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Author: Carol L. Douglas

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Are you intimidated by art galleries?

Spring Greens, 8X10, oil on canvasboard, is available through the Red Barn Gallery.

The first person in the door of Red Barn Gallery in Port Clyde yesterday was a lovely lady from Industry, ME. She told me she often feels uncomfortable entering an art gallery, especially since she doesn’t intend to buy. Why is that, I asked her. She couldn’t give me a clear answer but said, “this place doesn’t make me feel that way.”

I think I’m typical as a gallerist in that I like people stopping by to talk art, both at the Red Barn Gallery and my own space at 394 Commercial Street in Rockport.

Even though my job at the gallery was dusting, I skirted around Shelley Nolan’s exquisite glass. Yes, I was intimidated.

Susan Lewis Baines (who’s both a gallerist and artist) put it this way:

  • Come on in and say hi;
  • Look at and admire the work;
  • Ask about the artists;
  • Bring your coffee from Squid Ink across the road;
  • Bring me one [you can skip that step with me];
  • Come to our openings and meet our members and guest artists;
  • If you see a piece of art you really like, buy it. I have never known anyone who regretted buying a piece of art that spoke to them;
  • And lastly, don’t ever, ever, feel obligated to buy. And don’t let that keep you away from us.

There’s nothing pompous or intimidating about the Red Barn Gallery-it’s in a converted barn, above a bar. That probably helped my visitor relax, and it’s a heads-up to anyone designing a gallery space to not be too obsessed with design and fashion. It’s a pity when anyone who loves art feels daunted by galleries. I turned our conversation over, trying to think of reasons why it might happen.

Intimidation: Galleries sometimes have an air of exclusivity and luxury, which can be intimidating to those of us from more practical backgrounds. When they’re overly opulent, they can make us feel ill-at-ease.

Price perception: We read all the time about high-end art that sells for absurd prices. Art fanciers may assume they can’t afford art at all, or fear they’ll be judged if they don’t buy anything. The reality is that most art is made by middle-class artists for a middle-class audience. Yes, it’s more than you’d pay at TJMaxx, but it’s not stratospherically expensive, either. You could spend more on a handbag than most of the pieces at the Red Barn Gallery, and they’ll have far more lasting power.

My wall at Red Barn Gallery. It’s neat, well-lighted, easy to look at, and definitely not intimidating.

Self-consciousness: Some people may worry about being judged by the staff or other customers if they don’t look affluent. I have felt that myself in some Manhattan galleries, but it’s not much of an issue here in Maine, where we choose between flannel shirts and Sunday-go-to-meetin’ flannel shirts.

Sales pressure: You’re very likely to get attentive customer service in a gallery, but don’t assume that means we’re pushing you into a purchase. It’s just that (see above) we like talking about art.

If I ever get bored while working, there are fabulous views out the front and back windows. Port Clyde is lovely!

My personal bête noire is disinterested or supercilious gatekeepers. And therein lies the paradox of galleries. What’s right for a $300 or $3000 painting is probably not right for a $300,000 painting or a $3 million painting. The same thing that turns me off might make a person interested in a six-figure painting feel more pampered and exclusive.

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Plagiarism

Spruce and pine from Barnum Brook Trail, Carol Douglas, 12X16, private collection. This is a well-known scene painted by many artists. It would be difficult to prove ownership of a reference photo.

A well-known western painter sent me three images: her own reference photo, her watercolor, and a copy made by another artist. The copier had posted it on social media, cheerfully outlining her process with no hint of credit to the original artist. “She even copied my mistakes!” sputtered my correspondent.

Luckily, this resolved without lawyers. When challenged, the infringer agreed to take the work down and never sell it. That’s the only reason I’m not calling her out here.

Lake Tear of the Clouds (Headwaters of the Hudson), 30X40, Carol L. Douglas, private collection. I painted this picture twice.

Is it OK to copy artwork?

