Cheating

There have been a few blog posts over on Muddy Colors in the past couple of days on the subject of "cheating" in art with the use of photography and/or digital media. 

This term "cheating" comes up frequently with digital media in regards to images that either use photo reference, photo collage, photo paint overs, or even just straight hyper realistic painting. Often people will accuse the artist of "cheating" because they may have used shortcuts to get where they ended up with the final. The truth of the matter is that when it comes to image creation and process there is no such thing as "cheating". Any means you use to get to a final image is fair game. However, since some of these processes may include the heavy use of photos it would be up to the artist personally to determine whether the use of these photos is to them "cheating". 

An example of this would be an artist who uses a combination of photo collage and paint overs. If this artist poses his own models, takes his own pictures from those models, edits those photos and collages/paints over them then that artist can feel fulfilled in that he truly created his image from start to finish without cheating. Conversely, that same artist could use images they found online or from a magazine, collage and then paint over those images and feel like they cheated to get to the final, even though they may have extensively altered or painted into/over those photos. In this case it is up to the artist whether or not they cheated by using images they found rather than images they created (not to mention addressing copyright issues with found images and whether or not it is legal to use certain images within your work).

This is where the artist needs to take a step back to see if they are cheating themselves in the creation of their art. For instance, if you think that posing your own models or sketching from life would have gotten you to a better quality final than having found reference elsewhere, then I would say that you were cheating yourself to some degree.

This is the only 'cheating' that I think really makes a difference to an artist and only in so far as they are concerned about their own process and how they got to the final image (which is what really matters).

Underpainting

In painting one should always have their eye on the final layer.

Everything you do from the very first thumbnail should be to facilitate the final piece. The end goal. That perfect image you had in mind from the very first time you put pencil to paper.

Unfortunately it doesn't always work out that way. For instance, you might find yourself laboring away at your work for hours, days, weeks, or dare I say months ending up nowhere near where you started but still not any closer to finish. Needless to say we all stray from our planned path at times but that doesn't mean we won't end up exactly where we need to be in the end. Sometimes it requires a simple course correct and sometimes you've just got to wade through the mud. Either way, everything you put down is just the underpainting for what comes next.

The underpainting is your foundation. It will inform every decision you make throughout the process. It is where you can make your mistakes, take risks, or just play around.

Even when you look back at what you did and say... "nope, should of done this instead. This would have gotten me there quicker"... realize that you had to make those mistakes and take those risks to have found that out.

Could it have been easier? Yes, and you know that now.

So when you work and you work and all you can see is the underpainting, just know that it's all building up to the finish. In the end it will only make your painting that much richer, that much more involved; and you can always look forward to the moments where your earliest underpainting still shines through. Those moments where you know you got it right in the first pass, where you took a big risk and it just worked. The moments that stood up to all the scrutiny that everything else didn't, because even finished isn't really finished sometimes.

What to Listen to...?

I know I'm not alone in the fact that I need to be listening to something while I work. This of course raises the question "what to listen to...?"

For me it is frequently changing and is usually dependent on my tastes for the week. I've gone from music to audiobooks and back but every so often I like to throw in the occasional podcast. There are hundreds of podcasts out there but today I want to direct you guys to one in particular.

SiDEBAR is a comics, art and pop culture podcast that can be found here. This podcast is just fantastic. It's hosted by some great guys and they've had some fantastic guests. Everyone involved is very down to earth and they all just love to talk about ART. I've heard some amazing stories from these interviews and picked up some great tips on the illustration business and on life as an artist in general.


They have an extensive archive (the BARchives) and all of their shows can be found there. I strongly recommend that you go browse and listen to some.

Below are just a couple (several) of my favorites...

George Pratt (part 1)
George Pratt (part 2)

Greg Manchess

Iain McCaig

Brom

James Remar

Drew Struzan

Irene Gallo

James Gurney

Phil Hale

John Van Fleet

Jeff Preston

Justin 'Coro' Kaufman

Brad Rigney

In the Zone - Achieving your Flow

We've all found ourselves getting "in the zone" when we work. We lose track of time until "just a couple of hours" becomes all day. Whats happening to you isn't entirely some superhuman ultra focus, enabling you to ignore everything short of the urge to pee (and sometimes even that). What is happening is that you are entering a mental state of operation known as flow.

Flow is a mental state in which the individual transcends conscious thought reaching a heightened state of both concentration and calmness. It is characterized by energized focus, full involvement, effortlessness, and enjoyment in the process of whatever activity you are doing. In essence it is the complete absorption into what one does.

Being able to enter a flow state usually means that you are doing something that you enjoy and are good at, but that also challenges you. Achieving this requires a confidence in skill that matches the task at hand. I believe that if you know enough about what you are doing, and you have the confidence and skill level to do what you do without thinking about it at every single turn, you can allow your mind to let go enough to reach your state of flow.

When in a flow state you are practically immune to any internal or external pressures and distractions that might otherwise hinder your performance. You simply stop thinking about any other problems you might have and concentrate solely on the task at hand. In this way, achieving a flow state can become your very own version of therapy or a meditation of sorts.

