I’m not new to art. I’m new to painting. There’s a difference. But I’m so new to painting that I’m still a nervous beginner. Each step I take fills me with anxiety. Am I doing it right, enough “right” that I can keep moving forward with confidence? Or am I doing it wrong, so wrong that people will point and laugh? Worst of all: is there no way to know for sure what’s right and what’s wrong? Is it truly up to me? Do I get to grade my own work? That’s a wild idea! You can love your work. You can like it. You can see improvement and understand why you did what you did the way you did. But can you judge it? Objectively assess its goodness or badness or meh-ness? I didn’t think so until yesterday.

Now I do.

In the past week I’ve asked knowledgeable people (two artists whose work I respect and one art buyer who is spot-on with her purchases) what they thought of a few of my most recent paintings. Remember: I’m a beginner. I’m still learning how to mix paint and apply it in purposeful ways. So I asked them for their critical opinions but hoped that they’d let me know if they saw any improvement or not. That’s all I really wanted to know, but was afraid to ask.

Their opinions were vastly different. All detailed, all reasonable. And all different. One was very positive, full of good things and obvious improvements. Another was mostly negative, including a comment that one of the paintings looked like two-year old did it and that I could do better. The third was a mix of positive and negative, and puzzlement over my desire to paint at all. ”You’re really good at digital work! Why not just do that? ” was his question.

This morning as I let the various words wash over me one more time they coalesced into an insistent whisper in my mind, a rhythmic presence I now understand to be my own heart:

Do whatever you want to do, any way that you want to do it. Keep working. Grade your own work. It is up to you.

I haven’t been this relaxed and happy about painting since I picked up a brush to teach myself, 5 months ago.

My critics have set me free.

Filed under: art, creativity, inspiration, thoughts, visual arts Tagged: art, art criticism, artist, critique, drawing, frame of reference, myopeseyes, objectivity, painting, robin king, robpixaday ]]> http://robpixaday.com/2012/01/23/your-critics-will-set-you-free/feed/ 11 robpixaday mouth http://robpixaday.com/2012/01/23/trippingly-on-the-tongue/ http://robpixaday.com/2012/01/23/trippingly-on-the-tongue/#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:01:29 +0000 robpixaday http://robpixaday.com/?p=4632 ]]> Ahhhh…words. Gotta love ‘em.  Sometimes saying them is a joy unto itself. Doesn’t matter what they mean! They feel good. Here are a few of mine:

• Terpsichore
• Lackadaisical
• Crystalline
• Anemone
• Onomatopeia
• Fracture
• Persnickety
• Fussbudget
• Terse
• Elucidate
• Tintinnabulation
• Obsequious
• Funicular
• Syzygy
• Diphthong

That’s not a complete list, by the way. I have more, mostly from other languages, like “disprezzata” and “emprunterions.” Maybe one of these days I’ll make a list of those, too.

 Anyone else have some fav’s?

I’m a cyber-loiterer. Maybe that’s because of the flat rate for internet service. Back in the Old Days when the internet was still a toddler, time was doled out in minutes. And it was expensive. I didn’t need it for “work” and used it frugally. Eventually the fear of overspending stopped me dead. Now things are different. It’s all or nothing. The internet’s on or off. I can sit here 24/7 if I want to. I don’t want to. I don’t really want to switch on the computer at 5:00am and shut if off twelve hours later after ACTUALLY using it online for less than three hours. That’s just silly. When I was making digital art my excuse was that I was creating images, too. Because people might buy them it was an investment and potentially very useful (not just my innate desire to tool all over the cyberlandscape, exploring). But the switch to paint and pencils, etc., has meant no digital art, which means no real need to have the computer on except when I’m actually blogging or posting, visiting, etc.

Well, that’s my still gut talking — don’t pay any attention to the borborygmus – and I think I should listen. So next week I’m going to time myself as I do the various online things I do. Can most of my internet activity be accomplished in three hours? Four? If that’s the case, then I may decide to treat the computer like any other tool: use it when and for as long as I really need it. To do otherwise is wasteful and, in the case of cyber-loitering, a dangerous habit. It’s too easy for me to spin mindlessly through the interwebs and not accomplish other things. 

All this thinking has left me curious. For those of you who make your living on or via the internet: How much time do you think/know you spend online? How much of it is absolutely critical to your purpose of being there? Do you ever feel like you’re wasting time online? 

Anyone want to share? 

sketch by Robin King

Help, please?

