Creating art as introspection (weekly #12)

| Ifat Glassman

My core motivation in making art is a process of self discovery and contemplation.

Drawing or painting an image from my head allows me to look at it as a concrete and better understand what it is I had in mind. It is a process of translation from something abstract in my mind to a physical representation of it.

As I’m creating the drawing, I would feel compelled to move some parts, increase certain aspects of the gesture or minimize them, have the head turn a certain way, have the character look a certain direction or have a certain expression – I don’t always know all the parts beforehand – sometimes they become clear after I put down some core part of the idea I had in mind.

The best examples to illustrate this can be found in my old drawings (about 10 years ago) when I was drawing from my head. These drawings are anatomically bad, but they have something good. The stuff that makes art – art. That spice that cannot be mistaken for any other – authentic introspection (or inspiration).
They show a process of discovering the physical representation of something I found interesting and appealing, the process of finding that translation.

For example, in the drawing above, I had in mind a certain character, which was best expressed in a moment of fleeting attention to something.
Usually, no one would give this drawing a second or a first look because it is technically poor, but, wait one minute longer, see if you can find something interesting about it that would make you want to see this woman as a well-developed painting.
What I see, is a face and an expression one rarely encounters. She seems cold and mildly interested in what she is looking at, but at the same time she seems like a person who is not easily interested in things because she knows so much already (not because she is shallow or not curious as a person).
For me, the drawing started from a similar feeling to how this woman seem, and the motivation to draw it was a compelling urge to make it real so I can look at it, move some lines, change things, move her eyebrows up or down, decide if her mouth should be open or closed until I know it’s captures “that thing” just right. I don’t know what “that thing” is as I put it, nor why it is better if she has her mouth open and not closed – those questions are answered later, maybe, say, 10 years later as I’m looking at it, or ideally, after the first sketch and before I move on to working on making it a final, well developed piece.

I go through a similar process in drawing the whole figure from imagination, or while describing a certain situation. In the next drawing , for example, I actually had the dragon in mind, and the lady with it was a derivative.

The dragon is upset – it has to go through a long journey chained and shackled. It’s sitting in a corner, looking at its chains and crying, while its captive is care free.
The funny thing about it is that the dragon is 50 times stronger than the woman – the chain is not secured to the ground, but loosely tied to a thin, brittle stick which the girl is holding. The dragon can escape at any time, yet it doesn’t know it because it is busy looking at its shackles and crying. Too busy following its captor obediently to realize how easily he can be free. The idea doesn’t start with a dragon, in this case I couldn’t tell you what the idea started as, it somehow just was in my mind but then I still had that need to see how it would look like, to go through the process of figuring this idea out.

I had a similar moment to that as I was working on the background for the current painting I’m working on at my school. This one, however is different because I have limited choice in the subject matter. I did, however, choose the background:

I was struggling with the background for a while, trying different things that didn’t work until finally, I gave my self permission to just put things down boldly, to put down what I really want to see. So I started by making the curvy line and darkening the area bellow it, then, I knew I wanted bright sky behind her, I put the ocean line and the sky, then I realized this could be the edge of a large round window on a ship.

This is how groping for ideas for the background looked like at the beginning:

 

One last thing I want to talk about relates to the content with which I started this post.
In the past I would draw, not knowing what my technical drawbacks were. Being unaware of any flaws, I felt free to put down whatever was on my mind. I had total freedom to explore my ideas and I produced a lot of such fast drawings and paintings too.
After a while I realized the drawbacks and I was not satisfied with the technical side of my art anymore. I refrained from drawing because I was afraid to disappoint myself.
Today I realize, it doesn’t matter at all. You can always have room to improve the technical side of your work, as an artist, but what is equally valuable or of greater value, perhaps, is to be able to express your ideas; to have open communication with your subconscious and to be able to put down lines to create a drawing like the first one I shared here, of a woman’s face.
Today, equipped with better knowledge and experience I can improve the anatomy of that face, but I could never get back that moment and expression had I not put them down. If all I focused on was getting the anatomy right, all I would have now is one more anatomically accurate face. Boy, am I glad I didn’t worry about all that stuff!

