I saw the work of another local painter having painted the same landmark (landscape) I just abandoned (finished). As I mentioned in my last post "emotion" is a strong and necessary component of a painting, and yes, even in a landscape. Well, my painting seems rather stiff and two dimentional in comparison to the painting by the other artist. Trumped certainly in the emotion category as well as technique for that matter. Ahhh, what better way to start a day at the easel than feeling lame and second rate.
That aside, my thoughts today are on Picasso's 'bull' series and how important it is as a theory in strategy. I never really cared for the piece as a work of art, still don't, but the idea is not only phenomenal but crucial. Pare down the subject matter to what is most important. Paint that. Everything else is too much. You can quote me on that. Make a bumper sticker out of it: Everything else is too much!
Being a painter from the loathed and scorned group of painters who work from photographs I can tell you absolutely that the photo gives you too much information. Unless you took some overexposed photos (that sucks), you must choose the 10 to 25 percent of information that will make the most interesting composition and throw the rest away. Let me tell you first hand that is no easy task. I love every morsel of the female figure and now I have to throw most of it away? As a matter of fact I just scraped two sessions, four days of painting off of a canvas that had become a parody of itself in no small part because I refused to make the cuts necessary. Painting and scraping and standing away scrunching my face at the easel I thought "Picasso's goddamn bull". Took a break, ate a sandwich, checked the news on that Pulp Fiction style shooting of those cops in Tacoma, and wrote this.
Back to the fray.
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