Artist's Eyes

...So, the point of painting a tree is not to paint a literal, exact image of that tree you are looking at.  If you want to be looking at that tree, go stand in front of it and look at it.  If you want to "have a record" of that tree for you to look at anytime you want, take a photo.  Both of those options are much better ways to look at a tree. 
The point of painting a tree is to express something about that tree that is remarkable to you in some way.  If there is a "secret" to painting, this is it....that it is not the technical ability to put paint on canvas or to mix just the right color that takes years to learn.  Those things, like all technical skills must be learned, absolutely.  But they don't take years to learn.  What takes years and can only be learned through experience is the translation of what your eyes see into that remarkable thing you experience and back into a vision of a painting.  This is what I call having "artist's eyes" and I think it is learned, not something that some small handful of people are born with.
 I do believe that some people are more sensitive to their surroundings.  A beautiful sunset doesn't move all people in the same way; Tchaikovsky's Symphany Pathetique doesn't automatically bring tears to everyone's eyes.  And so there is something magical and perhaps inborn about the connection between seeing something and being emotionally moved by it.  But being able to understand what that something is and then expressing it in a painting is the mark of artist's eyes.  (Or artist's ears, in the case of music; artist's words in the case of literature). 
One of the most exciting moments of my life was the day that, as I looked at the scene I was about to paint, suddenly what I saw was not nature's view, but I saw the painting in my mind's eye.  And the minute I saw it, it seemed to paint itself.  By that day, I already had a couple of hundred of paintings under my belt....really. And the more paintings I put behind me the better my artist's eyes work. 
So, that's the only way I know of to find your artist's eyes.  You must put paintings behind you.  Lots of them.  Not so that you have lot's of paintings to frame or to keep (only some percentage will be good enough to keep anyway).  But you need to paint for the exercise of it.  To find your own artist's eyes.

You Cannot Paint a Tree, So Stop Trying

I started painting landscapes by painting from photos.  I don't think that is the ideal way to learn.  Unfortunately, most people work during the day and take classes at night, when plein air landscape is hard, to say the least.  And believe me, painting from photographs is better than not painting at all!  But learning to paint landscapes from photos has a lot of drawbacks.  First of all, except for professional photographers and a few really avid amatuers, most of us take really lousy photos.  The light is wrong, the sky is too washed out and the shadows are too dark.  The color is also wrong; understandable when you consider the limitations of commercial ink.  And although commercial printers are sooooo much better than they used to be, they are still limited----drastically so when compared to the infinite range of color and hue and light in nature.  Experienced artists can learn to deal with these limitations.  But for beginners, this creates serious problems.

One of the biggest skills one must learn in painting is to see (really see) what is in front of him.  Most beginners will tell you that the California hills are brown in summer.  They are not.  They are yellow and orange and violet and olive and mauve.  But the beginner's eyes haven't yet learned the subtle translation of vibrant color combinations that truly make up what we see.  And film does not capture it.  So new students will pull out a tube of raw umber (probably the ugliest color that ever saw the inside of a tube), mix it with white and call it a dry, grassy hill.  Deep shadows will end up black; sea foam, white.  They can't help it.  And so they work hard to try to mix the exact color of the leaves on the tree, but in the end, it's not nature's tree....it's Kodak's tree.  And speaking of trees, a crisp photo captures every leaf, millions of them, in fact, and makes students want to paint every one of them.  Do not go there, or you will be painting leaves for the rest of your life. 

The fact is, you cannot paint a tree.  I cannot paint a tree.  A tree is not made of paint.  But we can paint an image, an impression, or a representation of a tree.  We can paint a painting of a tree.  Better yet, we can paint OUR painting of the tree.  And to really do that, we have to "see" it with all our senses.  Up close, and personal.  Plein air...from real life.... 

The Man Under the Light Post

There is an anecdote about a man, down on his hands and knees under a light post.  A policeman comes along and asks, "What are you looking for?"
"My car keys," the man replies.
The policeman helps the man search for several minutes to no avail.  Finally he asks the man, "Are you sure you lost them here?"
"Oh no," the man replies.  "I lost them over there," he says, pointing to a far, dark corner of the parking lot.
"Then why are you looking over here?" the policeman asks.
"Because this is where the light is," the man replies.

And it is so true.  We spend a lot of time looking for answers in the light because it is easier to look there; less frightening.  But so often, new and innovative solutions cannot be found in the light.  To find them, we must go into the dark, so to speak.  Venture out where there is no map, no course guide, no light to help us find the way.  And that is exactly what making art is all about.  It is about facing the blank canvas.  It is about venturing out in the dark, with no rules or maps laid in front of you.  And so, when something important materializes on that blank canvas, the artist is sometimes considered extraordinary.  But art is not made by extraordinary people.  To paraphrase Bayles and Orland, extraordinary people wouldn't need to make art.  Art is made by ordinary people. 