The realization I had was that as an artist, preserving your soul is just as hard a job as improving your technical skills. You must give yourself permission and place to screw up in technique; to be wrong; whatever it takes, but keep that “channel” to your subconscious open.
Creativity is a habit, but a fragile one that needs to be nurtured and guarded. The good news is that all it really takes is your own permission.

Today I am celebrating my 31st Birthday. It is not a coincidence that today of all days I am sharing my oldest work which is also technically worst, something you would expect an artist to keep hidden in their closet.
As an artist, it is THOSE paintings and not my current ones (which are technically superior) which I would celebrate primarily. Those have my soul, these have my mind (as well as some of my soul). I find both equally difficult to make and eventually I will have the combined challenge of both things.

I hope that by putting my old work here for display for all to see, I am giving courage to someone else out there to embrace their own work and cherish their inner “spark”: don’t trade it for a better technique or for compliments. It just ain’t worth it, man.

I wish myself a good birthday and a successful and happy year to come.
Why, thank you, that’s very nice of you to say, Ifat. You too. 😉

-Ifat

The painting process during a short pose (weekly #11)

| Ifat Glassman

Here are the stages I went through while painting a portrait during a short amount of time (5 days, 3 hours in the mornings). I painted this a couple of months ago, when I started expanding my palette.

I started out with a pencil study to decide what I want to include, how to crop the painting and to study the general value range.
Then, I started working straight on the canvas, blocking-in the figure with thinned-out paint and brush. The next day when the underpainting was dry, I started applying paint using about 7 colors. I run out of time before I could complete the painting but I still enjoyed the process.

Here it is:

Pencil study:

Paint Block-in:

The developed Underpainting:

The painting after additional 2 days:

I think it’s interesting to see the facial expression and mood change from version to version. One of the major challenges I encounter and will encounter in painting is how to live up to that initial vision a painting has for me.
Going through various difficulties in the execution of a painting, it is hard to still keep in mind that initial inspiration and vision, but I think doing so makes the painting better.

-Ifat

My finished portrait painting (weekly #10)

| Ifat Glassman

Friday I finished my 4-week painting. Here is a picture of it that I took with my cellphone:

(Click to Enlarge)

I’ll post a high quality picture after the painting is dry enough to varnish (which revives the color and reveals finer details).

I had fun painting this one.
Because of the subject, I felt comfortable painting more loosely than I usually do. The reason for that was that an unblended brush stroke would end up looking like a wrinkle in the skin and stay true to the subject.

This means that I did not make an effort to blend brush strokes into existing paint on the canvas and just let them sit on top. Another aspect of this is that I built up my paint in layers working wet into wet. So, suppose I wanted to paint the feather, for example, first I would put the background, then I would put the colors of the halo of the feather (I wanted it to have a bluish halo), then I put some dark brown, which is the average dark part of the feather and finally built up the lighter paints on top, letting them sit there without blending them into the canvas.

I will try to continue the same method of working on the next long pose – we will have a young woman.

 

I find that I really like finding similarities among objects, as much as I like finding the differences. I may think of the structural separation between the nose and the cheek, but then find that they are similar in value because the light is hitting them both equally, creating very little separation between the two planes. It is a challenge to describe the differences and the similarity at the same time. I enjoy this challenge and I am curious to see to what balance I would eventually arrive to in my style of painting.
Finding differences is more of my natural inclination and I hope the balance will end up being more on the “similarity” side.

For a reason I don’t yet know, subconsciously, I think of being “true to what I see” primarily as being able to find distinction between things rather than similarity. I think that deep down inside, I think that it is the separation from other entities that gives something its identity, even though its similarity to other entities is part of identity just the same. For example, an apple is an apple because it is different than a banana (it’s green, firm etc’), but also because it is similar to a banana (it’s sweet, edible etc’).

