On Learning My Craft...

peony abstract, homage to Georgia O'Keeffe

(this is not a painting, original photo modified using GIMP)

For the past several months I’ve been functioning on a “next right step” basis. Having a general idea of where I want to go, I ask myself and the Universe “What is the next right action to take?” Often I get an answer and often I don’t know where it will lead me, but I do it anyway.

Today I ponder the question specifically about my painting.

I know I love to paint and I could eat, sleep and talk about art and creativity ad nauseam. Just ask my work colleagues, friends and family.

I know I want to learn more about the craft and its basics: composition, drawing, colour theory…

Though not exclusively, I also know that I’m drawn to abstract painting which is different (or at least I perceive it to be) than most types of work I see within my current creative community.

So where to from here? How do I grow my skills and knowledge as a painter?

Art classes, workshops and books are obvious ways to learn and no-brainers for me. So is practice (though committing to it is hard).

But what about finding an artistic mentor? Or registering for a creative arts program? Or creating my own self-directed artistic learning path?

All possibilities I’ve pondered – and still am pondering.

I suspect I already have the answers. The key is to be still enough to hear them.

And if in doubt? There's always putting brush to canvas. I can't go wrong with that.

~~~

Do you ponder your artistic growth? What could you learn to further your craft, and how could you go about learning it?

Matisse Month Wrap-Up

{This is the last in a series of posts dedicated to Henri Matisse, part of a self-learning experiment dedicating the month of April to his study. As always, I invite you to take what you like and leave the rest. For the rest of the posts click here.}

Can someone please tell me where April went?

Though I'm still enjoying flipping through one of my big Matisse books from the library, it's already time for this self-learning experiment to come to an end.

I tremendously enjoyed the experiment AND learning about Matisse. I thought a wrap-up post would be a great way to document the results of my learning journey for safe keeping.

Voici...

5 new-to-me concepts, terms, or artists:

1. odalisque (in art)
2. plumb line (in the context of drawing figures)
3. Pierre Bonnard
4. André Derain
5. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

5 takeaways I would like to experiment with in my own art-making process:

1. Embrace re-work and practice patience
2. Sketch more
3. Experiment with bold colour juxtapositions and patterned backgrounds
4. Emulate masters and add my own twist
5. Try to paint more figures and faces, but without having to get them "perfect"

Femme au chapeau (Madame Matisse), Matisse, 1905

5 people, places, things or concepts encountered during my study that I'd like to further explore:

1. Fauvisme (style of painting in the early 1900s)
2. Sculpture (medium)
3. Wassily Kandinsky (artist)
4. Cone Collection in Baltimore and the Barnes Foundation, just outside of Philly (collections)
5. plumb line (for drawing figures)

5 fascinating or surprising tidbits:

1. A large collection of Matisse's work resides in the US
2. Matisse used his studio walls to sketch BIG
3. Matisse's Nus Bleus series and Icare were created using pieces of paper ("papiers collés") and not painted directly onto the canvas
4. Matisse photographed La Blouse Roumaine in 14 different states over 9 months, illustrating how he painted over backgrounds, re-jigged composition, eliminated detail and simplified, simplified...
   
5. Matisse wrote and illustrated (prints of his work) a book called Jazz

Finally, four books I consulted for my learning*:

1. Matisse, Tableaux Choisis, by Annette Robinson - A great little French book, it was the first one I read and offered an easy introduction to my chosen subject. Simply written and a lot of pictures.
2. The Essential Henri Matisse, by Ingrid Schaffner - I LOVED this one! A small, non-intimidating book that's written in a fun, casual tone and choc full of information. Bulleted lists, sidebars, sound bytes and "Financial and Domestic Notes" updates at various points in his life. Loved. IT.
3. Matisse, by Gilles Néret - Also in French, this is the biggest and most in-depth book of the four. It has more pictures, sketches and drawings than any of the others which makes for a lot of eye candy; it also takes longer to read. I'm about half-way through.
4. Jazz, by Henri Matisse and Riva Castleman (Introduction) - As soon as I found out that Matisse wrote a book called Jazz I hunted it down at the library. Tempted to copy down quotes at every page, I enjoyed his text more than his prints in this one. It made me want to explore his other writings.