My correspondent was right in not asking the infringer to destroy the work. It’s legal to copy other work. It is illegal to sell, publicize or publish that copy without permission from the copyright owner.

Many artists over time have copied others’ work, including Vincent van Gogh in his time in the asylum. This is a way to deeply engage with the original artist’s technique and intentions. Many teachers-including me-set our students to copying masterpieces. But this is a learning exercise only, and the work is never intended to be shown or sold, even when the original is out of copyright.

Young spruce and pines, 6X8, Carol L. Douglas, private collection. I painted this twice because I lost the first iteration.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder churned out several copies of his own Massacre of the Innocents. It must have been very popular because his son made more copies of it. That made perfect sense at a time when the only way to reproduce a painting was to copy it brushstroke by brushstroke.

But that was then, and this is now. Copyright in the US is strict and enforceable. It’s there to protect creators, but, equally, you don’t want to get on the wrong side of it.

What is copyright?

Copyright is an inherent state that occurs at the time the work was created; registering it just provides one form of legal evidence that you created the work. For visual artists, registering every painting or photograph would be absurdly expensive and unnecessary; you would only do it if you needed to sue someone.

That means any photo or illustration you find in books, magazines, newspapers, and even on the internet is automatically protected by copyright law.

Sunset near Clark Island, 8X10, Carol L. Douglas, available through the Red Barn Gallery, Port Clyde. I’ve painted this scene multiple times, but always from life.

Protect yourself

The best way around this is to take your own reference photos. That’s important for more reasons than just copyright, starting with the greatly-expanded understanding we all have of places we’ve been to and people we’ve known.

Sometimes that’s impossible. You’re on the other side of the country or the boat has sunk. If a client sends you their own photo for a painting, you can presume permission. If it’s not their own photo, do some investigating. “He said he got the photo from his cousin,” is no defense.

If you use a third-party’s photo, protect yourself by obtaining written permission from the photographer.

You can use photos that are in the public domain. Copyright expires when the original creator has been dead for more than seventy years. Just google “public domain images” and the word for which you’re searching, like “clouds” or “Grand Canyon.” Creative Commons is an excellent source for public-domain images.

What if someone copies your work?

What if it’s your work being copied without permission? My correspondent contacted the infringer and asked her to withdraw the painting from the marketplace. She could have done this more formally through a cease and desist letter, but it turns out that she’d done all that was necessary.

If the infringer doesn’t agree to take the work down, it’s time to call a lawyer. In the US, copyright holders can sue content infringers for damages. Hopefully, it will never go that far, but it’s nice to know you have that tool at your disposal.

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Monday Morning Art School: watercolor brushes

Clary Hill Blueberry Barrens, watercolor full sheet, $3985 framed.

Watercolor brushes are softer than oil-painting brushes. The most expensive are sable brushes. Natural bristles combine strength with suppleness and hold more paint than synthetics. However, there are some fine synthetic brushes out there. Several of my go-to brushes are Princeton Neptunes.

Unlike oil-painting brushes, watercolor brushes should last a lifetime, so buy the best you can afford. The only absolute rule is to never leave them standing in water. Set them down flat between brushstrokes and rinse them thoroughly when you’re done. Unless you’ve done something ghastly, they need no soap or detergent and very little agitation to clean.

The more vertical the brush, the more flow.

In general, watercolor brushes drop more pigment the more vertically they’re held. You can use this to move from a filled area to a broken one in one brush stroke. In all the following examples except for the mop, I’ve held the brush both ways. A good rule is to carry the vertical brush slowly and in a controlled manner; pull a horizontal brush more rapidly to get the least amount of paint contact with the paper.

A flat gives you a good even wash. Used on its side, it can give you a controlled line.

The brush I used for the photo montage above is a 2″ flat synthetic mottler or spalter brush. I like this shape for both oils and watercolor. It’s a relatively inexpensive brush that gives a beautiful wash. It’s useful for covering large areas quickly, but with precise edges.

Made with the synthetic spalter brush, above.

