Painting my own work with learned techniques.
In the 90ties, a VHS video with painting videos was released for the first time in the Netherlands. A quarterly art magazine publisher bought them abroad. and you could order or pick them up there. Very expensive by the way. I paid 92 guilders for 1 video. Now it's normal but thirty years ago it really wasn't. I was on night shift that week and couldn't get there until Friday morning. because the publishing house was closed on the weekend! I Worked all week at night and Friday morning at 7 o'clock at home. The store didn't open until 9am. and it was 25 km away. I drove to Alkmaar at 8 o'clock and picked out a video. Ray Campbell Smith Watercolors.
I was home at 10 am. and began to watch the video.
His calming voice about watercolour made me even more sleepy than I was already and fell asleep. I woke up many hours later, rewind the video and watched again. My jaw dropped.
I rewinded again, and watched the 90 minutes again. I showered, came down again and watched again! In fact I watched that video over and over again that weekend.
He used 5 tubes of pigment. Burnt and Raw Sienna, French Ultramarine Blue, Light Red and Winsor Blue (green shade) (in that time there was only green shade) It was an eyeopener. I thought, that is the way to do it! Now I know, I can use it for my own work in North Holland I love so much. He used 300 lb Arches (I could not afford that so I bought 140 lb) And just a few brushes from W&N The Sceptre series.
The following week I worked the evening shift, so I went in the morning to the store to buy pigments, paper and brushes. That weekend I was eager to paint the village of Driehuizen on a dike in North Holland. Outdoors is the best way to learn. Even when you need to make a break because whole herd of sheep had to pass the same dike. And I used the just learned techniques
I think it took me almost 4 hours to complete. but I was happy with it. The reed edge and the waterfront still caused problems, but the rest looked many times fresher than before. If you look good, I painted everything apart. there is no cohesion between the objects I painted. But the few pigments made that there is unity.
Many years later I stood on that dike again with a different result. But the first one for-fill me with the same joy as the day I made it! Its mine! And I know Oliver did the same as I did, learning from a video or book and practicing on your own subjects. Because that's why you want to paint. But now comes my surprise of the recent years. I see people who want to paint only make copies of demonstrations. And often they make a few so that they have the almost perfect copy. Then they try to paint their own work, and that doesn't work. There must be something wrong, I need more lessons!! Then they go to follow another demo or a workshop or a zoom class. I know some do 5 a year and come back crazy and frustrated with all the different styles in their heads. You don't have to believe me and you don't have to do this. But watch the videos, and incorporate it into your own work. I think it is fun to see a successful copy of one of my demos. But I like it even more when I hear I made my own painting with the technique I learned from Edo or Oliver. Or from another painter. My last demo on youtube is about some trees on the waterfront. it's a made-up waterfront and made-up trees. It is a lesson on a broken brush technique and a wet on wet reflection technique for the water. Find a tree near the water in your area, and use that technique for your own work. I don't care that you can copy my painting. It's about your painting. I only show the techniques so you can use it. Regards and success Edo
I think its like everything else; everyone has a different approach. Bach started music by copying out the manuscripts of others; some of his very early work was derivative. Really, on some ways, its not so much an approach, so much as a function of how far you go. In the beginning, you copy others (whether that's learning the alphabet or gardening or whatever). But as you gain experience, and confidence, you start to want to do things differently. In some ways, I think that art and music has become too much an exercise in being different for being different's sake. Bach didnt want to different, he wanted to master existing forms. And that's what he did. He copied the French style, and the German style, and the English style, and the Italian style.. he transcribed works by others... his work followed the rules of counterpoint, and he used the circleof fifths, and so on and so on. But by doing this, this sheer volume of work, the "tips and tricks" became second nature and he was now able to use the language of music easily, and from that, he became what he became. "If anyone puts in the work that I did, they can become as good". Copying the works of others isnt the goal, but its a first step in learning "how did they do that"? If you can copy works by several different artists, you learn by doing, how this or that effect was achieved. If you keep doing this, then when you meet a subject that catches your attention, you have a stab at capturing it on paper. This is the technical aspect of learning. Yes, you wont be a famous artist if you stop there. That is true. But some people are happy stopping there, and if that is what gives them joy in life, why not? To some, just being able to copy in a way that looks decent, not childish, it's an achievement! That's school level. The next level is the university level, when you learn not to copy, but to create. To write your own thesis, not regurgitate lessons. Not everyone will get there. Not everyone wants to get there.
