Art is a process, not a product.

 

Art is a process, not a product.

I started this painting in April 2023 – my first session got rained off.  While oil paint is waterproof, canvas is not, and oil paint does not want to behave on a wet canvas.  My second session was more productive, but it was still nowhere near to being resolved.  I worked on it periodically in the studio over the next year, going back for photographs and sketches for more information and ideas then eventually ran out of steam.  I turned it to the wall, knowing that someday I’ll come back to it.  

Some paintings just seem to manifest into existence; a sudden idea or inspiration, you attack a canvas and within a few hours or days, you have a painting you are happy with and no idea how it happened.  Other paintings you fight with for what seems like eternity.  I can’t remember where I heard this, but someone once said, and I paraphrase,

“You put the first mark down then it’s just a continuous problem-solving exercise until the last mark.”

A constant battle where you win an inch here and lose a mile there.  The canvas begins to resemble a scarred battlefield of brush marks, scratches and impasto lumps; lines drawn and redrawn. 

You many never get to a point where you’re totally satisfied, perhaps at best where you reach an uneasy amnesty and decide it’s time to leave it.  Or you decide you have nothing to lose and just start throwing paint at it, ignoring all your best instincts and any formal ideas about how painting should be done.  

Suddenly you find the exciting possibilities of being beyond your comfort zone, and I’m now curious to see how this one ends up.  What you must never do is get too precious – never be scared to ruin a good painting.  

These are the paintings we learn from.