by Mark Gabriel, for Art Talk, a regular publication in the Journal del Pacifico
Non-Painting of Painting.
I am a painter, and I love painting, but sometimes my favourite part of painting is not painting. And I don’t just mean the “not-painting” prep work and planning and sketching before the actual painting, although I like that too and I’ll get to some of that, what I really dig sometimes, is all the other stuff.
Art Supplies.
I like shopping. I love art supplies and I love shopping for Art supplies. I could spend days in an art supply store. I could live there. So that’s basically what I do. Some of the best times I’ve had not-painting are spent buying art supplies. I fill my studio with as much of those glorious materials-of-potential as I can, and then spend my time living there. Surrounded by the epic potential of all that gear. Tubes of paint, pens, ink and fields of paper and canvas. It’s the packaging, the plastic and metal vessels. Those endless kits of things to make marks with. I adore the breaking open, unsealing, dipping into fresh unsullied materials d'art. I love fingering all those containers of pencils and pastels and charcoal. I love getting my hands dirty. I love the smell. Markers and linseed oil and exotic solvents. I love being surrounded by art supplies. If I was Richie Rich, I’d fill my swimming pool with art supplies and spend my days a-floating.
What is an empty desk a sign of?
When I am supposed to be working, I like to organize my studio. It’s not so much about cleaning, it’s a great time to reacquaint myself with all the art supplies I have floating around. Plus, remember what Einstein said about a cluttered desk? I have no problem with clutter. What I cannot abide is not being able to find some tool or medium I need in a timely manner when I’m in the flow. Creative impulses move fast from brain to the fingers, one needs to be as ready to receive those impulses as execute them. The bonus is all those tools and paint in their proper place looks so damn good.
On top of that, it goes without saying that to organize my studio I am moving about. It is an early form of creative pacing, which I do quite a bit when I’m painting. And it’s an especially important part of what I do before I start actually painting, before I’m in the flow. Who knew that moving about would aid in creative reception? It’s a great way to get those wheels turning, and its good cardio.
Input.
Pacing leads me to Input. Pacing is not unlike a road trip, a mostly forward momentum adventure that is a feast for the senses. Unlike actual painting, which is of course, Output and is as exhausting as running and jumping, Input is literally like feasting. We’re filling up at that metaphysical gas pump in the sky. Divine intervention can come at any time, but I have learned that a great way to speed things up is to hoist a lightning rod. Better if I can point the rod in the general direction of where I’m looking to go creatively. Input for me, are all the things that feed my soul, and in turn inspire the work – hanging with good people and puppies, hanging at bookstores and record, playing my guitar, staring into space etc. – and only with a full soul, can I even begin to think about the actually-painting part. Non-painting things like meditation and dipping my toe into that transcendental lake David Lynch swears by, are fantastic sources of gathering. Input is almost always the most fun thing to do. I could do it all the time. Until I can’t.
Spooky action at a distance or, The actual Non-painting before the painting.
At some point, I can’t stand it anymore, and I must get to painting. I can only get so far away from the painting I’m supposed to be making. Once I’ve partially or wholly conceived of the thing, and that can really happen at any time, the two of us are in execrably linked. The painting and I are two parts of a whole. We will forever share a special interdependent spatial proximity. At this point, If I never get to actually paint this painting, I will always feel like there is something missing in my life. It would be the biggest shame. Unfulfilled creative impulses are the artist’s original sin. I admit to having let juicy nuggets slip past me before, but until I am dead, there will always be an opportunity to reunite with these exotic others, wherever in the ether they go. They are never too far gone. Regardless, let us not be low about the ones that slip away, we are returning to our well, and getting ready to actually-paint.
The first thing to do when you sit down to paint, is not paint. Really, that’s true. The first thing you do is to properly look at what you’re about to paint. One needs to truly “see” the subject before one paint the subject! This was taught to me by Stan, my life drawing professor first year of art school. It’s an extremely important lesson that I still live and paint by. Stan was wise. He was of course talking about not jumping into drawing or painting a still life, or live model before actually using your eyes and brain. We bring bias to the drawing board, we think we know how a body bends, where the eyes are placed on a head, or what color an orange is. We don’t take the time to see for ourselves, that a body changes as it moves, stretching skin changes texture and shape and affects where the shadows and highlights fall. How the eyes are more than just anatomy they are windows into character, and that to ignore the personality of the thing we are about to explore through our paintbrush, we do at our peril. Naturally the color of something is always in relation to the quality of light bouncing off its surface. Other colors surrounding our orange - the linoleum table on which it sits, the banana next to it – definitely have something say about what is and is not orange. These are but a handful of a million things one would miss if one just started painting, without truly seeing a thing. I hazard to take Stans lesson further and commit to truly looking at my subject, even if it’s just a subject in my head before I put brush to canvas. I need to take a beat and try not to paint even when I feel like I am so ready to paint. And although we’re getting close, there are more non-painting steps worth thinking about.
Sketching is something I adore. Maybe because I’m good at it. It’s nice to have at least one naturally occurring talent, and traditional pencil and paper drawing has always been good to me. My painting teacher at art school, not Stan, told me I wasn’t a painter, I was a drawer. She was right, but also, she was challenging me. In terms of the all-important rough sketch before I begin a painting, I’m mostly all in. I know it’s important and I do the work. I’ve also learned how much I love color and how to use it. Thanks, art teacher for the right kinda push, I now do color roughs as well. I don’t admit it often, but this is getting pretty close to actual painting.
“Terminally Jangled Lifestyle.” H. S Thompson
Color is genuinely related to actually-painting, but I am still in the non-painting phase, and I need to mix some color before I start actually-painting. I love mixing paint. I take great care in finding the exact color I want to use. My color gets noticed. It’s one of the things people say they really like about my work, so I mix up some color. And then something amazing happens. Somewhere in there, in amongst the palette knife skipping across my palette, blending worlds of hue like soft serve ice cream or butter, things are beginning to feel groovy. Before I even perceive it, I slip into the flow. Paint starts to appear up on my canvas, it’s quite magical. And then somewhere in the expanding being that is me in the flow state - I comprehend a truth.
Sometimes my favorite part of painting, is actually painting.
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