When is an Artwork Done?

When is a work of art done? It can be hard to know when to stop. My impulse is to keep painting until every flower, leaf, and blade of grass is perfectly rendered. The problem with making everything perfect in a painting is that I end up painting over all the looseness, fun and joy that was in the painting earlier in the process. A perfectly rendered painting will often look flat and boring.

Instead of seeking perfection, I want my paintings to feel relatable, have a personality and hopefully have a touch of mystery. A seemingly unfinished painting allows space for the viewer to fill in the rest with their imagination.

Wanting to keep my paintings loose, I’ve found they are usually at their best a little before I realize it, which is why I try to stop painting a little before I think I should.

Screen Shot 2019-06-28 at 11.12.15 AM.png

Here are some examples of artworks that don’t fill in every detail, allowing plenty of room for the viewer to fill in the rest of the image with their imagination.

J. M. W. Turner, Sun setting over a lake

J. M. W. Turner, Sun setting over a lake

Fairfield Porter, Meadow, Great Spruce Head

Fairfield Porter, Meadow, Great Spruce Head

Richard Diebenkorn, Driveway

Richard Diebenkorn, Driveway

Maureen Gallace, Ice Storm, Easton (With Robert)

Maureen Gallace, Ice Storm, Easton (With Robert)

Georgia O’Keeffe, Lake George

Georgia O’Keeffe, Lake George

And here are some examples of works I’ve done that I think leave room for the viewer:

The Courage to be Creative

It takes courage to be creative. As an artist I’m a bit of a dreamer, so in creative situations it’s easy for me to believe that I’m about to make the best thing ever and then feel crushed when I judge my finished project as just ordinary. “Practice makes perfect” is a well known prescription to this kind of extreme thinking, but it’s hardly practical advice because we don’t have endless amounts of time to reach perfection.

I grew up diagnosed with various learning disabilities - dyslexia, dyscalculia and attention deficit disorder. These disabilities or cognitive differences, meant that I would do homework for hours and hours each night just to get a B on my next test. It left me feeling broken and that to keep up in life I’d have to discipline myself by putting tons of work into every little thing I do.

In spite of that conditioning, I’ve been working on believing that I am in fact a good and valuable person just as I am, and that there’s no need to beat myself up or to be a super star in order to be a creative person.

For me, there is no creativity without courage and no courage without self love. When I’m making a painting I need to let go of the fact I’m not perfect. I’m a person just like everyone else, no better, no worse and yet still very valuable. Self love highlights that the work I’m doing is good, that working towards a particular vision is difficult and that everything in life is perfectly imperfect. Self love acknowledges the inherit risks of being creative - that others will judge and reject you in some form or another but that that’s ok, it’s my job to love myself.

I think part of self love is to acknowledge the ways we’re courageous and creative in our daily lives.

Here are 10 ways I’m courageous and practicing self-love with my painting:

  1. Putting my art out in to the world

  2. Accepting commissions - facing the fear that the painting I make won’t live up to the client’s expectations

  3. Continuing to make art - and never fully reaching the ideal vision that’s in my mind

  4. Trying new techniques and subject matter

  5. Being consistent - it sometimes takes courage to stick with something and not always chase the next new idea

  6. Selling my art - it can feel audacious to think someone would want your art and it can also feel like a rejection when your works go unsold

  7. Express my feelings and values plainly in my art — it’s very tempting to hide my feelings and values in my art by using complexity, vagueness, and cryptic symbolism

  8. Allowing for imperfection — allowing some of the raw, real mistakes I make to remain as they are, which end up often being he most interesting parts of the painting

  9. Write about my art plainly and simply — writing about my art in a straightforward manner always makes me feel exposed and vulnerable. But if my art is going to matter at all, my descriptions of it should be as honest as I can make them

  10. Acknowledging with compassion when something doesn’t work — understanding a problem is only productive for me if I do it with lots of love, compassion, a sense of curiosity and objectivity

 

See Available Works

 

What Makes A Good Painting

My goal in painting is to make something that feels fun, fresh and alive. My paintings should never feel like “work” when I’m making them. In order to have fun while painting, I rely on a few key compositional techniques that increase my chances of making an effective piece, because it’s no fun to make bad art.

Here are four things I consider each time I begin composing a landscape painting:

Gesture

When I plan a painting the first thing I look for is a compelling gesture. For me the gesture is the most important aspect of the image as it leads the eye and defines the main shapes of the composition. A gesture in a painting works in the same way that a plot works in a story. The gesture leads the viewer’s eye through the artwork, creating alternating sensations of tension and release.

Here are a few of my paintings alongside sketches that show the gestures in yellow, as well as the negative spaces in blue:

The gesture in this painting starts with a high level of tension as the tree rises from the dramatically lit earth, creating a sense of release as the branches thin out and give rise to the soft dark green leaves across the top of the painting.

The gesture in this painting starts with a high level of tension as the tree rises from the dramatically lit earth, creating a sense of release as the branches thin out and give rise to the soft dark green leaves across the top of the painting.

The outside edges of the image have a sense of openness and then closes in as the lines from the path, horizon and trees all come crashing together into one single point. The tension is then released with the open sky and clouds.

The outside edges of the image have a sense of openness and then closes in as the lines from the path, horizon and trees all come crashing together into one single point. The tension is then released with the open sky and clouds.

This painting of Georgia O’Keeffe’s home and studio starts with a sense of tension because most of the view is blocked by a large wall in the foreground. A sense of release comes partially from the black window but mostly from the ladder which cuts …

This painting of Georgia O’Keeffe’s home and studio starts with a sense of tension because most of the view is blocked by a large wall in the foreground. A sense of release comes partially from the black window but mostly from the ladder which cuts vertically across the horizontal lines of the wall and gives an emotional sense of release by drawing the eye up the ladder and to the open sky.