Flats and brights give you nice flat washes, but can be used to make expressive lines as well. Brights have more control and carry less paint, just as they do in oil painting. Turn them on their sides to make a controlled line. Twisting the brush while painting gives an infinite variety of shapes. So too does varying the ratio of paint and water.

And that would be the bright. More punch, less pigment.

Because of the way watercolor bleeds, its brushes can be used in ways not possible in any other medium–a long blend of different pigments, or by painting a shape in clear water and then dropping pigment into it.

You can’t do either of these things in any other medium.

I don’t normally carry riggers with me in either watercolor or oils. (They’re meant to paint perfect lines, and my world-view doesn’t include many perfect lines.) Most of my line work is done with rounds. They do not give as much control on long lines, but they are very expressive.

Round brushes are just more lyrical than flats.

Squirrel mops are the most uniform wash brush you can use. It’s virtually impossible to make them skip, so use them where a lovely flat wash is a goal.

But a good mop can also point, hold vast amounts of paint and sweep across the paper in style.

A mop brush makes a perfect wash, but it does so much more as well.

Natural sea sponges are multi-purpose painting brushes. Use them to apply or remove paint. They can be as subtle or bold as you wish.

One of my favorite tools, a natural sponge.

Of course, for plein air painting, a little goes a long way. If I could carry only one watercolor travel brush, it would be the Escoda Reserva Kolinsky-Tajmyr Pocket Brush. It’s compact, comes in a protective tube, and makes an outstanding range of marks. A close second, at a lower price point, are the Da Vinci Cosmotop Spin Travel Brushes. A hat tip to Heather Evans Davis for introducing me to them.

Paint lifted (left) and applied (right) with a sponge.

Your brushwork contributes immeasurably to the quality of your painting. Don’t dab or be diffident; plan your strategy and then execute it with boldness. To do this, of course, you must practice. Take lots of practice shots on scrap paper; they’ll never go to waste.

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Gallery representation

Inception, Casey Cheuvront, 24X48, courtesy of the artist.

Arizona artist Casey Cheuvront has no flies on her when it comes to selling her work. She kindly agreed to answer some questions:

How long have you had gallery representation?

If you are counting co-ops or vanity galleries, about 6 years. This has been a game of musical chairs for me, with some being seasonal and some going out of business. Others I left because I did not like the fit. Currently I am in the Sedona Arts Center Fine Art Gallery and Legends of the West, Santa Fe. I hope to be in both for some time to come. I was in a local co-op but the service commitment, the gallery rules, the lack of traffic and other factors made me feel it was not a good fit for me.

Desert Skies, Casey Cheuvront, 18 x 12, courtesy of the artist.

How have you sought gallery representation? Have they approached you? Cold calling on your part? Through an event?

Yes, yes, and yes. One gallery responded to a congratulations I sent by inviting me to submit. Another invited me after a couple of plein air events; they’ve been a strong seller for me since. A third solicited me. I cold-called a fourth on the recommendation of another artist friend showing there; so far, no dice.

What do you think makes for a good gallerist?

A combination of open-mindedness, discretion, strong curation skills, sales skills, marketing skills, professionalism (that is crucial) and knowing her market.

What do you look for in your own paintings when you pitch them?

First, is it a good painting? Would I hang it in my home? Is it my best effort? Could it be better? Is it nicely presented (framing etc.)? Is it priced reasonably? (I don’t mean cheap; I mean, is the pricing in keeping with my other works and what’s currently showing there.) Is it in keeping with the overall style already in the gallery? Does it ‘fit’? e.g. I would not offer seascapes in Sedona or Santa Fe; and I probably wouldn’t try to sell cactus landscapes in Maine!

The Great Escape, Casey Cheuvront, 10X10, courtesy of the artist.

What does your presentation packet look like?

