Auteur: admin

It’s been a while since our last lesson. An inventory of articles I wrote for art magazine ‘Palet’ over the course of more than thirty years has kept me busy. A rewritten selection of those will be published as a book, I hope. Now all I need is quiet accomodations to work on the book undisturbed for a while.

Meanwhile, I owe you lesson 8.

You know that I am more interested in the visual aspects of composition, such as form, color, and structure, than in a correct rendering of the subject. In the basic design phase, it is better to leave the subject out of the picture altogether. Don’t feel restricted by rules, conventions and dogmas in this. Masterpieces have been made by artists who flouted the rules. But if you insist on having some guidelines, here we go.

Keep it simple. A simple value pattern ensures a cohesive structure and is more important than reality, the “pretty picture”. Hence, learn to “give the lie to” reality. A good painting is more than an accurate represenation.

For you to be satisfied with your work, it is not necessary for everything you do to work out right away. Accept your mistakes as part of the learning process and don’t be discouraged too quickly. Multatuli said it before: “You can’t teach ducklings to swim by throwing the eggs in the water”. Don’t let your ambitions lead you to disregard reality. You can reach a high level of satisfaction and peace of mind if you adjust your ambitions to your talent.

Sunday morning Castlemaine by Joseph Zbukvic

As you can see, not a lot of advice about painting techniques again in this lesson. Plenty of books have been written about those. The goal is to paint like you breathe or walk, without thinking about it. If you asked a centipede to explain how it walks, it would get very confused indeed.

There is a Zen statement: for the first 15 years, learn the techniques thoroughly. Next, let everything settle for 15 years, and finally begin to paint, once technique has been transcended. A questionable statement perhaps, but essentially skill and technique often stand in the way of creativity.

The next, 9^th lesson, will conclude this series. I will, however, try to answer any questions that may have come up – not individually but by category. You can send your questions on Facebook or via my blog.

Sound familiar? You’re listening to someone’s words, but you notice contradictory signals in their attitude and behavior. The unspoken, non-verbal reality hiding behind those words is what really matters. It’s the same in the fine arts. The eye only records superficial facts, but your mental eye, your feeling and intuition record the essence. Your interpretation, your response to the subject is what counts. You record not what you see, but what you feel. Let your intuition speak: add, change, remove. In short, select and reduce until only your personal interpretation and response remain. Of course, the subject should be recognizable to some extent, but abstract qualities like a balanced value pattern of large shapes, a limited palette, and few details are more important to me personally than an exact likeness.
For me, watercolor is like a short poem, an aphorism. Forceful and compact. I would like to let you look through my eyes, even if only for a moment, because verbal communication is simply inadequate. The enjoyment, the pleasure in a concise, almost banal rendering of reality. But it must be your reality! How do you do that in practice? Try to let go of reality more. Feel free to select and reduce even more. In my experience, it is better to do this from preliminary sketches than in direct contact with reality, with its abundance of information! In such a sketch, reality has already been somewhat compressed, “condensed”. If you work from photographs, use several shots of the subject and combine elements. It can be helpful to make black and white copies, so you can disregard the subject’s actual colors. Keep experimenting and searching. You learn a little more every day. Don’t worry too much about the outcome, but paint for the sake of painting. You will get more enjoyment from it that way. You’ll never reach the ultimate goal. THE WAY IS THE GOAL. You’ll never make your ideal, ultimate painting. You’ll make your best painting TOMORROW. “When you think you have found it, you haven’t searched well enough.”

Best regards
Kees van Aalst

 

Les 7: “Luisteren met je ogen”

