Winter Retreat 2023

Day 1 17/07/2023

I am in Bombay, near Braidwood, alone for a week, surrounded by trees, birds, and wonderful views. I am sitting by a fire and watching the sunrise burn off the mist and reveal the landscape. The day is full of potential. My imagination is running wild with what I might achieve. But then… there is what I can actually achieve, and they are two different things.

On my drive down, I listened to a great podcast “Talking with Painters”. I was particularly taken by the interview with Jude Rae, who paints beautiful, large-scale still-lifes that are full of gravity and quiet poise. She is very articulate about painting. I recommend you go to hear website and read her essays. They make excellent reading. At one point in the interview she said: “…a painting isn’t really complete until someone receives it”. By that, I think she means buys it. I have been meditating on this – figuring out why this felt important to me. I am always delighted (and a bit relieved) when someone buys a painting. It is not just money for goods- it is a tangible approval of my endeavours, which are always laced with self-doubt and self-questioning. I have many, many paintings which I have in storage, thrown away, painted over, or rubbed off. Some I have put up for sale or competition without success. What good are ‘failed’ paintings? Why do I bother with all the expense and effort?

I heard another artist talking about this recently. She said:

I would love to see Sargent, Rembrandt, and Sorolla’s early works- to see those that they stuffed up, flunked, threw away, or painted over. The paintings when they were just learning. This would be so encouraging. Even they must have had clunky, crappy beginnings, surely? I once went to a John Wilson workshop – a master landscape painter who lives in the Blue Mountains. I asked about his early work. He chuckled about how he “had abused a lot of canvasses” and reluctantly showed me his amusing early attempts- which were a long way behind the work he is known for. This was greatly encouraging, though he would not have known how valuable it was to me at the time.

This evening I downloaded a book called Art and Fear (by David Bayles & Ted Orland). It is full of brilliant insights such as:

“Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable, and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding.”

So here I go, then. Into my week of solitude and art making, full of uncertainty, but with an inner resolve to tolerate it.

Dawn mist on the Bombay Road.

19/07/23 Braidwood

 Day two

Absolutely freezing: stunning dawn with frost on the ground, got up to paint the road in the mist. Kangaroos were thudding down the road in to the mist, I kid you not.

This is what I came for. Still, I feel rather silly. Farmers drive by - later my hostess tells me people have been texting her, asking what the hell I was doing, out there at 5 am. What was I thinking?

I have run out of boards to paint on. I am, therefore, writing from bed. How foolish and ambitious it was to bring a car full of enormous canvasses, and so few little ones. Scale is part of the painting.

I am learning something about composition. Started a still life on a huge canvas- all blocked in last night. But during my sleep, - some subconscious thing came bubbling up, and I woke in the dark thinking: it doesn’t work! It is too horizontal! This is one of the benefits of quiet solitude - my inner voice can be heard.

It needs a vertical element (such as something in a vase) and an offset to the horizon. There are two strong horizontals – the cabinet back and front.  Here is what I was going to paint- I love the colours, the reflected light on the gorgeous mini-apples, and the leaves behind, and I thought there was some lovely quiet space in the middle. But still, it doesn’t work – at least for a large-scale painting.

still life set up

Re composition, there I am a fan of Ian Roberts . He posts great artist education videos on YouTube. He is big on composition. He says the painting must, to be compelling, ‘trap the eye’. It must lead the viewer in and keep the gaze traveling into the painting. There is something about being quizzical, wondering what is next, like a little story or pathway into the painting. The horizontals here lead the eye out of the painting. I feel like the energy of the painting is like go-faster stripes- you would zoom past!

I also liked this YouTube video by Stefan Baumann for his advice on composition.

Observe, in contrast, a painting by another of my favourite Australian artists, Criss Canning. There is more complexity and levels to draw the eye in- which is drawn from object to object in a sequence of variation and interest.I have two book recommendations here

Ian Roberts “Mastering Composition” (buy from his website -https://www.ianroberts.com/ ).

“How Pictures Work” by Molly Bang

And Criss Canning: the pursuit of Beauty – just for the sheer volume of gorgeous still-life paintings.

Criss Canning’s still life.

19/07/23

Tried to paint a tree (just as an exercise, on a scrap of paper) this evening- rubbed it off in a fit of disgust. But before I did so, I tried to analyse why it didn’t work. I stopped to look. I have tried to follow this advice:

“The lessons you are meant to learn are in your work. To see them, you need only to look at the work clearly, without judgment, without need or fear, without wishes or hopes. Without emotional expectations. Ask you work what it needs, not what you need. Then set aside you fears and listen, the way a good parent listens to a child.”

 Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland: part 1, end of chapter 3.

I have no conclusions except- I need to paint more! much, much more. More often, to experiment, to fail, to discover, to develop the skills. I just need more brush-miles under my belt.

The gum in the paddock - an experiment in limited palette.

24/07/2023 I finished Art and Fear. I highly recommend. My next is an art diary by Anne Truitt called “Daybook”. I love this book already- I read and put it down regularly just to savor the words- to think about and absorb them. She was quite the poet.

‘Winter road’