Everything I have is digital. I used to have a folder full of expensively-photographed, 4×6 or 5×7 prints, but that ship has sailed. I have a website which I work hard to keep current, a decent bio, a list of accomplishments (shows, awards, judging, workshops, demos, etc.) and of course I keep a file of recent available works which I can send out or put on a thumb drive quickly. “Go digital or go home” is the thing these days. I also always keep business cards with me (you never know) even when painting in the field.

How do you massage your social-media presence to support your galleries?

I have a strong following on Facebook, a lesser one on Instagram. If I have, say, a featured-artist showing or something I of course promote that through social media. When I send a piece to a gallery, I’ll share that. I keep my gallery list current on the website and send newsletter announcements periodically.

Almost Home, Casey Cheuvront, 6X12, courtesy of the artist.

Do you ever pull the plug on galleries? If so, why?

I have done that four times. In one case it was bad communication on the owners’ part, and being treated as a second-class citizen by her store personnel. In another case a co-op owner simply could not deliver the goods; the gallery was mismanaged from day one, promises were not kept, and though I admired her presentation I found the execution sorely lacking. A local art league had a gallery and while I sold OK there, one artist treated the establishment as her personal gallery. No one else was allowed to work or demo while she was there, which made the mandatory work days a real drag. The last co-op I left because I felt it was just not a good fit; while a couple of artists had pricing like mine, I noticed big, inexpensive, bright/splashy pieces selling (including one I pulled when I left) and thought they would do better with another artist in that space. I’m happy to report they are doing ok, have expanded their space, and have a huge roster of artists there.

Co-op/vanity galleries make rent on selling wall space, so they tend to be really crowded, and often there’s no real oversight on who’s in and who’s not as long as they have a checkbook. Certainly, that’s not true everywhere, and there are some great co-ops around. I have a friend who’s been in one in Northern California for many years and sells a bundle; she’s shared some of the work there and it’s all top notch.

I’d rather be the new kid in a great gallery and hang with people who are really good, than the best in town in a gallery showing moderate-to-mediocre work.

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Putting yourself in the frame

The Fog Warning, 1885, Winslow Homer, 30 × 48.5 in., courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In our narrative painting class on Monday, Bobbi Heath told us about a man who didn’t want anyone in the dinghy in his painting. “I want to be able to imagine myself in it,” he said.

In addition to portraiture, there are several ways in which one can approach the figure in painting, including:

  • A specific individual serving as an archetype, as in Mary Whyte‘s paintings.
  • Through a vague, implied, incomplete or anodyne figure, as in Andrew Wyeth‘s Trodden Weed or Winslow Homer‘s The Fog Warning, above.
  • Through objects or settings that suggest an imminent arrival, as in that empty dinghy or George Stubbs‘ A Saddled Bay Hunter, below.
A Saddled Bay Hunter, 1786, George Stubbs, 21 3/4 × 27 3/4 in, courtesy Denver Art Museum

It’s one thing to paint a pretty picture. It’s another to blur the line between the audience and the scene, to paint something where the viewer can step into the frame and build a relationship with the work.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is important to art history because of its use of landscape, its sfumato and its anatomical accuracy. That doesn’t explain its enduring popularity. Mona Lisa resonates because we engage with her.

The subject makes eye contact with us, with a rather penetrating gaze. She’s not demure, she’s not dreamy, and she’s not dressed to advertise her femininity, wealth or power. (As an aside, I’m sure this is why we get the periodic daft theory that it is a concealed self-portrait of the artist; after all, what mere woman could be that self-assured?)

Mona Lisa invites you to have a parasocial relationship with the subject. That’s a modern term for a one-sided relationship with a person we don’t know, usually an influencer, celebrity, or fictional character. We project attitudes, values, and beliefs onto them, just as we project them onto Mona Lisa.

The Allegory of Painting, c. 1666-1668, 47.2 × 39.3 in, Johannes Vermeer, courtesy Kunsthistorisches Museum

The word ‘voyeur’ wasn’t created until a few centuries after Johannes Vermeer was painting. His intent wasn’t to titillate in that modern sense, but to create the kind of genre paintings that were so popular in his time. However, his perfect drafting and the subtle interactions of his figures make us feel like we’re looking through a peephole. That drags us almost violently into his paintings.

