I'm a representational painter, by and large. But last week and this week, I felt the urge to try the assignments in abstract first, before tackling a representational version. Both weeks, I found the abstract versions really thrilling, exciting, satisfying. When I moved to a representational version of the assignments, I felt tight. Then I would do another one, and then another one, and it's only with that third version that I felt free again. I've wondered why that is. I never felt I was good at drawing. School, parents, etc. caused that feeling, for sure. Yet, I'm an urban sketcher, I draw directly in ink, people, places, musicians, dancers. No problem. But when I'm moving to a watercolour landscape, it feels more serious somehow and the inhibitions creep in. Part of it is my process in watercolour, where I need to paint a number of iterations of the same landscape before I catch the feeling of it, and I'm fine with that. But I can feel a resistance. Maybe it's the sudden move from my dreamy clouds to highly textured treescapes?
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