* Most of my learning was done through library books with the occasional online reference or fact verification.

Et voilà! My wrap-up and the end of Matisse Month. It was a fun, rewarding experiment and I'd definitely do it again.

And if you were able to glean a little something from it too? Well that would just be the cherry on top of the sundae!

"Happy are those who sing with all their heart, from the bottoms of their hearts. To find joy in the sky, the trees, the flowers. There are always flowers for those who want to see them." ~ Henri Matisse, Jazz

Matisse Monday: Miscellany

{This is the third in a series of Monday posts dedicated to Henri Matisse, part of a self-learning experiment dedicating the month of April to his study. As always, I invite you to take what you like and leave the rest. For the rest of the posts click here.}

I'm taking in so much information during this self-learning experiment that it's hard to choose what to share here and even harder to put it all together into a cohesive post. Hence today's Matisse miscellany, a mish-mash of interesting-to-me morsels gleaned from the mish-mash of books and Websites I've been reading.

 The Dancer, from my 2005 Mandala line art series

Matisse-inspired art without even knowing it!

Et voici, the promised morsels...

Initial attempts at art training foiled. Matisse's initial attempts at art school didn't turn out so well. One of his first teachers at the Académie Julien said he couldn't draw and soon after, Matisse failed an entry exam to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Finally he was noticed by a less stodgy Symbolist painter, Gustave Moreau, who knew a good thing when he saw it and brought him into his studio. The rest is history. The moral of this story? Persist and the right person will come along!

The Cone Collection. Many of Matisse's works were donated to the Baltimore Museum of Art by the Cone sisters, Claribel and Etta. Friends with Gertrude Stein, they met Matisse on a visit to Paris and became fans of his work; throughout his career they collected "42 oil paintings, 18 sculptures, 36 drawings, 155 prints, and seven illustrated books, as well as 250 drawings, prints, and copper plates from the artist’s first illustrated book, Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé." The Cone collection also includes pieces from other artists like Picasso, Cézanne and Gauguin. For more information check out the Museum's Website.

Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra), Matisse, 1907

Albert Barnes and the Barnes Foundation. Again, another important collection of Matisse works and hundreds of other Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and early Modern paintings by folks like Picasso, Cézanne, Degas and Monet - all housed in the US. Located in the Philadelphia area (Merion, PA), the Barnes Foundation hosts a series of galleries and an arboretum; read more about it here. Definitely a must-see if you're in the Philly area!

Multi-Creative. Matisse was a man of many talents: painter, sculptor, illustrator, printmaker, writer... When he got tired of painting he switched to something else. Often his sculptures would become fodder for paintings later on. Evidently creativity builds on creativity.

La Serpentine, Matisse, 1909

Big drawings, big pencil. Finally, I love how Matisse improvised to meet the task at hand. When drawing big images on the studio wall, he created a big pencil by attaching a piece of charcoal to the end of a long stick!

Matisse drawing big, 1950

That's it for today's meli-melo. Stay tuned for another Matisse-related post or two before the month end...

Matisse Monday: It's All About Process

{This is the second post in a series dedicated to Henri Matisse during Matisse Month, a self-learning experiment dedicating the month of April to the study of Matisse. As always, I invite you to take what you like and leave the rest. For the first post click here.}

La Blouse Roumaine, Henri Matisse, 1940

I have no art-making process except maybe the absence of a process.

I seem to function well on intuition and when I go to the table, I "see what comes." Usually when I try to paint something specific it just. doesn't. work. And I scratch my head wondering how the heck others do it?

With this in mind, I particularly enjoyed reading about Matisse's art-making process. Here are four things he did that I'd like to try*:

Reproduce emotion vs. reality: Matisse painted what he saw in front of him not necessarily as reality, but as it made him feel. Whether a still life or a nude, he painted the emotion it evoked within him rather than aiming to reproduce his subject as it was objectively visible to the naked eye.