Edward Hopper picked up where Vermeer left off. Works like Hotel Room or Room in New York leave us feeling almost as if we’re peeping toms. It’s unlikely that in the early 1930s, that was Hopper’s intention. Incandescent lighting was just becoming widespread in New York . Hopper was fascinated by it, and by the jewel-like, illuminated scenes it created through city windows. But art has overtones that shift and change over time, regardless of the artist’s intentions.

Hotel Room, 1931, Edward Hopper, 152.4 × 165.7 cm, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, included under fair use exemption of the US Copyright Law and restricted from further use.

In Hopper’s paintings we come full circle to the same incomplete or anodyne figures of Winslow Homer or Andrew Wyeth. If the woman on the bed in Hotel Room was detailed and realistic, she’d be almost unbearably vulnerable. Stylizing her preserves her, and our, dignity.

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Monday Morning Art School: swinging on anchor

Cadet, 9X12, oil on canvasboard. Private collection.

“I noticed a boat just off the pier where I was sitting,” pastor Tommy Faulk told us. “As I sat there and watched, I realized there were parts of the boat I hadn’t noticed in my first look. The boat was drifting around the point where it was anchored, making every side visible.”

Tommy was making a point about our limited human perspective, but it’s something that everyone who draws boats has noticed. When I asked him if I could quote him, he laughed and told me that it came from a drawing exercise he did on a wilderness trip with Mountain Gateway.

It’s a great idea in figure drawing to get up and move on a regular basis. Willow charcoal, ~18X24.

That didn’t really surprise me. There are several art school variations of this exercise. My favorite was one I did with the late Nicki Orbach at the Art Students League. Our goal was to ‘see’ right through the figure to imagine what it looked like from the other side. For example, if you were facing the figure’s front, you’d try to interpolate what the back would look like, drawing on your knowledge of anatomy. If you were mindful of the shape of the trapezius from the back, you weren’t likely to ignore their influence on the front of the neck.

More typically, art students might draw the model from every position in a circle, moving around the room in ten-minute increments. Or, they might draw figures dancing to music. These are all exercises designed to help the student think of the human form as three-dimensional, rather than as a two-dimensional cutout.

You don’t need to be in a figure class to do these exercises-you can them with still life or objects in the landscape. They will expand both your imagination and your sense of three-dimensional space and form.

1. My coffee cup from memory; 2. one-minute observational drawing of my coffee cup; 3. another one-minute observational drawing of my coffee cup; 4. My coffee cup from memory after the observational drawings.

They’ll also improve your attention to detail and your visual memory. Here’s a simple exercise: imagine any object you handle regularly. Without looking at it, draw it from memory. Plop it in front of you and draw it from two different angles, each time for just one minute. Set it aside and draw it from memory again.

Your second memory-drawing will be far more accurate than your first one. And that memory lasts. How long? The more you exercise your visual memory, the better, longer and more specific your recall will be. The more you draw a specific object, the easier it is to draw it accurately from memory.

I can draw all this whacked out stuff in church because I’ve spent years drawing from life. It’s developed my visual memory.

Perceived vs. real form

What you imagine the form to be before you ever start drawing is its perceived form. That’s never exactly what it looks like. When you start to examine the object through exhaustive drawing from all sides, you come closer and closer to understanding its true form.

Human perception is subjective. Camera perception isn’t subjective, but it is distorted by technical limitations. Within reason, though, your camera can be a useful guide in checking how accurately you draw. Compare a photo of the subject to your drawing, side by side. Just be aware that your camera can be as much of a liar as you are. Especially with cell-phone photography, there will be fish-eye and wide-angle distortion and exaggerated contrast. You’re best off photographing the object from a moderate distance to eliminate the worst lens distortion.

