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Today I am starting a series on how I create a painting from concept to hanging. I am going to concentrate on how I create full size paintings, because the process is not quite the same for creating the smaller ACEOs (remind me to write about those some day!!) This is my process, and it may be different from yours if you paint. There is no recipe for painting, or right way or wrong way, as each artist brings their experience and preferences to the process. It is also something that can evolve, but this is how I do it, in 2020. This week’s topic is: Where do I get my ideas? Great question! Most of the time, I will not be looking for an idea, but I will see a scene or a photo that will trigger my “oooh, gotta paint that!” reflex. If it's something I see myself, I will take a few photos to work from later, such as the "Sunset on the Oxford Canal" below, which is from a photo I took during our Canalboat holiday a few years ago. I am part of a Facebook group called “Photos for Artists” where some very talented and very generous photographers place photos for free, encouraging artists to use them as inspiration, and asking only that they be mentioned as the source of the photo when posting the completed painting. My paintings “Sea Dreams”, “Old Church”, “Chatsworth Gate”, “Un Canale a Burano”, “Mûres Réflexions”, and many others are painted from photographs from this site. About a year ago, an artist friend introduced me to Pixabay, which is a similar free resource, but with many more entries and with the added bonus of being searchable. “Green Eyes”, “Winter Eyes”, “Mishka” and “Alley Cat” are examples of paintings using Pixabay photos. Those last two were found by searching for “shadows”, which I particularly like painting. When I am looking at photos to paint, I most often will be searching for that “wow” image. I know many artists will collect dozens of different photos and assemble them into a painting, but I tend to look for the “perfect” photo. I will occasionally remove or modify the position of something, but the composition is pretty much there already.
Sometimes I will get an idea for a painting. It will usually just come out of the blue, for no apparent reason. Until recently, I would usually manage to forget that idea because I didn’t write it down, but now that I am using Airtable to track everything, I can add it to my “Ideas for Paintings” table through the app on my phone! That is how the “Black and White #1” painting came about. I might do a series of these, then again I might not. This week I happened to watch a 1954 interview with the famous 20th century artist Marcel Duchamp, in which he summed it up nicely: he said that he wanted to paint what he wanted to, not what others thought he should be painting. My list has about four ideas right now, enough to keep me busy for a while, and it is comforting to know I won’t forget them and can add new ideas any time! About 10% of the time, I will try to make an image from imagination. I don’t have many examples of this because I am not very good at it. I know I should spend more time doing it in order to improve, but I don’t enjoy this as much. Obviously the few abstract works I have done are my own creations, and the most recent one I did (“Black and White #1, not yet available) was much more geometric, and I did enjoy that a lot. Perhaps that is something to pursue… but there is never a shortage of things to pursue for an artist!! Of course, when someone asks for a custom painting, the subject or idea is supplied to me, usually as a photo or series of photos, but I will still discuss the treatment with the person commissioning the work before starting. This could involve the background, the colors, the mood, what to include or not, etc. Next week I will look at: How do I get started?
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AuthorMy name is Claire Bureau. Archives
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