"I put a bouquet on the table and I'd like, once the painting complete, that a gardener might be able to recognize each variety of flower; but I don't know what happens in the process, they become young girls, dancing."

~ Henri Matisse (quote translated by yours truly)

Use sketches and small scale paintings as precursors to bigger work: Matisse performed "études" - line drawings, colour studies, paper cutouts and sketches - before creating a major work. When working on his dancer series he did hundreds of sketches to study movement and line.

Danseuse, Henri Matisse, 1930-1931

Embrace re-work and practice patience: When painting La Blouse Roumaine (above) Matisse took fourteen photographs of his work in progress over nine months, depicting how he eliminated detail to come up with the essential for this piece. This absolutely floored me, to the point where I may have gotten a bit over-enthused and forced not only my husband, but my colleagues to listen to me describe how incredibly amazing this was. (Sorry guys!)

six of the fourteen photos, from the lovely little French book

Emulate or seek inspiration from the masters: In the beginning Matisse emulated and sought inspiration from masters that came before him like Davidsz de Heem, Chardin and Cézanne. Then he started giving those pieces his own twist. Apparently copies were good business back then too, he sold copies to fatten the art-making coffers!

So to recap...

1. Reproduce emotion vs. reality
2. Use sketches and small scale paintings as precursors to bigger work
3. Embrace re-work and practice patience
4. Emulate or seek inspiration from the masters

I don't expect I'll be tackling all of these immediately, but I do believe that picking these four approaches out of the pack and writing about them here will make them accessible to my creative psyche.

And really, that's what this little learning experiment is all about.

* The main reference for this post is a lovely little book on Matisse and some of his chosen pieces by Anette Robinson. The version I have is in French; I'm not sure if an English version of the book is available.

Matisse Month (A Self-Learning Experiment)

Icare, Henri Matisse, 1943Because I'm a bit of nerd I'm trying a self-learning experiment here this month: I'm dedicating April to the study of Henri Matisse.

Not all of my posts will be about Matisse, but I've decided to give myself a timeframe of one month to learn about someone whose work appeals to me and capture whatever tickles my fancy here for anyone else who may be interested.

Like last year's Photography Month, my focus will not be the technical aspects or critique of Matisse's work. I don't have the expertise for that. What I can offer however are interesting tidbits of information that surprised or inspired me, new-to-me concepts or ideas and how I might try to emulate or use some of them in my own work, and hopefully things that are just plain interesting. As always, I invite you to take what you like and leave the rest!

I have no particular format in mind for sharing the information with you here; I figured I'd just set out on my experiment and see where it leads me. D. suggested "Matisse Mondays", I might play with that.

So why Matisse? A) I like his paintings and I once had a watch with Icare (see pic above) on the faceplate. It was gorgeous. B) There just happened to be two books on him at my tiny library branch, so Matisse it is. I've two more books and a DVD on the way.

PS - Those first two books are in French so I hope nothing gets lost in translation!

OK. Enough preamble. How about I start you off with a few quick facts that caught my attention:

~ Born December 31st, 1869, in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, Nord, France, close to the Belgian border.

~ Studied law, but started painting in his early twenties after receiving art supplies from his mother while recovering from appendicitis. He never went back to law.

~ Experimented with pointillisme early on with Luxe, Calme et Volupté.

~ Participated in a group show with and led a group called les Fauves (wild beasts) at the Salon d'Automne in 1905. More to come on them later.

~ Hung out with the Steins at rue de Fleurus in Paris (Gertrude and her brothers, Leo and Michael), where he met Pablo Picasso. The two became life-long friends.

~ Was a painter, sculptor, printmaker, an illustrator and a collage artist ("papiers collés"). A man of many talents!

~ Created his famous Nus bleus series in 1952, while in his eighties.

~ Died shortly after in 1954 at 84 years of age.

Back with more later, I promise. Stay tuned...