Or to pick an example that relates to painting: An object in a bright light is distinct from a neighboring object in the light (they have different shapes and colors), but they are similar in that they are both in the light. The question is, which should takes precedence when painting them – The similarity or the difference?

My answer is: It depends on what the theme of the piece is (I think of it as the “actual subject”, as oppose to the subject matter, which is a different thing). If these are just background objects to the “actual subject”, then it is better to describe them as just “things that have bright light hitting them” and play on their similarity. If these are the actual subject, though, it would be better to emphasize their difference.

The challenge is, then, not to obsess over any particular object and describe it to perfection if it is not the “actual subject” of your piece. This sort of obsessing is easy to do, since when painting it, it is the center of the artist visual focus (Last week I quoted my instructor about this).
I think the key to avoiding the error of over describing something is to keep in mind the actual subject of your artwork at all times. This is achieved by staying emotionally connected to what it is you find appealing in the painting you are creating at all times.

I am discussing this a little too soon, though. I am still an art student and what I create are studies, not art in the full sense. I learn to see and describe value, color, paint handling and so on. As such, they don’t necessarily have an “actual subject” – not a subject I chose and not one I am necessarily emotionally attached to. This is OK, this is the way a school should work, in my opinion, since the primary focus should be technical.

Next year, which will be my final year, I plan to work on a project that would involve more of working from imagination and putting a figure in an environment. That project will be one where I will apply the above thinking more.

Have a good week and I appreciate your interest,

-Ifat

 

Painting and Abstracting (weekly #9)

| Ifat Glassman

Progress with my painting: 2 weeks ago I posted a drawing and the study of the painting I’m working on now at my school. Friday I took a picture of it with my cellphone. This picture is unfortunately not true to color, please take that under account when viewing.

This week’s plan: Work on the shirt and vest, finish the hat, the background, and do final touches on the face and neck.
This picture shows the “sinking in” phenomenon very well. It’s a phenomenon where the oil pigments appear lighter than they are and in a different color. The vest, for example, appears black-gray even though it is brown in real life. This is why it is important to cover the painting with a thin layer of oil before working back into it to revive the color and see it correctly. This process also has its own difficulties; for example, if the paint is not thoroughly dry, the oil may lift it up, it may even get smeared into new areas and make the painting “muddy”. It’s therefore very important to be in control of the painting and know exactly what parts are wet and what parts are dry.

Abstractions.

One thing I thought of is that the skill of figure drawing involves abstracting things about the figure and then using those abstractions as a guide when drawing or painting. The abstractions can take a literal form, such as: “the eyes are located in the halfway point of the head”, or a more perceptual form, such as remembering the general shape of the eye socket.
I’ve been doing a lot of this process of abstraction, which I exercise at home sometimes by sculpting or sketching from my head. Here is one small plasteline-clay sculpture I did this weekend:

I don’t know why, but I find that the pleasure in working entirely from my head is not surpassed by any other process of making art. I realize that the result is not as good as working from a reference, but I wish I knew what causes this feeling of delight and how I can replicate it when working from a reference.

I think it is really important as an artist to let your emotions run the show. I don’t quite know how to explain what I mean perfectly; I am not talking about any sort of random emotion that comes up during work (that can actually be an obstacle), but rather about the feelings relating to the artist’s subject matter. Some parts of the subject matter are bound to carry more interest than others for the artist. I think it’s OK to be bored with some aspects of the painting and let that affect how you paint. In fact this is what produces a good painting in my opinion because it replicates that feeling the artist had about what he paints in the viewer’s mind. It enhances the parts that are interesting and central about the piece and sends to the background the things that are not. It is, perhaps, the closest a person can get to experiencing something through another person’s mind.

Lastly, I’d like to share a small piece of writing by my teacher, Tenaya Sims, which I found interesting and which relates to “seeing through someone else’s eyes”. This is from the latest Newsletter of Georgetown Atelier (where I study).

