Painting is Seeing, Thinking, Doing, in descending order of importance.
Artists, by definition, are visual creatures. We SEE. We absorb sights into our skin. Problem is, we absorb everything. (Whew! There are a lot of blades of grass in that lawn! Where to start?)
That's where Thinking comes in. (How can I show grass-ness without painting every blessed blade of green? And what the heck should I do about that tacky weed there in the center?!) Painting isn't chaos, and like most things in life, turns out best when you lay good groundwork.
Seeing and Thinking are the foundations of a good painting.
Last comes Doing. Not to belittle the creative process -- shoring up talent with technique is only gained by constant practice.. You must show up and paint regularly, or you'll never produce a great painting -- but Doing is not a cave wherein the magician lives. You can enthusiastically blunder through a painting just as you can carelessly stumble through your life hoping good things fall across your path.
But I find life, and painting, more rewarding when I'm prepared, and intentional about my actions.
Which brings us back to Seeing and Thinking.
In my case, I see something that tugs at my soul. Maybe it's the vast landscape, or a tiny flower blooming beneath a rock. I constantly look at whatever is surrounding me. I ask myself, what is special? what is unique? what surprises me here? I analyze my intuitive response, and thus, transition to thinking about whatever I'm seeing.
Next, I decide how I want to share it.
Waiting for sunrise in Big Bend National Park one cold and wintry morn, we sat in the truck and sipped hot black coffee from our trusty, battered Thermos. We'd driven from Study Butte in the dark and arrived at the Burro Mesa PourOff trailhead in those last colorless minutes before dawn. We'd hiked this spot before, but this was a new dawn, and I didn't know what I was about to see. I hoped there would be a painting in it. All I could do was be there, seeing what sunrise brought to the desert.
That's the way life goes, too. Every sunrise marks a fresh beginning. The start of whatever comes next. Being present, being aware, being appreciative is the first element of a rewarding new day.
Same thing applies to creating a new painting. First, you must open your eyes.
Then, you must open your mind, then think carefully about your next move. What do you want to do with this day? What do you want to express in this painting?
On that cold morning, it was the glow of the sun waking the colorless desert that pulled at the creative part of me. My gut reaction to daybreak was a sense of warmth, of golden light chasing away the chilly unease of the desert in darkness. Suddenly, there was light to mark the day's path.
Thinking about what to include, about how to frame what I saw, I took dozens of photographs.
Doing came later. Back in the comfort of my studio, my technique was first to layer luminous, unblended color before adding any detail to this pastel landscape painting. I sought warmth. Thus, the rich, warm glow of my golden underpainting subtly offers the sense of first light pouring into the mountain tops, of cold pads of prickly pear absorbing warmth after the bitter cold of night. It takes very little skill or technique to wash color across a canvas with reckless abandon, but without seeing and experiencing dawn hit the desert, I wouldn't have thought to color my canvas with sunlight. Want your painting to shimmer with the glow of sunrise? Consciously seek and select the colors of the sun.
See. Think. Do.
BEGINNINGS 11" x 14" pastel © Lindy Cook Severns