The Concept Stage
So i started a new painting today. And yes I did say I was probably going to not do anymore until Summer came around but our Autumn has been unseasonably warm and I’ve managed to keep ‘em going.
Having previously written about preparing a painting panel, we’ll move toward how to get started on the painting itself.
Beginners might find this the most daunting part. Sticking the paint-loaded brush on an expensive, shiny, carefully prepared surface can be intimidating. “What if I fuck up?” You might ask. I would answer to that the best way I’ve found is to not worry about fucking up. In fact, fuck it up early and then just keep rolling with it, thinking there’s a way to save it and make it presentable. Then stop when you aren’t into it anymore or don’t think you can improve it further. Sometimes I’ll go so far as to throw a couple of careless strokes here or there to destroy the pristine surface straight off the bat, then get rolling. In this instance, the surface isn’t a perfect white and a couple of knicks and dents in the gesso are visible when up close. Who gives a fuck. What are you, an instagram baby? Needing every hard-edge and blemish in life smoothed over or vanished away? Just get started and focus on substance.
Moving right along.
I’ll give two further pieces of advice here to overcome inhibitions:
1: practice shitloads: practice drawing, practice painting, practice surface preparation. Getting a lot of runs under the belt will help build confidence over time.
2: As a newbie, expand your preparation schedule at the outset. Devote time to conceptual refinement.
Expanding on point 1:
Draw as much as you can: from life, in visual journals, on the back of notebooks at school or work (i often doodled illicitly at school and did cop heat for it, I was once threatened with expulsion for a cynical drawing which referenced a teacher. But we managed to patch it up after mediation between the deputy headmaster and my Dad, as well as myself and the offended party. Good times, anyway). Try a chalk drawing in your backyard or doodle on the back of a napkin in a restaurant. In my bartending days I remember that I repurposed a pad of order dockets or two. Anytime that you have spare minutes, a drawing implement and a surface to scrawl on. I suppose this is what they mean when they talk about some people “being born with it”. If you have the compulsion to do this, you’lljust never stop and never need to scheule time. That can also be called passion. But I was once told in a lecture given by a plumber from a botched attempt at trade school that “your passion grows”. I know what he meant. If you want to “be” someone, that is, a particular occupation, you just have to start doing it. The desire of your mind will feed the activity and the practice if you are true to yourself. Sports champions will often talk about how they just practised all the time. Their sport was all they ever thought of doing even when they couldnt physically do it.
When people say “I wish I was”… That is actually step 1 right there. Step 2 is doing it. And step 2 feeds back into step 1: “I wish I was better at this, how do i get better at this, what do i need to learn to do next”….
That is your mind being fed by your activity. Thought feeds action which feeds the thought.
If we go back to coming up with the concept/idea-generation stage of a painting, we see this happen too. You will sketch your ideas first. If you are new to this, try doing this a few times to see if you can improve on the sketched idea: experiment with different arrangements, poses, colours, tones, size relationships etc.
You may want to throw in some research: Don’t know how to draw hands very well or clothing? Then spend some time focussing on this skill deficit. Draw your own hands a few times, other peoples, shots from magazines, whatever you can get away with. The same with the clothing: look at different clothing styles, types of fabric, and the way different people wear them. All this will feed the ideas-bank of your mind.
Imagine you had to write a short story or article using only 100 words given to you on a piece of paper. You could only use those words and no others. That would be pretty limiting wouldnt it? Though probably a fun experiment. Then imagine that you were given the same task but were allowed to use all the words found in a large dictionary. This is kind-of how practice works on the mind. It thus goes without saying that you should practice drawing different things, painting in different ways, whatever. If you only do the same thing over and over you will eventually atrophy and hit the wall. You should experiment and go out of your comfort zone. Thats the way to get better.
Im in the habit these days of maybe one concept drawing before a painting, and that’s how I’ve gotten started here. I don’t feel the need to do more. But then I’ve also had the idea stewing in my head for ages, so I’ve thought through the concept a bit, and effectively drafted it in my mind. I also like to jump in now while the idea is still exciting and fresh, rather than kill it through overthinking it. But I’ve also learned to think about different parts of the painting as they come up. There’ll be a need to tackle the colour and detail down the track, that much I’m aware of and im already anticipating it, but which blue and which red and how many tiny lines i need is not something I have to worry about at the initial drafting stage.
Let’s have a go of defining the concept:
What the hell am I painting here?
Basically, it’s going to be a picture of a jock beating up a nerd.
There, I’ve defined it.
Why is he beating him up?
Because its the 1980s and that’s what sharp insightful jocks do to stupid nerds with god-complexes and evil plans of destroying humanity via commie social engineering.
Why am I painting this?
To say that there is a place for jocks beating up nerds in this world. (But not to say that it’s a good thing per se, careful with how you interpret what I mean).
Melbourne essentially got bullied into destruction by a psychotic nerd with a god-complex. Perhaps if he had been beaten up more properly he wouldn’t have done what he did to our society. From what I know of Dicktator Dan’s school days, he was apparently always a lying piece of shit and the rumour on the street is he mingled with drug dealers at uni. That’s impossible to substantiate of course as our useless bought-off lefty press refuse to look into anything that might blemish their neo-Stalinist idol.
A further disclaimer: There were always good nerds and bad nerds. And good jocks and bad jocks. And people can veer from bully to bullied and back again. People aren’t just 1-dimensional caricatures. Blah blah blah.
Songwriters do this:
“I sat down one day and decided to write a song about the place I grew up in…”
“This is a song about my ex-wife…”
etc etc…
Having a definition of intent is helpful. This should be obvious, And yet so much modern art seems meaningless. Devoid of concept, nothing more than wallpaper or a status signal. Not referencing anything other than the creators inflated ego or their feelings. Ego and feelings are great but, untethered to any concept, they just seem like self-aggrandizement or pointless angst. There is nothing of interest for a viewer who isn’t you. It indicates complete selfishness and self-absorption and that I beleive is why a lot of people hate it. You aren’t saying anything to them or presenting anything that they can visually define or relate/respond to.
So when working on concepts, try to also think about who your viewer is. And think about what type of person they are. More on this another time.
A couple of concept ideas i jotted midweek for this painting. There’s a few visual ideas I am going to employ which I havent visibly sketched out, but I’m taking inspiration from 80s-90s American high-school tropes mixed in with some fantasy.
I used Burnt SIenna to start the underpainting. If you want to oil-paint in layers with glazing techniques, then you’ll find some oil paints way better than others.
Accounting for the fact that you can ignore me and do whatever the hell you want, some ground rules from traditional practice can come in handy.
Burnt Sienna is an earthy mid-brown pigment that has a long history as “the starter colour” for paintings. It dries quickly, is stable, looks nice and even in terms of tonal/colour values, and blends well with other colours. Not every colour or device stacks up to modern knowledge, but Burnt Sienna is as reliable as it’s always been.
Worhd Ruv Chinah. The Wok-Steady Crew are contemplating western concepts in the post-western world. DontBeRacism.