The tools make the artist.
The tools an artist chooses to use define not only the process but also the results. Three tools have been especially formative to me: a digital SLR camera, a specific kind of flat varnish brush, and acrylic paints.
Like for many people, the transition from an analog to a digital camera was scary and exciting for me. I was already taking a lot of photos of my subjects, but my digital SLR made my trigger finger that much happier by helping me to avoid the developing expenses later. The additional images of my sitters expanded my range when I sat down to paint.
The new camera changed my process in a less predictable way too: it gave me the courage to start this blog by allowing me to gather images which, I hoped, would always be able to make my words more interesting. And, in turn, the blog has become a tool for understanding both my own work and portraiture in general more fully. There’s nothing like writing thoughts down to make you clear on just what it is that you’re thinking!
There’s also nothing like not having your tools to show you how much you depend on them. Just over a year ago, I was made aware of how important my wide, flat brushes are to the way I work. I did a workshop about self-portraiture at a local high school, and, in between helping the students with their paintings, I played at painting their teacher’s portrait. Catastrophe! I had trouble getting the effects I wanted without my own brushes.
Still, more so than my camera and brush decisions, it’s my fundamental choice of medium that defines the work I do. Tools which are so integral to an artist’s process become more than tools: they are the artist’s teachers. Their limitations form the artist as much as their possibilities, and their nuances keep the artist always coming back for more. In every sense of this tool/teacher role, acrylic paints were meant for me, and it’s nowhere more clear to me than in looking at process images of my work.
I have never used oil paints.
I have never wanted to.
Before I had an inkling of my future style, I chose to work in acrylics for practical reasons: their fumes are less toxic and they are easier to clean up.
When I was starting out I was working in my bedroom, and I needed the paint I used to be safe.
I continued painting in acrylic when I learned how long it takes oil paints to dry.
My method of working is in brushstroke over distinct brushstroke.
I like to work quickly—so quickly that even fast-drying acrylics sometimes slow me down!
It wouldn’t be possible to reproduce my method in oils.
I would only lose my train of paint every time I had to let the work dry.
Ultimately, acrylics raised me up to be the artist I am today.
And I feel like I’m only just beginning to pay the paint back for its favor!
These days, I’m beginning to push back on the medium that pushed me, finding ever more nuances in the paints.
Then again, looking at this process image, I have to wonder if maybe acrylics are not my most demanding (and rewarding) teacher.
Though not a tool, it’s maybe the human face that’s most formed me as an artist. After all, I got to these late phases of Lily’s portrait before noticing how far off her left eye was, and, between this image and the completed portrait, the entire face area had to be reworked to create the finished painting!
Gwenn Seemel
Lily
2008
acrylic on canvas
30 x 30 inches
(detail below)
Which brings me back to how likeness can drive the artist to make a better, more purposeful work of art!
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CATEGORIES: - Process images - Practice -
