Back To The Drawing Board, Quality Of Line

I have been overwhelmed with the outpouring of support after my last post. Don't worry everyone, I'm good. And I'll keep making art no matter what.

There are quite a few things that I want to change about my work. I figured it would be a good idea to start with the basics and spend more time with drawing.

Time to wipe the slate clean and start from the ground up.

Starting over has been scary. Spending time with the basics has helped a great deal. I can spend a few hours playing with the concept in pencil, instead of a few weeks (or months!) trying to get it to come together in paint. And since I see these drawings as experimental, I can mark up the paper all I want and not care about it looking "finished."

Untitled (cropped), Pencil and Chalk on Toned Paper.

Since I have announced that "everything is different now," only focusing on an accurate line drawing just won't do. Instead, the focus has shifted to quality of line.

Evelyn, Pencil and Chalk on Toned Paper

Quality of line can be summed up as simply as the thinness or thickness of a line. But I also think about whether the line is best represented dark or light, hard or soft, curved or straight,. (I'm finding that more and more I'm leaving curved lines as straight lines) And I'm pushing that further. Are there any lines I can change to better represent what it is that I want to see?

No more blindly following what I see in front of me.

While drawing, along with striving for accuracy and achieving a good likeness, I also pay close attention to how each line relates to the next. When finished, every line in the drawing should work together. Often there are lines that don't need to be there at all.

The more simple the drawing, the happier I've been with the finished work. And if you are wondering, no, this is not the beginning to my spiral into minimalism. Not going to happen. BUT, it does appear to be a transition into more contemporary art.

Until next time......

Restarting My Art Career

If you have been following along, you know I've had a very limited online presence since last November. Around that time I let a comment about my art question my entire career. One comment. Questioning my lifelong dream.

Are you wondering what was so awful that made me feel like years of my life were wasted? What horrible, terrible thing could have possibly been said? One word. One small word. "Boring."

I want to be this badass, confidant, artist that cares little about the opinion of others. But this comment was not said with anger, jealousy, or envy. This was genuine. And it came from someone high up within the representational art world.

I had a decision to make. Brush off the comment and continue down the road I was on, or, think very carefully about why I was referred to as "boring." I started thinking.

I ended up having a lot of time to think.

I won't go into all the negative emotions I went through. Like I said before, I'm not looking for sympathy. I'm writing this because someone else is out there questioning their creative path. I want them to know they are not alone.

This is how I worked it out.

I put all my paintings in one room and sat in front of them. Eight years ago I didn't think I would have been able to achieve this level of realism. And there they were, still lives, portraits, all looking like photographs.

Ok, there is nothing wrong with realism, or photo-realism. But I started to ask myself if these works were reflective of who I am, what I see AND feel. And the most difficult question of all: If I were an art collector, would I buy any of these paintings?

This post is me baring my soul. This is me going against everything I have come to learn about how to present myself in public. "Fake it until you make it." "Smile through the pain." "Never let them see you sweat."

I'm doing things my way now.

Instead of giving up, or continuing to make work that feels "safe" and worrying about whether or not my work will appeal to a large number of people, I'm starting over. I'm rebuilding my art career from the ground up. And from here forward I will no longer worry about looking arrogant or self-important. From now on, I do what I want.

Art is hard. Art is lonely. Art is life. Art is my life.

If it is your life too, keep going.