Below is a detail from a painting I did back in 2011. It was part of my thesis show in college and I was very strapped for time. This resulted in very very late nights and long long days of painting. For this particular piece I found myself so tired that I would doze off mid brushstroke, waking up periodically to find that I'd slashed green or red across the whole face, forced to start again from scratch. I can't remember much of the painting process but after dozing in and out of not quite sleep countless times the last thing I remember was waking up (or rather becoming aware) at my easel to the completely finished face shown below. 

I like to think of it as exaggerated proof that a flow state is the ultimate creative zone and that being in one is to be at the highest level of focus towards a particular task that you can be. To be so immersed in the task at hand that your brain can actually do it in it's sleep.

The Illusion of Ease

I want to take a moment to address the illusion of ease in painting and the difficulty with which an artist obtains it.

Below is a portrait of Mrs. Hugh Hammersley by John Singer Sargent...

I am a great admirer of Sargent and the apparent ease of his brushwork but it had never occurred to me that such ease was not a gift given upon reaching some level of skill where one can call themselves master. No, this ease was achieved by fighting tooth and nail with the canvas, demolishing all work that had been done before to start anew if just the slightest detail or shift of posture was not befitting the sitter.

Sargent would often repaint the heads of his sitters dozens of times. Each one from scratch. He would not reposition features or tinker with the details of a face as this meant the initial structure was wrong and had to be redone.The head of Mrs. Hammersley above was repainted no less than 16 times.

He painted his forms as a sculptor models his, laying in the broad forms first and letting the features blossom from within. They were never a separate thing to be applied to the face, they were always integral, from the very first stroke.

No matter how long he worked on a particular piece he had no qualms about destroying everything to start fresh if it was not to his satisfaction. Below is a portrait of Lady D'Abernon. After three weeks of painting her in a white dress, Sargent scraped out the painting at what would have been the last sitting. He then repainted her in a black dress in only three.

Sargent's paintings appear as if he completed them on a whim and that they flew from his brush with the littlest effort. He was able to achieve this because the images did in fact fly from his brush, though what you cannot see and must respect is the time spent behind those few remaining strokes on the canvas. The fact that countless hours were spent simplifying and perfecting the image in his mind's eye through painting and repainting until the perfect visualization of a form can pour out at once and create what we all see as a masterpiece done with ease.

References: I found the information in this post from the accounts of Sargent's process and methods by some of his students, Miss Heyneman and Mr. Henry Haley. A collected PDF of these compiled notes can be found on Craig Mullins' site here.

From Color to Sound

The following was taken from an account of a sitter being painted by John Singer Sargent in 1902:

My husband came several times to the sittings. On one occasion Mr. Sargent sent for him specially. He rode across the Park to Tite Street. He found Mr. Sargent in a depressed mood. The opals baffled him. He said he couldn't paint them. They had been a nightmare to him, he declared, throughout the painting of the portrait. That morning he was certainly in despair.

Presently he said to my husband: "Let's play a Fauré duet." They played, Mr. Sargent thumping out the bass with strong, stumpy fingers. At the conclusion Mr. Sargent jumped up briskly, went back to the portrait and with a few quick strokes, dabbed in the opals. He called to my husband to come and look: "I've done the damned thing," he laughed under his breath.

What appeared to interest him more than anything else when I arrived was to know what music I had brought with me. To turn from color to sound evidently refreshed him, and presumably the one art stimulated the other in his brain.

References: I found the information in this post from the accounts of Sargent's process and methods by some of his students, Miss Heyneman and Mr. Henry Haley. A collected PDF of these compiled notes can be found on Craig Mullins' site here.

Faithful Portraiture

Below is an excerpt from some notes on John Singer Sargent. They have been compiled from a multitude of sources and can be found at Craig Mullins' site here.

It was a common experience for Sargent, as probably for all portrait painters, to be asked to alter some feature in a face, generally the mouth. Indeed, this happened so often that he used to define a portrait as "a likeness in which there was something wrong about the mouth." He rarely acceded, and then only when he was already convinced that it was wrong. In the case of Francis Jenkinson, the Cambridge Librarian (painting below), it was pointed out that he had omitted many lines and wrinkles which ought to be shown on the model's face. Sargent refused to make, he said, "a railway system of him."

While it is true that Sargent would almost never change his subjects features at their request he did exaggerate those features required for the most faithful likeness. In this way he certainly did not paint exactly what he saw but rather captured the essence of his sitter.

Below is the compared photograph and portrait of Coventry Patmore. The portrait having been done from life (not from the photograph) both dated to the mid 1890's.

Patmore thought very highly of Sargent having wrote of him: 

“He seems to me to be the greatest, not only of living English portrait painters, but of all English portrait painters; and to be thus invited to sit to him for my picture is among the most signal honours I have ever received.”

He was so impressed by the likeness that he wrote of the painting: 

"It is now finished to the satisfaction, and far more than the satisfaction of every one - including the painter - who has seen it. It will be simply, as a work of art, THE painting of the Academy."