Similar to the painting above, this image starts with a high level of tension by making the lake appear as if it were a wall in the immediate foreground. The simple, softer gesture of the clouds offers contrast to the flat depiction of the water. A …

Similar to the painting above, this image starts with a high level of tension by making the lake appear as if it were a wall in the immediate foreground. The simple, softer gesture of the clouds offers contrast to the flat depiction of the water. A dramatic sense of release comes from the simple gesture of the boat’s mast crossing the line of the horizon, connecting the ocean with the sky above.

Rule of Thirds

I frequently compose my paintings using the rule of thirds or occasionally the golden rectangle. The rule of thirds says that images look best when important parts of the composition are a third of the way from the top, bottom or side of the image. I often use this rule to determine where the horizon begins - either a third of the way up from the bottom or a third of the way down. The rule of thirds can be helpful to avoid creating stagnant compositions where exactly half the image is sky and half the image is the earth. The rule is of course just a guideline.

Color Schemes

Color wheel

Color wheel

Basing a painting on two complimentary colors (colors opposite each other on the color wheel) is a great way to create visual tension in a painting. Complimentary colors create both contrast and balance. Here are the three main options:

  • Orange & blue

  • Red & green

  • Purple & yellow

Of course most paintings require more than two colors so once I have covered my painting predominantly with my main two complimentary colors, I will then add another one or two additional pairs of complimentary colors to the painting to provide highlights and create further depth.

Here are some examples:

Primary color scheme: green mountains with red roofs. Secondary scheme: blue sky and orange clouds

Primary color scheme: green mountains with red roofs. Secondary scheme: blue sky and orange clouds

Primary color scheme: blue background, orange trees. Secondary scheme: yellow trees and purple grass. Tertiary scheme: red trees and green grass

Primary color scheme: blue background, orange trees. Secondary scheme: yellow trees and purple grass. Tertiary scheme: red trees and green grass

Primary scheme: blue sky and orange factory wall. Secondary scheme: green grass and red sign and red train tracks. Tertiary scheme: yellow windows and purple grass

Primary scheme: blue sky and orange factory wall. Secondary scheme: green grass and red sign and red train tracks. Tertiary scheme: yellow windows and purple grass

Lighting

I’ve recently been focusing on adding interesting lighting in my works, but it’s not always easy to achieve. Lighting is the key to a great painting, you can have a good gesture and some skill, but without strong lighting the painting will usually lack feeling. Interesting lighting doesn’t have to be bright or extreme, it just has to be dramatic or visible to some degree. Here are some examples of paintings I made that show my attempt to include lighting as a key component to the work.

Although these techniques help me, I don’t believe there are hard and fast rules when it comes to painting. These are just some of the few techniques that help me feel more creative while painting.

Available Paintings

Sculpture Paintings

Constantin Brancusi’s “Mlle Pogany” (8 x 6 inches)
Constantin Brancusi’s “Mlle Pogany” (8 x 6 inches)
$175.00

Making Art and Money

Two years ago I threw out the rule book for how to be an artist and decided to make up my own rules. I’d been taught that to be a successful artist I should: 

Fall Leaves in Poughkeepsie, New York, 2017

Fall Leaves in Poughkeepsie, New York, 2017

  • Make large and time-consuming artworks that are intellectual and aesthetically current

  • Set high prices targeted at rich people

  • Exhibit and sell in galleries

  • Have a website without prices or marketing

  • Market my work by schmoozing gallerists and collectors

For me, the problem with this model was that it was time intensive and created a pretty powerless situation, relying on gallerists and a very small pool of buyers for success. Also, making that kind of work was tedious, demanding and boring. Instead, I decided to make up my own model based on standard business practices.

Here was my strategy:

  • Create paintings that were fun to make - I chose impressionistic landscape paintings which I’ve always loved and admired

  • Use feedback to make irresistible paintings that everyone would want to own

  • Keep the price down and inventory up by painting quickly

  • Sell my paintings online

  • Sell my art where people already are: Etsy, Facebook, Instagram

1) Use feedback to make paintings that are irresistible 2) Paint quickly with large brushes to keep costs down and inventory high 3) Initially undersell to easily generate a high number of sales and increase clients 4) Selling online where people al…

1) Use feedback to make paintings that are irresistible 2) Paint quickly with large brushes to keep costs down and inventory high 3) Initially undersell to easily generate a high number of sales and increase clients 4) Selling online where people already are: Etsy, Instagram and Facebook.

I began my new strategy by posting my paintings on Instagram and Facebook where I found that people appreciated my new paintings far more than my previous work. When I started getting requests from friends who wanted to buy my paintings, I began to sell my work on Etsy, Instagram and Facebook - all places where people already were and where I could easily get exposure.

Painting commission I did of the Firestone Factory in Akron, Ohio

Painting commission I did of the Firestone Factory in Akron, Ohio

I decided to start with a modest price range of $100-$500 a piece and I’ve slowly been increasing my prices since then. Making my art affordable attracted a client base and an immediate sense of success as sales quickly added up. During 2017 I sold most of my paintings listed on Etsy and I now spend most of my time working on commissions. When I’m doing commissions I’m never at risk of making a painting that will go unsold and they’re fun and challenging to make.

I attribute my success to the fact that I’ve let go of my romantic ideas of what it means to be an artist. I’ve given up on the fantasy that someone is going to “discover me” and nurture my success. It is up to me to find my buyers, make my sales and take care of myself. My business model may continue to change, but whatever I end up doing next, I’m really happy I’m creating my own path for success.

Me in upstate New York

Me in upstate New York