Time for NOT Making Art

How much studio time do you give to experimenting, exploring, not trying to make art? In last Friday's zoom workshop, 5 Ways to Get Un-Stuck (you can still buy the recording here), I got a lot of questions that implied a need to make finished work out of everything we do in the studio. While I am demonstrating "mashing sh!t together" or practicing 5-minute paintings, some of the questions are some version of: What Happens Next? How Do You Finish It? How Do You Make This Into Finished Work?

The implied belief is that we are wasting our time/materials/resources if we are not working towards a product, a finished piece. This belief, so ingrained in our daily lives, is probably one of the most challenging habits of mind to break. And yet I know that if I am trying to make good art, I make mediocre contrived, superficial art. When I get absorbed in a visual inquiry, absorbed in process, allow myself to go "off-topic" or make a mess or try combining ideas to see what happens... this is when the good stuff shows up. 

The practices I demonstrated in 5 Ways to Get Un-Stuck do not result in finished works. That is the point. They are designed to remove the pressure or goal of The Finished Piece so that you can practice being in the mindset of inquiry and experimentation. Practicing the mindset is, to me, a worthy goal. It is worthy of our time and materials. You can always paint over, re-use the paper-canvas-board whatever your substrate is. And if the cost of paint holds you back, use cheaper paint for the experimental practices.

Here are a few of my mash-ups from last winter; they are 11"x14" on Bristol

A Deeper Dive: Is Your Work Authentic?

I am going to say that authentic work is work that comes from you, the artist, honestly. The images are not imitating other artists, they are not coming from a place of people-pleasing or trying to anticipate what the market will favor. It sounds simple, right?

How do you peel away the layers of influences that are inevitable and necessary, to find what is uniquely you, or what is true for you? Voices in our heads can include:

• Any rules we were taught about what makes good design or composition
• Our Inner Critics who voice our self-doubt and give it more importance than it deserves
• Anxiety over what will sell or what will be accepted in a show or a gallery
• Opinions of others whom we listen to - a spouse or friend or colleague

Working in a sketchbook, playing, experimenting

How do we learn about composition and still maintain the freedom to develop our own unique way of expression? How do we put aside the Inner Critic or the gallery submission and just get down to work? How do we take criticism (positive or negative) from those we care about, without giving it more weight than it deserves?

Trying out some pinks and reds

We look to other artists for inspiration. This is an important (to me) part of being an artist - be inspired, learn from others.  But how do we keep from imitating artists we admire? How do we avoid making paintings of paintings instead of just making paintings? 

Collage and Crayons

I don't have answers; just raising the question. The sketchbook pages here show some visual inquiries, and I wonder if working in a sketchbook more often helps to develop the honesty, the authenticity.

I would love to get your thoughts on these questions. Please comment; I have to 'moderate' because otherwise I get a lot of bot-generated spam. But I do look at comments and publish them every day. THANKS.

A Continuing Series

This is a continuation from the previous post, in which I described my inspiration and exploration of the central cluster format. Here are some of the pieces, both in process and finished.

Spare Parts #4

Spare Parts #4

Spare Parts #2

Spare Parts #3

Spare Parts #6

Spare Parts #7

Spare Parts #8

Spare Parts #9

Spare Parts #10 - In Process

Spare Parts #11 - In Process

Spare Parts #12

Spare Parts #13

These are fun, and I will continue the exploration.  I would love to see if this can scale up, but for now I am going to keep them small.  I am using brush (acrylic paint), brayer (acrylic paint), collage, scribbling (crayon, graphite, Pitt pen), spattering (High Flow paint).

Extreme Composition

My new online class, Extreme Composition, is starting next week, and filling up fast.  Here is a little video of me doing an experimental composition.  This is the sort of thing we'll be doing in Extreme Composition after exploring line, shape, and color in the first three lessons.

We will make paintings, collages, drawings that explore the extremes of standard composition principles: extreme variety, extreme unity, no focal point, extreme movement, asymmetry, imbalance.  And then we'll make experimental compositions in which we consider the parts only, not the whole.  You will have the freedom to explore visual language and see where it takes you when you are not concerned about "correct" composition.  My hope is that you will discover a more personal sense of visual expression.

This is the piece I created in the video, 7"x11"

I made this piece in a similar manner, beginning with an ink doodle.  8"x8"

On another note, here is an interview that Sara Naumann did about my teaching.  Check out Sara's blog, "In Pursuit of the Muse".  Thanks for visiting!

Out on a limb some more

I've just done a few more pages in my sketchbook where I'm out on a limb. "Branching Out - Out on a Limb" is this month's theme for the Sketchbook Challenge. I was experimenting with layers and cut outs, not aiming for anything in particular, but just pushing these elements around. None of these is a "piece", but rather a page, a question, a "what if?" I discover so much when I work in my sketchbook with no expectation of a "finished" page or piece. It's quite freeing.

On this page I used a cut out of a bottle over a cut out of a modified circle; layers of acrylic paint in varying degrees of opacity, applied with a brayer and brush; some painted tissue paper; a scrap from my work table paper (the paper I lay down under my work). Oh, and charcoal.


On this page I first layered some collage: scraps of book pages, handwriting, a few things like that. Then paint over cut outs; the bottle form as a silhouette; I removed some of the collage, added more. Just a playful back and forth to see what happens if...


This one is the more "composition" - like. I was experimenting with layers, and also playing with this compositional format - the abstract landscape, turned almost cruciform.

That's it. Just showing a few of my recent experimental pages. Thanks for visiting!