Drawing from photos

Note that I say nothing about drawing from photographs. There are times it’s necessary, but a photo has already been compressed to two dimensions. You will learn little or nothing about three-dimensional form from copying it. Drawing from photos is a crutch, and you’ll feel so much freer when you stop doing it.

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Art without religion

Painting of Gaṇeśa riding on his Indian rat or bandicoot, c. 1820, courtesy British Museum

It has always baffled me that an art historian is required to learn German, French, or Italian but not to study religious history. Religious paintings comprise the bulk of art through the ages, from the shamanistic cave art of paleolithic man right up to the 18th century. That’s not just true for Christendom, but for every culture worldwide. Art is a primary way people have explored the meaning of their existence, and that is the fundamental question of religion.

I can only speak for my own culture, but my own grounding in Christianity makes reading western paintings easy. I do not need stories and symbols explained to me; even deeply buried allegorical references make sense without a lot of clarification.

Ladder of Divine Ascent, 12th century, icon, courtesy Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Egypt

(That’s also true, by the way, for paintings based on Greco-Roman myth, because we learned those stories in school. Today I wonder why they spent so much time on them, but apparently there was a lot more time in the school day back before STEM. Peter Paul Rubens had it right when he painted those fat gods and goddesses as cartoon characters.)

I’ve often wondered how students of art history read the symbols in religious art when they don’t have a grounding in the thinking underlying them. Art historians are famous for their capacity to pontificate. In the post-church era, how can their students discern what in all that blather is reasonable and what is nonsense?

Thangka Depicting Vajrabhairava, ca. 1740, courtesy Sotheby’s

Go back in time with me to my first visit to the Rubin Museum of Himalayan and central Asian art. Tibetan art is overwhelmingly religious and conservative and, I suspect, cautionary. The Tārās are, like the Greco-Roman gods, partly personifications, or representations of abstract ideas in the form of personages. Looking at the work totally divorced from its religious underpinnings, all I saw were five floors of ferocious figurines.

I suppose my response was like a non-Christian’s reading of a crucifixion painting. They can be frightening, especially in a culture as divorced from death as we are. However, crucifixion was an historical reality running from pre-Roman times to the modern world (it’s still a rare but legal form of punishment in parts of the world). To the Christian, the crucifixion of Jesus represents the absolute low point of the story, but it also points to the ultimate redemption of humanity.

My art-historian goddaughter was raised in a traditional Chinese household, so Tibetan house shrines don’t seem that strange to her. She was able to explain the rough outlines of the Tārā permutations to me. I still wouldn’t want any of it in my house, but, then again, I wouldn’t want The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus by Dieric Bouts in my house, either.

Tiles from the courtyard of the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, c. 1557

I’m not an art historian, just a simple painter who loves paintings. And I think it’s important that I understand those works from the viewpoint of the artist. So when I read Breaking a taboo: religion is being invited into three major museums, my first reaction was, “it’s about time.” Art should never have been divorced from its cultural underpinnings in the first place. Its absence reflects a longstanding, anti-religious bias on the part of academia.

We’ve had a century or more of sneering at religion and the faithful. Are there any art historians left who are qualified to interpret art in the language and culture in which it was made? Where’s Sister Wendy when we need her?

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My first foray into a cooperative gallery

Breaking storm, 48X30, oil on canvas, $5,579 framed. This painting of American Eagle has decided it wants to go to Port Clyde for a while.

Despite my business partner’s best efforts to keep me on a plan, I tend to make decisions off-the-cuff. This latest one was based solely on the fact that Susan Lewis Baines asked me.

Sue used to run the Kelpie Gallery in South Thomaston. She had an incredible eye for pairing paintings. More importantly, she could sell paintings, which is a trait I find highly desirable in a gallerist. So, when Sue suggested I join the Red Barn Gallery in Port Clyde, I responded, “Once more into the breach dear friend.”