But this is the level you are talking about. Where you stop learning and start DOING. At this stage, you can stop following all the "rules" - no gouache, use proper sketches with perspective, tight painting, loose painting, representative painting or abstract painting - I saw some Van Gogh watercolors recently from his period at a coal mine. They were dreadful. Like a child. I think its when he "gave up" and started painting just to amuse himself, that he finally became a great painter. His houses and chairs arent exercises in perspective any more, they are disproportioned and garishly colored. His "Starry Night" looks nothing like an actual starry night. But its better nonetheless. Far, far better. Ultimately, what should matter to every artist, is not being able to copy, nor being able to follow compositional "rules", or "color harmony" or perspective, or anything else - its being able to be inspired by a scene in some way, and being able to get that down on paper. Technical skill gets you only so far, and yes, copying can give you this technical skill, which is why people copy art that inspires them, to "learn from the masters". But that's learning HOW. The second part is the WHY. To be in a cherryblossom snowstorm with the spring sunshine bright, or to be in a still and silent winter wonderland, or to be in a hot and dry dusty desert town with the harsh sun bearing down - these are feelings to be captured. And this is the tricky part for most amateur artists - how to go beyond technique to capture these ephemeral feelings and moods. Yes, it helps to be out on location to get this feeling, but its not required. Sometimes a photo can remind you of an experience you had in the past, and you can use the photo as a catalyst for trying to capture that remembered feeling. Do you need to follow compositional rules? No. Following rules can dry the inspiration from the brush. Sure, if you want to be a professional artist selling paintings, you should paint what sells. But to me, right now, I'm more focused on how to capture reflected light, or sparkle on water, or hot summer shadows. So that's what I'm painting.When I become a master of the effects I want to achieve, sure, then I can follow compositional rules. Although personally I prefer to find a scene I like and paint that, rather than move trees and buildings around to aid the composition. The way you copied that river scene above from what was in front of you. So what I'm saying is that everyone is at their own level in the journey, and some will get so far, and others will go farther.
The main benefit of others art, as far as I'm concerned, is to find out what you yourself personally like. I like some things in some people's art, and other things in other people's art. Decades ago, I was hugely into David Bellamy's watercolors, and I still think they are exceptional. But I no longer want to create art like that. I find it too detailed in places, I find the composition a little forced in places, a lot of little things, it's just not what I find inspiring to me as a goal anymore. So art's a journey, and yes, a lot of that journey is getting distracted by one painter or another. Maybe you read a book that was heavy on composition that has influenced you, or a book on color harmony, or whatever.. maybe if there's a big tree here, you need a little tree there to balance it. Whatever. The point is that this is all a stage on each persons unique journey, and everyone will end up somewhere else if they start on that journey and continue. Here are my main suggestions (often I dont follow them myself) (1) Learn techniques to achieve effects that you admire, by trying to copy that effect. Copying a painting is nothing, copying an effect you like is everything. And if that means copying the painting, to feel like you've completed something, so be it. (2) Get out in nature, or into your mind's eye, and find something that inspires you. Then try to replicate the feeling in a painting. (3) Keep doing this. The more you do it, the better you get. (4) Look at your own paintings, see where you got things right. Analyze your mistakes and your successes - why did it work? why did it not work? And that's pretty much it. Then read books, watch videos of others, take what you like, leave the rest. Dont feel the need to replicate others in your final artworks. Replicate what's in your own head. So its not copy or dont copy - its copy as an exercise, but aim to get what's inside your own head - even if you cant see it yet!