Drawn my Robin King (1997)

Ha! Most of us could be. There’s an amazing variety of traits to portray — those bulbous noses and batlike ears, wiggly hands and clowny feet,  electrified hair and questionable whiskers — but I’ve stuck to drawing just a few types and rarely strayed  from the armless sadsacks I’ve found some success with.  I love those little guys; I enjoy drawing them.  But I was also afraid to try some other way and fail. If you rock the boat you can drown! And then  a couple of weeks ago a very good friend who’s heard me whine about hitting the cartoon ceiling gave me this book/kit: “How to Cartoon” and I’ve spread my cartoony wings.

It’s sooooo much fun! At first I tried copying the cartoons in the book (the book is super). Fortunately I’m not a great copier so it didn’t take long for me to stray from them and veer off into my own style. The good (and it’s VERY GOOD) news is that now I can draw people who have hands and feet and legs and actually seem to move. And animals! Yes. 

Great news, hunh? Excellent, actually, because now I can draw the people I know, by assembling parts of them — their gestures, their expressions, bits and pieces  – into characters. It’s a new cartoony world! 

Here’s another little sample of my first attempts:

Acrylics on canvas board (detail from in-process painting by Robin King)

My plan for this site was to make it about art…some humor…a little bit about my life. Mostly art, though. Yesterday a friend (but not a WordPress member) happened on my latest post and scolded me in that way good friends do: “You had a plan! That piece was off-message. Good enough but off-message. It wasn’t about art. It’s obvious you included the sketches for comic relief, not because they mattered.” She was right. That’s exactly what I did. The piece wasn’t funny and wasn’t meant to be. It was topical and important but not consistent with my plan for this site. I stuck my quirky little sketches in it mostly to lighten the mood. So I deleted the post this morning after publishing another post that wasn’t about art. I guess you could say I’m in an “upheaved” state right now. Art is all around me and I’m grabbing it as fast as I can. What that means is that my hands are nearly full. Other ideas, other skills, other dreams are dribbling out of my fingers in order to make room but I’m trying to nurture them anyway. That’s important but this isn’t the place for it. 

However, upheaval is good sometimes. And it’s great fun when it can be focused. This weekend I began and nearly completed a new painting. When it’s done-done I’ll show it to you. In the meantime I’ll say this: for years I’ve wondered how people create images that appear to be full of shimmering, dancing light.  That’s what I was trying to do and I got close! There’s light on the canvas. It’s not twinkly. It’s more of a muted glow. But now I know the secret.  The image above is a small section of the painting.

Hooray for upheaval!

Who’s devouring all of the sweet strawberries? The sugary grapes? Tasty blueberries? And which fortunate consumers have been munching happily on the non-plasticized tomatoes? The lettuce with no slime on it? Is it the 1% people? Maybe it’s the mega-rich folks who eat banks for breakfast and probably buy farm mortgages just so they can pre-taste strawberry tips like discerning wine drinkers sniff corks.  Hang on. Do they still do that with the corks? I always thought it looked a little fey.

Anyway, I’d like to know who’s getting all the luscious fruit because I know it isn’t me or anyone I know. For the past year or so the produce I’ve found has been over ripe, under ripe, sour, slimy, or the consistency of roofing insulation. And I shop around. Friends and relatives are telling me the same thing. It’s not just this area where I live; the problem seems to be everywhere. Who’s getting the good stuff?  I’ll bet they’re not left gasping for air after swallowing blueberries sour enough to disintegrate a granite counter top.

But I keep trying. Yesterday I bought 2 pints of “SWEET” (they were labeled that way) strawberries for $5.00. That’s a great price for this area in winter. It’s a decent price for this area in summer. The tops were happy and green, not wilted; the berries weren’t bruised or mildewy. They smelled gorgeous! But they’re so sour my eyes teared up when I tasted one. I was on my way to complain about it to the produce place this morning when a very pricey sports car suddenly pulled out in front of me with no warning. It was so close I could see the dipsh*t who was driving; I could see that he saw me before he gunned the engine. He had an apple clenched in his teeth. It made him look like one of those pigs on a groaning table, straight out of Chaucer.  My car has dandy brakes so I was OK but the screeching tires and blasting horn made him drop his apple. And what did he do? He gave me  ”the finger” out his window when I pulled up behind him.  Class; pure class.

Hoping he can read lips in rearview mirrors (a useful skill) I wished him 1% of a good day. Then I put my car in reverse and cleared out of there. 

Want to see an example of this? Here are photos of the life of a painting that I think is nearly finished, in spite of the fact that it’s a million miles from the sketch I wanted to bring to life on canvas. If you want details, you’ll find them in the captions.

And that’s how it goes. One after another, the faces fly by. 

Note: All images created by Robin King