Those of us who make art know that often when the last brushstroke is done, or the last word written, we look back and wonder "wow, how did that happen?" as if we had nothing to do with it....as if art is somehow swirling around in the ether waiting for someone to bravely walk into the dark and offer themselves as an agent of expressing it.  But, of course, "it" chooses us because we first chose to pick up the brush, to put the pen to paper, to try the notes on the piano.  "It" chooses us because we choose to walk into the dark and be lost for awhile and trust that something new and worthwhile will find us.


 

Art-ovation

About ten years ago, I was very fortunate to be able to take a hiatus from working and make art on a full-time basis.  For four and a half wonderful years, I had a commercial studio, I painted and I taught lessons.  During that time, a wonderful friend of mine used to periodically call me and ask if I was ready to "stop basket weaving and get a real job".  I always took it as the good natured ribbing it was intended to be, but in fact, eventually took his advice.  And for eight years after that, I kept my art and my career in business separate.  In fact, it is sort of a given thing that art making and business don't mix.  Artists have a reputation for being notoriously bad at business and businesses have no time for something as frivolous as art.  There are a few exceptions, of course.  Thomas Kinkade, who turned his art into a super brand, although, many artists then expelled him from the ranks of fine art....doubt he cares, though, he's laughing all the way to the bank and spends his life making his art.  Sounds good to me.

And so recently, I became very curious why we think that way.  Even in education, there is uber-emphasis on math and science, to the sad exclusion of art, music and physical education.  Now people are starting to get it.  No wonder there is a childhood obesity epidemic. 

But here is a trivia question for you:  Who is considered probably the greatest innovator of all recorded history?  Even if Leonardo DaVinci isn't the first person you thought of, you almost certainly will agree he was a remarkable innovator.  DaVinci was a mathemetician, an architect, a scientist, an inventor.  But amazingly, he is also the artist who painted the two most famous paintings of all times: The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa.  DaVinci certainly had no preconceived notions that science, technology and art didn't mix.  So why do we?  In fact, maybe innovation is a product of art?  Or is it that art is a path to innovation?  Either way, I think now that the two belong together; that they are somehow inextricably bound and that we not only can combine business innovation with art, but that we should.

Coming Back

Coming back to art after an 8 year hiatus is pretty scary.  In fact, in the book Art and Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orland, they talk about the difference between quitting and stopping: 

"Quitting is fundamentally different than stopping.  The latter happens all the time.  Quitting happens once.  Quitting means not starting again---and art is all about starting again." 

The truth is, I thought I had quit.  Most of my family and my close friends thought I had stopped and that I would eventually pick up a brush again.  At the time, I thought that if I started painting again and then had to stop all over again, it would kill me.  Stopping the last time was really painful.  And the truth of the stopping then was all about money.  I read once that only 65,000 people in this country actually make a living from their art.  That includes all kinds of art: visual, writing, music, performance.  At the time I stopped, I was making money, just not nearly enough to support my family.  So for many artists, the fear is all about making art that's not good enough.  "Good enough" being defined as positive critical acclaim.  But for many of us (most of us?) "good enough" also means "sells enough" to support yourself and your family at some level above poverty.  Positive critical acclaim and sales often go hand in hand.  But not always.  And the problem with making art evenings and weekends while you drive to your "real" job in Silicon Valley every weekday is that your art is then considered your "hobby".  And that is just about the worst thing anyone every said about my work.

So, I am back now.  I didn't quit afterall.  I stopped.  And I am re-reading Art and Fear again and again.  It's a really awesome book on the fear and rewards of making art.  I have posted a link.  Buy it!  Read it!  If you think you quit, maybe you just stopped.  And even if you don't paint or write or play an instrument, maybe you just haven't started yet.

Today I Published My Website

Today I published my art site, finally, after a couple of false starts. This blogging stuff is new to me as well, but I decided to jump in with both feet. Can I post a link to my website? I hope so, here goes:

http://www.salleepeterson.com/

This is "Point Lobos Morning". I painted this on location at Point Lobos which is a beautiful nature preserve about a mile south of Carmel. I've done a lot of painting there and it is one of my favorite locations.

I'll also get with the program and get a photo of myself up here, it looks like that is a normal blog thing to do.

I live in the South San Francisco Bay area and am going to start some painting classes in the spring and also a painting group for other South Bay plein air painters. If you are interested in either taking classes or just getting together with other plein air painters to paint and have fun, just let me know.