I’ve been
painting portraits for the past five years, and just began a foray into
landscapes this spring of 2016. Not
surprisingly, it wasn’t until my sixth plein air painting that I finally felt
like I was starting to get the hang of things. This 8 x 10 with a bright red
background was a breakthrough piece for me on several levels. Not only did it
provide a steep technical learning curve, but its genesis involved some truly
dedicated artistic commitment, resulting from a difficult choice between one creative
path (writing) and another (painting).
I’d been invited
to do a book signing for the third novel of my trilogy in my hometown indie
bookstore. A long-awaited coup! But they wanted me there in the fall, after I’d returned to my home in San
Francisco from my annual Back East summer. I’d found a bargain $350 round trip
flight. It still would have been warm enough to sleep at my unheated cabin a
mile from the bookstore, but money was tight and I could easily see this
ego-stroke turning into a $1K weekend, without much tangible reward. I would also
have to lug copies of my book in a suitcase, to be sold on consignment. Lastly,
in the hierarchy of author events, a book signing is not nearly as prestigious
as, say, and author reading. I’d just read a horror story of a poor writer
relegated to sitting at a lonely table at the back of a bookstore for his book
signing event. I’d known the support and enthusiasm of a crowd at numerous book
readings in the past, where I was able to tell tales and spin yarns to an
interested audience that asked brilliant questions and bought lots of my books.
So for
several reasons, I remained on the Left Coast and went plein air painting that
weekend instead with my painting buddy, Emily; making a conscious commitment to
my new passion/profession. We’d been wanting to paint palm trees and Em
suggested Hamilton Field in Novato, for its many mature and beautiful specimens.
In any plein
air sojourn, there’s always what I call the “thrashing around” stage. The first
hour or so you’re scouting out the exact perfect spot to paint, scrutinizing
the view, cropping the image in your mind, squinting down the darks and lights,
and simplifying all the complex visual information. You’re also catching up on
each other’s lives, setting up equipment and materials, and generally flailing
around the canvas as you make your first tentative marks. Complaining often happens
at this stage too, for example, “I should’ve sprung for the sable brushes!” or
“Why didn’t I buy the two lb. pochade (paint box) instead of the 50 lb. one?”
(as the tripod collapses).
This is a
time where curious bystanders are not a delight, because I have no confidence yet
in whatever I’m working on. Well-meaning and enthusiastic passers-by often want
to chat or have their photo taken with a plein air painter, especially around
the Bay Area’s many iconic tourist attractions, I found out recently, on
another outing near the Golden Gate Bridge.
Mercifully,
this thrashing around stage gradually gives way to an absorbed focus and flow
state as the image starts to “work” on the canvas. (Unless there is wind, rain,
or other external disturbance, like the sun suddenly jumping out from behind
the shady tree you so carefully arranged your kit under and broiling the artist.)
At the
flailing about phase on this particular day, I heard myself telling Emily—who had
set up right next to me to catch the same vantage point and scene—that I draw
much better than I paint. I try to witness and minimize my complaints these
days, after practicing Vipassana meditation daily for 20 years, and mostly because
I grew tired of hearing myself complain years ago. On observation, however, this
remark struck me not so much as a complaint, but as a piece of wisdom I should
listen to.
So I did. I
spent the next two hours just sketching the scene in Ultramarine Blue on the
Cadmium Red-primed canvas board.
A
mission-style building with hundreds of meticulously hand-rendered tiles and
very straight architectural lines materialized on my canvas, along with one
very detailed date palm and a vaguer Mexican Fan Palm in the distance.
By the end
of our session, Emily had a very realized rendition of our scene while I still
had a series of outlines. But I felt satisfied. I had a strong skeleton on
which to build. When I hurry the process, I find the quality of my results
poor. So I committed to the slow cooking of Hamilton.
I did
actually add some Cobalt Blue mixed with Titanium White to create a sky at the
very end, as I needed the satisfaction of laying down some color. I noticed, on my return home, however, that Cobalt Blue
is very transparent, which on closer inspection, didn’t look so good.
(Nevertheless, I ended up deciding I liked the color, and layered a more opaque
treatment of the same colors onto the sky at the very end of the painting
process, a couple weeks later.)
Another
thing that factored into Hamilton’s meticulous execution was my coming down
with the flu after receiving a flu shot at work. (Yes, I think it’s possible.) As
the various viruses slowly percolated throughout my system, and because life
doesn’t stop for flu shots, I attended a wedding the next weekend and then spent
a weekend in Venice Beach the following one. All these activities worried me as
I find it’s easy for me to drop the ball and sometimes never finish a piece.
Nevertheless, I persisted with Hamilton.
Years ago at
a workshop, a friend drew an image to represent my inner essence. On it she
wrote a single word: “create” below a nest containing three speckled eggs. I
remembered that image as my viral load peaked, and it struck me that the times
I’ve been most productive (like when I wrote my first book), I incubated the project; sticking with it
doggedly, so that distractions wouldn’t win.
I fleshed
out Hamilton; fitting in an odd hour or two here or there at home, working
around illness and the day job. I thought through every decision, every color
change, each object’s relationship with another. I researched opaque vs.
transparent colors. I gazed at how one of my favorite contemporary artists
(Anne Garney, of Kansas City) treated expanses of undefined foliage (I ended up
creating a mottled, camo-type mass that worked). I read through a how-to on
painting a palm tree. I studied palm trees; identifying the species I was painting.
New questions surfaced. What was that other, scraggly palm I’d painted out on
the jetty outside my studio in Sausalito a few months back? The one that gave
me so much trouble because it only had three sparse, whippy branches. A Queen
Palm!
Knowledge
inspired more interest and keener observation. The “distraction” of Venice
Beach turned into an opportunity for extensive palm study and photography. My
lifelong love of palm trees expanded. I remembered the magickal night I stood
outside my Santa Monica apartment in 2009, looking up at the shiny ribbons
waving overhead; soothed by the clattery sound of their fronds. Back in San
Francisco, I gazed with admiration at the highlights and reflections of my
neighbor’s Mexican Fan Palm.
Piece by
piece, Hamilton came together. And it was only when one question was answered to
my (and the painting’s) satisfaction, that I moved onto the next.
So while I
could’ve been promoting my book for dubious benefits, I was gifted with this
breakthrough painting—one where careful execution and a lot of pleasure were
woven into the mix. In the great scheme of things, either path would’ve been
fine. But trusting that little nudge from the subconscious seemed to work well
for me this time. I’ll keep listening.