The basic idea is if you approach painting your shadows in a thin/transparent manner, while building the textural qualities in the lights,  it will increase the depth and three-dimensionality of your painting. Executing shadows in this way helps keep them more atmospheric and ‘shadowy’, and pushes them back into the depths of the painting.  People naturally focus on one area at a time when looking at anything, and usually look first at the illuminated forms rather than those in shadow. Everything not in our focus is more hazy, or by definition is ‘out of focus’. For this reason it’s more effective to simulate the way people see in our paintings than to render each passage equally in focus. Putting in too much information in the shadows, or painting them too thickly (resulting in the surface of the painting coming forward) can negate the effect of how we naturally see. On the other hand, building up the texture and opacity in the lights, or ‘sculpting the lights with paint’ as I like to say, helps to enhance the focal areas of the painting and brings them both literally and perceptually forward to the viewer.

Simulating the ‘way that we see’ in a painting is much more difficult than it sounds. This is simply because while we’re working on any one particular area, that area is in focus for us, but may not be for the viewer taking in the whole scene of the painting on first glance. It requires us to plan out the ‘global relationships’ of our painting, and remember to stick to that global plan even while working in specific ‘micro’ areas. It requires us to be both the General and Marine, or in other tems, know how our ‘shadowy village’ fits within its country.

This method of simulating the human way of experiencing what we see in a painting is a way to further refine an experience and bring it closer to how we experience it as conceptual beings rather than raw sensations (which is closer to what a camera sees). It’s a little bit like a double filter: seeing something after someone else saw it for you first.

 

I’ll end the post here.
Have a good week,
-Ifat

More on integration (my weekly post #8)

| Ifat Glassman

I find myself with only scattered thoughts to write about this week.

In my art school, Georgetown Atelier, I am still working on a 4 week long painting I posted about last week. More to come about that later.

 

One thought I had, is more about the subject of integration of the painting around its theme as the key to good art. Here is an example of how the lines of an artwork serve to enhance its theme. It’s a digital artwork I found on Deviant art. Here is the link to the page (and the artist who created it).

  

(Click to enlarge).

The lines in the right picture are added by me. They all converge into one direction: the direction of motion and they help convey the sense of purpose, motion and how the two of them are flying together (since these lines end up putting them in the same spot). That’s what the theme is: A a deep romantic bond based on a similar way of experiencing life: Instead of fear or weakness, finding joy and strength in this dangerous flight.

What I find interesting is that this sort of convergence of lines is not “classical”. I am definitely not an expert in art history nor in the study of composition, but I would bet ya, that nowhere in any art book about composition will you find a template that describes these lines of arrangement of focal points. The reason these lines “work”, I believe, is simply because they serve the theme – they serve the conceptual meaning of this work, and not because they happen to fall on spacial harmonies within the frame. In other words, they “work” because of the concept of the piece, not because of its precepts (it’s not the “purely visual” that makes them “work”).

Personally, what appealed to me about this digital work was the way it illustrated a deep bond: not through physical proximity, loving eyes or touch, but through spiritual values illustrated by each of them individually (and hinted by the way the male is looking at the female (I am tempted to say “man” and “woman” but am afraid of being targeted by a mob of angry nerds telling me that this is a different race than humans).

A small note: I don’t see myself painting in this style, but I very much like this artwork. I would often display different artworks here in different styles, none of them necessarily something I care to adopt as my own style. Please take it as such.
Later on I’d also like to “chew through” examples showing how value (how dark or light things are) can serve to enhance the theme or break it as well as how other elements in a painting can do that.

 

I’ll leave the rest for next week.
Have a good one!

-Ifat

My weekly post #7

| Ifat Glassman

In the next 3 weeks I’ll be working on a portrait. It will be 18X24 inches, with color! Yes, real color, not just monochromatic or 3-4 colors like I used before.

I’ve worked on a few studies this past week as preparation for this painting to allow me to work methodically during this pose.

