Unpacking The Evolution of Learning and Mastery of the Creative Act

It’s nearly ten weeks since I returned from Spain. That first night, with my essentials... contacts and glasses in my purse… I left my suitcase unopened, turned on the tv to missed episodes of The Good Wife and after twenty-five hours of being up, went to sleep in my own bed. Four hours of jet lag later, I woke and began to unpack the trip.

The bag exploded all over my living room with sock and underpant shrapnel everywhere. Laundry was folded and put away before the end of the day. I refilled my pallets with paint, my board with watercolor paper and repacked my easel, tripod, brushes, clips and other tools into my backpack ready for the next outing.

Between loads of wash and calls with family, an impromptu lunch for four of us on my patio that included a couple bottles of wine, a salad bar salad and a rotisserie chicken, I’d told the headlines of my trip four times. Each opened pockets with souvenirs of ideas still to uncover… traveling alone... with a group, the meaning of art and painting, unscheduled time and talent, my talent.   

I loved the trip. I learned so much from the leader, Timothy J. Clark. I'm aware now of how much I need to learn about the art world and how it works. His presence, knowledge, accomplishments are driving me to learn more. 

Since then, I’ve taken a figure drawing class, which Tim highly recommended for me to learn to draw accurately. Lucky me, I stumbled on the right teacher. Did you ever see a painter hold up a brush and seem to measure? That's about accuracy. The first thing Stuart Fullerton gave us in his class was a stick to measure and check to make sure the figure on the paper aligned with the figure we saw. 

For any trained artist reading this, it must sound, Duh. It is. But I now know I want to learn the fundamentals, not just paint because it feels good to paint. That's what I really learned in Spain. I don't want  a park district understanding of painting and art. Tim opened my eyes to the difference, though there is nothing like getting lost in painting. For me, when I'm lost it it, it's an expansion of that moment when I hit the water when diving or the minutes after an O. And, then, the thinking starts again and I wish the colors weren't as muddy or the lines a little straighter or whatever. 

I'm committed to getting in my 10,000 hours, so I'm using up ink, paper, paints and panels daily. In the past week, I did a pen and ink at Wrigley Field and painted at the Emily Oaks Nature Center in Skokie. I've sketched at the Historical Society Gardenin Glencoe, along the Lake in Highwood, on the train, as well as a scene of a pine tree and ball field lights that I see from the platform every time I take the train. I've taken that same picture more than 60 times, in my own OCD Monet way to watch the shadows and position of the sun throughout the year. 

After lunch that first Sunday, after my company left,  I threw my backpack in the car and did a quick painting by The Lake. I was up again the next morning when I heard about dense thick fog and went back to the same spot. In the ten weeks since, I made a switch from watercolor to oils. I've taken two, two-day plein air workshops, one from Stuart another from Errol Jacobson and a one day program from Don Yang during an Urban Sketchers of Chicago Workshop.  I join the weekly Plein Air Painters of Chicago through the Palette and Chisel most Saturdays and try to sketch daily. 

At some point, I will find my voice in my art.  I have a pile of watercolor paintings seven inches thick that I've done over the last couple years. There is not one in that pile that I would show anyone... or, that i like. Something's happened though with using oils. In my own estimation, I've ascribed to the Cub's Coach mantra, "Try not to suck today." I'm making progress. I figure I am about a quarter of the way to the 10,000 hours. My oils don't suck and my vacation is still with me. 

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This is another in what is becoming a series on creative practice. The earlier ones were written over the last fifteen months and speak specifically to what I've encountered and learned, but, I suspect that nearly all my posts are about my own creative process. 

Self Confidence and the Uphill Climb of Learning a New Craft

Dabbling is my Creative Process

Architectural Artifacts, Chicago and Painting Like Hemingway

When plein air is too cold in Chicago...

A couple Sundays back, I spent more than an hour wandering around Architectural Artifacts, an antiques warehouse on Chicago's north-side Ravenswood area (right by the El), where five-foot cheese burgers go to rest... on top of merry-go-round horses or counter from a jewelry store. Seriously, every few feet, I found myself reminded of grade school or the time we..... There are all kinds of items I said, what the hell? In one room, there were several high top tables standing at different heights - waste, neck sternum-tall with a round stainless surface on top of an industrial-sized slinky. You could press on it and it would go up or down - no hydraulics. They must have been used in some kind of manufacturing that a workman needed to maneuver from bottom to top on a big piece of something. If I only had room for one! (Gratefully, I don't.)

It took a lot of hunting to find a place where I could sit, lay out my brushes and paints where it would be convenient to me and out of the way of anyone else, and with a view I wanted to paint. Ok, that last point is moot - the place overwhelmed with possibility. What surprised me was the finding that once I sat still and narrowed my view, what I intended to paint went out of focus. Instead, saw angels - literally, angels on the bank work stand. Each of the four legs of the table held a different metal sculpture with opulent detail. I wonder how many people really saw them? I didn't until I sat nearly eye to eye with them, but they were at a stand up table. I wish I knew the thinking behind them... the interior designers consideration for telling the inner story of a bank... Here at the altar of commerce, I commend my money. The angel I looked at directly spread it's arms and wings, the one in the distance with flowing robes nearly took flight. The other two were behind lout of sight behind other furniture and artifacts.

To paint this, I sat on a black metal bench that had ridges creating a serpentine of Ss down the middle to outline where butts (small ones, by the way) should rest in a Brazilian ice cream parlor. Every two sections for seating, the designer placed a twelve-inch round on a pole to serve as a table. On one of those, I placed my watercolors and cup of water, and on my lap my Arches watercolor board.  (You know how every interest and hobby has it's efficiencies? For watercolor, Arches paper  company stacks high quality paper bound to a heavy hard cardboard - a rip-off note-pad of watercolor paper. The rubber binding in this case goes around all but an inch of the entire stack. No matter how much water one puts on the paper in the process of painting, the next page of the stack doesn't get wet. A miracle innovation! I carry a mini-Swiss army knife to gingerly remove a page from the deck to begin a new piece.)

You, as a reader, may already notice that I have trouble editing. I try to include too many thoughts, and too many words. This is a personality flaw and not confined to writing. My painting is the same. I wish I could include every hair, freckle, crack and dust-mite. I wish I could, but I also don't have the patience. There is way too much to say or paint. I want to paint like Hemingway's complete six-word story... "For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn."  Bam! What a word picture. Right?

Unfortunately, I've also learned from writing that the brilliance isn't in the words you first lay down, it's about the editing. This painting is hugely edited. There were many more things on the walls, hanging from the ceiling and on the table tops in view between the angels and me. 

My guess is that when I go back again, the items will be sold or moved and I won't be able to attempt the same view again,  though I'd like to do so. I will remind myself, no matter what I find, to narrow my focus to see more.

BTW, Architectural Artifacts is also an event space where I want to be invited... maybe throw a party. There's info to the event planner at the link above.