There were some issues that I hadn’t quite thought through. One was how I expected to run my own gallery in Rockport-which is open five days a week-while simultaneously honoring my obligation to a cooperative. The second was how to stretch my body of work to fill both spaces without sacrificing quality. About the middle of May I took a good look at my commitments and nearly took early retirement. They include a very full schedule of workshops and classes and a pledge to turn out seven interactive painting lessons by the end of this year. There’s this blog, which does not write itself. And then, occasionally, I like to paint.

I’m glad I didn’t panic. For one thing, the other Red Barn Gallery members are very nice people. They are bending over backwards to help me balance all the things on my very precarious plate. For another thing, Port Clyde is a lovely, unspoiled bit of coastal Maine. It’s refreshing to spend time there, watching the ferry toing-and-froing from Monhegan. And last but certainly not least, I realize I can paint gazing out the gallery windows when it’s my turn to gallery-sit. The views are wonderful.

I never miss Sue Baines more than when I have to hang my own work. But it’s done, and very nautical, if I may say so myself.

I did, however, sneak the setup in during stolen time. My long-suffering husband rode to Port Clyde with me on Father’s Day to help me hoist my paintings up the stairs. It was an all-afternoon affair, and I reneged on buying him dinner afterwards. We were both just too tired.

But it’s done, and I think it looks grand.

If you’re going to be anywhere in the Port Clyde area on Friday, please join us for our opening:

Red Barn Art Gallery

Opening reception, Friday, June 23, 5-7 PM

5 Cold Storage Road, Port Clyde Rd, St George, ME 04860

Regular hours: June and July – Thursday-Monday – 10:30am-4, Sunday 12-4
August – Daily – 10:30am-4, Sunday 12-4
September 8th-10th and 15th-17th – 10:30am-4

Open Late on most Thursdays

207 372-2230

Email here.

If you want to visit me in Rockport:

Carol L. Douglas Studio and Gallery

394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME 04856

Regular hours:

Tuesday-Saturday, Noon-5.

585-201-1558

Email here.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Monday Morning Art School: the power of symmetry

Painting by Sandra Hildreth

We all ‘know’ not to plunk our subject square in the middle of our composition, don’t we? Last week I mentioned the great outdoorswoman Sandra Hildreth, and in return, she sent me this photo of something she’d painted recently. It’s a great example of the power of selective symmetry and of Carol’s first rule of composition: Don’t Be Boring.

In addition to being the driving force behind the Adirondack Plein Air Festival, Sandy taught high school art for 34 years. She knows her way around a paintbrush and a pochade box.

First, let her describe how symmetry shouldn’t be done: “The artist might put her mountain right in the middle of the composition, and it ends up shaped like a simple triangle. The forest on either side is the same shape and color, and then there is a foreground of solid green.” That’s indeed how it often goes down. It’s a recipe for static boredom.

Sandy consciously chose to put her mountain square in the middle of her picture, “but then I focused on everything that was not symmetrical. I looked for every shape and color change, and made sure nothing on the left and right matched. I’m not suggesting I painted a masterpiece, but I painted a simple view and made it visually interesting.”

There’s power in the tension between the dominant massif and the forest and clouds that wouldn’t have been there had she chosen the obvious solution, which would be to move the massif to one side.

Bracken Fern, 12X9, oil on canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping in continental US.

“The other possibility is what my high school students usually did: choose the simplest composition possible.” By that she means centering everything. “That’s easy to draw, but boring.”

“How do you teach people to open their minds to diversity and asymmetry rather than make everything smooth and equal?” she asked me.

One of the first things people say about artists is that we “see things differently,” usually as a preface to the hoary old canard, “it must be nice to be born with talent.”

Spring Greens, 8X10, oil on canvasboard, $522 unframed includes shipping in continental US.

I can’t speak for Sandy, but I was lucky enough to have parents who encouraged my drawing, and a father who knew how to draw and taught me. I’m pretty sure that most successful artists start off with conventional aesthetics. Then they grind that middling viewpoint away through hundreds of hours of drawing. All that observation trains them to observe closely, to see the minute differences that elevate a real mountain above a boring old triangle.