Here are the drawing and the color study:

  

(Click images to enlarge)

If the painting turns out well, I shall post an image of the final result 3 weeks from now 😀

More news from the front rows of the battlefield: I’ll be discarding my monochromatic painting of a skull which I’ve been working on for 3 months and starting over. Yes, starting over. Too many mistakes, too many re-do’s and doodoo’s. Start anew.

This project taught me a few things, mostly what NOT to do.

  1. Don’t work into an area you haven’t oiled out.
  2. Don’t work into an area without matching the existing paint first.
  3. Don’t work all over the place, work one area at a time.
  4. Don’t “improve” areas before seeing how they fit in the big picture (this is what my instructor said and I’ll be darned, I think he’s right).
  5. Don’t be afraid of long-term projects. Like, seriously, girlfriend, what is your problem?
  6. Beware of a subconscious “To-Do” list; it can blind you to seeing what’s actually in front of you.

Regarding the “To-Do” list: It was an interesting discovery to realize it exists and how it affects my work. My subconscious would decide that I do some systematic error, and before you know it I was making the opposite error all over in an attempt to compensate. Conclusion: Just look at what’s in front of me, the rest of the “advisers” must realize their secondary position. When it comes to decision making, I’m the boss.

 

-Ifat

 

Integration is the key to good Art (weekly #6)

| Ifat Glassman

OK, I have had so many thoughts this past week about art I don’t even know where to begin. Maybe I should just serve you, the reader, with the salad of my thoughts, although I am not a fan of random collection of things and nobody likes a salad with random ingredients. I mean, really… cabbage may be OK in some pie, but it can totally ruin a salad, don’t you think?

Nevertheless a salad it is, but I shall try to control the ingredients.

So one thought I had is Why I want to paint to begin with (vs. some other form of art).

What I like about painting vs. animation or a movie is that it captures one particular moment and by capturing a moment it can make the drama and significance of it more powerful than if it were part of a sequence of motion. I think a painting also has the power to capture motion is such a way that the painting seems to show the motion better than if it were a movie or an animation. Here is one example I stumbled upon recently, a painting by an artist named Carmen Mansilla.

Choosing that particular moment inside the sequence of motion that best represents it can show the motion more clearly.

Another reason I like painting, vs. sculpting, for example, is that a painting gives the artist the power to control the universe in which the character belongs, not just the character. Sculpting, however, sends a different message: that the figure is the only important thing. Its pose supersedes space and time, it is important by itself, regardless of its surrounding.

 

Another thought I had is a better understanding of something I read in “The Romantic Manifesto” by Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand wrote about the key to evaluating art. If I may paraphrase (and I may, because I am the only one here to give myself permission), she says that art is as good or as bad as the degree of integration its execution has around its theme. Apologies to the reader for not being able to provide a direct quote, please search the book if you are interested where she discusses the idea in depth.

What does this mean, then? It could take many forms. Harmony is a form of integration. Harmony of lines or of color. This is something I also learned from my teacher, Tenaya Sims: to see lines or “rhythms” in a painting of sculpture. In some cases, that is, in good art, those rhythms are not random, but they center around the painting’s theme (or main subject, or concept). I am not speaking here of the subject matter, but of the spiritual content that is communicated.

Here is one example, it’s a sculpture by Karl Jensen: http://www.cordair.com/jensen/daretodream.php

(Please follow the link to see the sculpture). Bellow is that picture but I drew the lines of “rhythm” I saw in it.

The “rhythm lines” here are variations on a theme. Each is different but they all have something in common. The lines of the folds, for example, all have the same degree of curvature and all converge into one point. The line of the fabric and the line of the stretched side of her body do the same. Now how do these lines serve to emphasize the sculpture’s theme?

