Creative Block: What to Paint?
Either, I have left it late in my art career to find a style or it’s taken some time to refine and develop a productive approach to my output. I reckon it’s a bit of both!
Digital drawing of After Vermeer: Have you seen my other earring?
Just using one red pen on Procreate. Simplicity is key for me.
Creativity isn’t easy and I am certainly not the most creative person out there but I have always loved it and worked hard to try and find a way.
Examining, studying or scrutinising my favourite artists, such as Peter Howson, Ken Currie, Neo Rauch or Sir Peter Blake probably didn't help. Yes, they inspired but they were also daunting and probably made me overambitious.
Peter Howson doing his thing
One of my favourites, if not my favourite! Working on the underpainting, he makes it all look effortless.
I have spent hours of time and energy trying to copy, replicate etc… my favourites and sometimes with some success but I have also produced a lot of trash. I never really painted or drew my way and that was the problem. Studying those painters though did help me learn a lot!
As mentioned in a previous blog, I am not a huge fan of drawing, I love getting onto the painting and so if the drawing was going to take a long time, I would often lack the motivation and never get started. I decided to simplify my drawing process - sticking to a few key rules and working on my iPad helped.
Digital drawing of NHS, 1632
My take on Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. He did the hard work on his composition, so I don’t have to.
Once I established a rhythm and kind of personal production line, I had paintings and ideas lined up literally and metaphorically. The only thing stopping me now, is waiting for paint to dry.
Detail of After da Vinci: The Moaner, Lisa - Oil on Canvas 2021
A few simple rules can help avoid a lot of stress in coming up with ideas - just apply them to the entire history of art!
What am I saying? I guess, do your own thing! Experimenting helps and so does studying others but what I found key was reducing how many variables I had in my painting. By picking a few rules that seemed to work from trial and error, such as four segments to my faces, or triangular bodies, I could develop and refine that skill, if you can call it that? That allowed me to improve and build a body of work that had something in common.
Because the rules worked for the drawing, I thought having rules to follow for the painting would also work and it did. Burnt Umber or Burnt Sienna underpainting, with Prussian Blue or Indigo as the next layer. Impasto layers of Titanium White, Flesh Tone, Yellow Ochre and so on, all knocked back with glazes and repeat.
Detail of NHS, 1632 - Oil on Canvas 2021
I don’t often mix my paints (keeps them consistent and I like to keep them intense and pure, just like Michelangelo) but this toxic flesh tone was Prussian Blue and Naples Yellow Light.
Having confidence in knowing certain things will work and I know what I am doing meant I could experiment on occasion with adding reflected light, using a new colour, moving away from straight lines, adding eyebrows or changing the shape of the eyes. Having lots of common things in my painting meant they could be viewed together but little changes in different pieces meant I didn’t get bored and hopefully those looking at them don’t either.
Marc Study: Birthday Boy - 2020 - Oil and pastel on canvas paper
Added some pastel highlights at the end of this one.