that something may go wrong. To make quality work, make more work.


In their book, Art and Fear, the authors, David Bayles and Ted Orland, tell the story about a ceramics teacher who divided his class into two groups, those on the left, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of the work they produced, and those on the right, solely on the quality. On the final day of class, he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the ‘quantity’ group: fifty pounds of pot rated an “A”, forty, a “B” and so on. Those being graded on ‘quality’, however, needed to produce only one pot, a perfect one, to get an “A”. When grading time came, it emerged that the works of the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while they were busy churning out piles of work, and learning from their mistakes, the quality group had sat theorising about perfection, and in the end had little to show for their efforts.

Two Big Disappointments

When I studied Fine Art at university, I was surprised that we were not taught art techniques. We were not taught much about the materials we were using or how to use them. We weren’t taught the colour wheel, shown colour charts, or even how to paint. We were not required to complete tonal gradation charts, or know the names of the pigments we were using. We did no preparatory sketching, didn't keep sketchbooks or any records of our work. We studied how to make art without any reference to the craft of art making. I can only assume that the omission was deliberate and that knowledge of materials and technique was considered superfluous to the making of important and avante garde work.



Although I graduated with respectable results, I felt quite unprepared for a career as an artist and struggled to make art outside of university. This was a big disappointment, I had a degree in art, but I did not know how to be an artist. I embarked on a post graduate diploma, qualified as a teacher and I taught.


Unfortunately, it’s difficult to teach art with a poor understanding of materials and techniques. I found that most of my students showed no interest in my highbrow philosophy of art making, they wanted to learn to draw and paint in a naturalistic way.


And so began my second art education – I taught myself the craft of art making. I became knowledgeable and skilled in drawing and painting, in materials and techniques and I passed on this knowledge to the best of my ability.


My students learned to make beautiful, realistic paintings; they understood their materials and honed their skills. But their work was superficial, it lacked substance. This was another big disappointment to me, although my students and I knew how to paint well, this did not bring us any closer to being artists.


It has taken me a long time to understand that art is a complex thing. Technique is a means to an end, but certainly not an end in itself.


So, what is it that sets good work apart?


but more importantly,


Can I make a good work of art?

The kind of work I want to make

When we set about learning to paint or draw, what are we doing?


Are we trying to acquire techniques and tricks that will enable us to create convincing illusions?


Is learning about the colour wheel or how to apply a glaze, what making art is about?


Is making art about having good skills and good technique?


What do artists do to make paintings that we aspire to make?

Thomas Hoving describes a good work of art as one that amazes us in a different way each time that we look at it. He says, a good work of art grows in stature over the years and its visual impact of mysterious, pure power increases every day.

That is the kind of work that I want to make, and if you are like me, that is the kind of work you want to make too!