U kent het wel. Je luistert naar iemands woorden, maar tegelijkertijd ontdek je in houding en gedrag tegenstrijdige signalen. De non-verbale werkelijkheid die achter de woorden schuilgaat, dat wat niet wordt gezegd, daar draait het eigenlijk om.Zo is het ook in de beeldende kunst. Het oog registreert slechts de oppervlakkige feiten. Met uw geestelijk oog, gevoel en intuïtie legt u de essentie vast. Jouw interpretatie, jouw reactie op dat onderwerp is wat telt. Niet wat je ziet, maar wat je voelt leg je vast. Laat hierbij je intuïtie spreken: voeg toe, wijzig, laat weg. Kortom, selecteer en reduceer tot uw persoonlijke
interpretatie en reactie overblijft. Hierbij dient enige herkenbaarheid van het onderwerp nog wel intact te blijven natuurlijk. Voor mij persoonlijk zijn abstracties als een evenwichtig toonwaardepatroon in grote vormen, een beperkt kleurpalet en weinig details belangrijker dan een exacte gelijkenis. Aquarel is voor mij een kort gedicht, een aforisme. Krachtig en compact. Ik zou u graag, al is het maar voor een moment, met mijn ogen leren zien, omdat je met woorden nu eenmaal gebrekkig communiceert. Het genot, het plezier in een summiere, bijna banale weergave van de werkelijkheid. Maar wel jouw werkelijkheid! Hoe doe je dat nu in de praktijk? Probeer de realiteit meer los te laten. Voel je vrij om nog meer te selecteren en te reduceren. Mijn ervaring is dat dat beter kan aan de hand van voorschetsen dan in direct contact met werkelijkheid, met zijn overvloed aan informatie! In zo’n schets is de realiteit al enigszins gecomprimeerd, “ingedikt”. Als je aan de hand van foto’s werkt , gebruik dan meerdere afbeeldingen van het onderwerp en combineer elementen. Maak zwart/wit copieën om je los te maken van de werkelijke kleur. Blijf experimenteren en zoeken. Je leert elke dag weer bij. Bekommer je daarbij niet al te veel om het resultaat. Schilder om het schilderen zelf. Dan zal het bezig zijn je meer plezier verschaffen. Het einddoel zal je nooit bereiken. DE WEG IS HET DOEL. Je zult nooit je ideale, ultieme schilderij maken. Je beste schilderij maak je MORGEN. “Als je meent het te hebben gevonden, heb je niet goed genoeg gezocht”.

Met vriendelijke groet
Kees van Aalst

Because entire libraries have been written about the technical aspects of the fine arts, and just as many DVDs on the subject are available, I will limit my contribution. I do still owe you the last bit about color. Later in this series, I hope to discuss some ideas about composition, the organizing element, and everything that goes along with it.

However, the essential part will concern a mental approach: how do I transform reality, how do I make an artistic connection between image and reality, how do I achieve my own style. This part, which has been wrongly left out of the literature about the fine arts, will come from a philosophical/psychological perspective rather than a technical one.

But before we start on that, first the icing on the color cake.

Color choice is very personal, so follow your own taste and don’t lean too much on another’s palette. I am not giving out recipes, just a few personal hints.

Limit your palette to the three primary colors in various shades. Blue can be cobalt or indigo, red can be madder or burnt sienna, yellow can be lemon or raw sienna. These are only examples. There are many more choices, of course. Some painters have a cool and a warm version of each primary on their palette: madder besides burnt sienna, phthalo next to ultramarine, and lemon besides raw sienna. Others use only the so-called printer’s colors: magenta, cyan, and primary yellow. The choices are unlimited, so experiment for yourself.

Don’t turn art into trickery by imitating others too much, including in your color choices. There are plenty of epigones already. Don’t become yet another Zbukvic or Castagnet. Become yourself by rising above technique through trial and error, thus developing your own handwriting. But be aware that developing creativity takes time. You don’t help an emerging butterfly by prying open its cocoon. This rarely serves the butterfly well. Art teachers should therefore limit themselves to being guides along the way. In fact, too much knowledge can be a hindrance to creativity. Your joy in playing must show in the work, not just how cleverly you have created that atmosphere again. Trust in your inner voice rather than in fads and brief successes based on secondhand examples. The results can look quite good at first glance, but closer inspection reveals a lack of soul. An experienced viewer will notice this. Therefore, I don’t teach merely the development of technical skills. I gladly leave that to other teachers. It is more important to me to change attitudes and provide the right conditions. I know from experience the false starts, the pitfalls, and the urge to imitate which threaten your creativity.

More next time about this mental process which gets little to no attention in the literature and DVDs, in “Listening with your eyes”.

The Image is a perfect example of a limited palette