Apple Blossom Time, 9×12, oil on canvasboard, $696 unframed includes shipping in continental US.

That’s why I’m such a fanatic about making my students draw, draw, and draw some more-and then reflect on those drawings. I know it’s unfashionable to tell people they cannot paint without drawing chops, but it’s an unfortunate truth. I’m not talking about the ability to copy a photo, but the ability to see an object in three dimensions and reduce it to two on paper. Good artists see planes and shapes and that is what gives a painting dimension. How do you learn that? Practice, my friend, is worth more than the best drawing teacher in the world. But if you’re completely baffled, you can start with this book.

Plein air painters, in particular, sometimes make a fetish of working fast with little preparation. It shows in the results. All the bravura brushwork in the world can’t hold up a poor composition.

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Is this the age of bravura brushwork?

Fogbank, oil on archival canvasboard, 14X18, $1594 framed includes shipping in continental US

The pinnacle of baroque music composition was in the persons of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. Both were so late in their genre that they nearly missed the bus. Since the term baroque music didn’t come into systematic usage until the 20th century, I’ve often wondered what Bach and Handel thought they were playing at. I doubt they thought of themselves as being in the same compartment as Henry Purcell or Johann Pachelbel, although this is how Baroque music is usually described to us amateurs.

In 19th and 20th century painting, we see much finer divisions, from the realism of Gustave Courbet to the transitional work of Édouard Manet through the flowering of Impressionism and then the post-Impressionist modernists. A ridiculous amount has been written about what these dead artists were doing, thinking and eating. However, we still can’t know what they saw as their place in the continuum of art history. Or even if they cared about that.

Larky Morning at Rockport Harbor, 11X14, on birch board, unframed, $869 includes shipping in continental US.

In the 20th century, we saw a kaleidoscope of isms: Fauvism, Futurism, Abstraction, Bauhaus, Orphism, Expressionism, Symbolism, Modernism, Synchromism, Suprematism, Constructivism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Regionalism, Precisionism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Photorealism and probably twenty more that I’ve forgotten. I didn’t list them just to bore you to death, simply to note the absurdity of so many labels. It’s possible that all those isms can be rebranded in the future as one topic: Experimentism.

A large section of the field has returned to realism, and is painting it in a style that could be loosely called post-Impressionism. Does that negate the work of the whole 20th century? Hardly, but it does leave us with the question of what we’re doing now.

In my few decades of teaching painting, I’ve noticed one request over and over: “I want to develop looser brushwork.” That tells me it’s important.

Brilliant Summer Day, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $435, includes shipping in continental US.

Contemporary viewers are immediately captivated by bravura brushwork; it’s a sign of self-confidence and competence in an age beset by anxiety and doubt.

Mark-making can be loose and gestural or very controlled. On one hand, it’s the most personal aspect of painting. At the same time, it’s also highly technical. Much of what is called ‘style’ comes down to what brushes we choose and what marks we make with them. I wrote about that here.

It is never an accident; it comes from practice. It also rests on a firm foundation of proper preparation. Flailing around to fix things that should have been resolved in the drawing or underpainting will negate the freshness and decisiveness of good brushwork. Continuous modification, glazing, changing color, etc., make for diffident marks.

Seafoam, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed.

There are many painters whose brushwork I admire, but there’s little point in trying to copy them in my own work. Brushwork is as personal as handwriting. It’s where the artist expresses-or suppresses-his feelings. There’s value in attempting to copy passages by great painters, but don’t try to paint like Sargent or Van Gogh or Rembrandt; use what you learn to create your own mature style.

Style is the difference between our internal vision and what we’re capable of. We often don’t like our own brushwork when we lay it down; I think that’s because it’s too personal. Don’t continuously massage your brushstrokes hoping to make them more stylish. If the passage is accurate in color, line and precision, move on. Future generations may think it’s wonderful.

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