‘Everything that you can see in the world around you presents itself to your eyes only as an arrangement of patches of different colours.'
(John Ruskin)
In the 40 or so years I've been painting, this quote has drifted in and out of my mind nearly everytime I've picked up a brush - along with the notion that there are no lines out there, only places where one colour ends and another begins. This might sound flippant, but it isn't, trust me. Let's find an example. A tree.
Branches, twigs, leaves, fruit, flowers, birds, fauna, everything bundled up in one simple image, unless of course, you choose to see that tree as a painter. Full of dappled light, history, shadow, symbolism – wait, isn't that the view of the poet or the philosopher? You could be seeing the tree from an odd angle, or lying below its branches looking up through the canopy seeing the sparkling light filter down, or taking drone shots from above, and all this is quite inventive, as a scientific exercise, but will that make a good painting?. The more I paint the more I begin to understand that I need to see the tree in terms of its shape and colour.
That’s as simple as it is.
Don’t waste time on thinking beyond the dimensions of your paper or canvas, find the proportion and any perspective, and simply ‘belittle’ it into fitting into the space you want it in. All the energy and feeling you have will flow out, much like walking, riding a bike, driving a car or swimming – you no longer have to think about those actions, they are now automatic.
If a painter is to translate what they see onto 2 dimensions, something this simple is a great key to actually unlock the creative door. Even moving into abstraction from figurative work, which I frequently do, I still believe that rules are there to be broken, but if you don’t know the rules in the first place it is only a random scribble, amongst a whole swathe of self-expression...and who really can know ones’ inner dialogue (and who is really interested?). The two can be combined by simply allowing oneself to let go and enjoy the exploration itself.
So, if I am to be true to my desires to be the best painter I can be, where would I concentrate my focus? (bearing in mind that I know I will never stop learning, nor ever be satisfied with the paintings I produce). Well, I suspect that the answer to this is to do as much painting as is humanly possible, and to still explore my surroundings with the same amount of passion. Something has to draw me to that tree, or that landscape in order for me to want to paint it, and inspiration comes from the most unlikely places sometimes (from a broken egg, to a mountain).
I don’t think I will ever stop painting, and I want to spread the joy that it brings by helping hand the keys over to others. By learning some of the basic rules like perspective, negative space, colour theories, art histories, composition, scale, mark making and all manner of techniques, you can break the rules with confidence. Now, let's introduce a little anarchy...