The concept is hard to put into words, but judging by her posture, I would analyze it in the following way: Her body is facing one way but her head and arms are starting to tilt sideways. She looks like her center of gravity is in that previous posture (of facing the viewer in this photo), but she wants to go out to that new place. Her arms create a separation between the bottom part that is facing “in the old direction” and the top part which is facing “in the new direction” and it looks as if her arms do something like half push down that previous “direction” and half lift up toward the “new direction”. The wind is blowing from the direction she is facing and wants to go to.

Her arms create a circle that puts the base of the sculpture in the center and leave the head coming out of that circle, which implies breaking through into something new. All the “rhythm lines” created by the fabric folds, her body tilt and her arms all point into the point of compression (her right waist). Now why is that point important? It’s because that is the turning point. If you try to follow the movement of the figure in the “next moments” when she turns out, the rotation of her body would revolve around that point of compression which is also, I believe, the center of gravity for a person holding this pose (this is why she holds her left arm outwards – to balance the weight).

All in all the lines serve to emphasize the concept of the piece which is “Dare to Dream” – a turning point from that which exists and hold little interest to that which is new and exciting.

 

OK, I think I’ll save the rest of my thoughts for next week, this analysis was quite draining. In fact, I don’t think I dare to display my own work in this same post after analyzing this sculpture. Don’t get me wrong, I value my paintings a lot, but sharing them here and now would hardly be a good way to celebrate the effort I put into them because I believe they would appear boring compared to the above (heck, they bore ME compared to the above and I’m the one who made them).
Instead they should be judged in their proper context which is my education. They are exercises more than they are my art (although they have some of that, too).

 

Have a good week!

-Ifat

 

My finished 5-months still-life drawing (weekly post #5 )

| Ifat Glassman

Title: ‘Potion Making’

Still life pastel drawing
(Click to Enlarge)

The drawing is done with black and white pastel pencils over toned paper.

This is part of my first year Atelier training where we learn to see nothing but value. This drawing took quite a while with a lot of challenges along the way but eventually I completed it to my satisfaction.

The idea I had behind it was to choose objects which are integrated by a narrative. It was quite fun, although I still haven’t decided which potion I was making. Was it a truth drug or a love potion, or maybe a potion that makes you incredibly lucky – a potion that provides answers to all the questions your subconscious knows. Maybe a potion that turns you into a mermaid for one day. Cool; potions are fun.

I think I would have chosen to become a mermaid for one day, but only if I could find predator free waters to swim in (and possibly, if I had enough of the potion to share with a friend).

This was the last drawing project I did – this year it’s only paintings. I currently have a love-hate relationship with oil painting. I love it. I hate it. Indeed, it’s how it is. But I think I love it more.
Cheers!

-Ifat

 

Monochromatic (My weekly post #4)

| Ifat Glassman

 

(Click to Enlarge)

 

This is a painting based on a 4 week pose I did at my school, Georgetown Atelier.

In an Atelier type of education, the student first masters drawing (starting with master copies – copying works of a master artist), then moves on to monochromatic value paintings and then color.

This painting is part of the monochromatic phase of my training.

I name this painting ‘Journey’.

I thought of the idea for the background after the pose was set, so in effect I only chose the angle from which to look at the model and the background, but I did not build this painting from the ground up (from the concept to the pose), rather from the pose to the concept.

To me the atmosphere and meaning of the painting is a mix of tranquility and solitude alongside adversity.

What I had in mind was a man, traveling alone, away from home, facing a crucial decision in his life. He is not afraid of the dark or the journey, but he has to make a very hard, serious decision. He is safe where he is and tranquil, although the quietness of the environment is a contrast to the turmoil in his mind.

 

Moonlight has a certain meaning and atmosphere to me which is hard to explain. It symbolizes solitude most of all.

I sometimes wonder why sunset and sunrise seem to symbolize eternity, why they have the power to immortalize things in art.

I think the reason is that it is a symbol of the world’s never ending cycle. It’s a relatively brief transition between night and day and precisely because it is a transition it symbolizes eternity – it symbolizes something about the nature of the world – that it is a cycle and that the cycle always repeats.

 

Cheers,

Ifat