Super Sekrit Lore, Or Some Thoughts On Making Paintings

As you can probably well imagine, this has been going on for some time.  I think they gave me crayons and stuff to keep me out of their hair.  

I was thinking of analyzing some of how I go about making a painting and what I think about the process.  I hope this doesn't turn into a boring self-absorbed retrospective.  But, sometimes people ask me about this stuff.  

Now, I have always been of the frequently stated opinion that if you have to talk about a painting, to explain it, then it didn't work.  It was like having to explain a joke.

 

A lot of my approach is because of extreme impatience. 

First thing I will do is "break" a surface, so that it doesn't scare me with it bland perfection.

I'm not thinking much about narrative.  I'm thinking about the physical paint and how it looks.  The brushstrokes, the handwriting, are desperately important to me.

This is why I am so offended by obvious fakes.  People should be able to see that the handwriting is wrong.

Sometimes, I have gotten a bit of narrative in mind.  I'm trying to create an old effect like something I imagine from the past.

I guess really, I am thinking of a painting as a physical object and I am trying to make it "pretty", or satisfying to look at in some way.  I try to make it attractive, even decorative.  My child, the painter in NYC, works much much harder than I do.  She deserves the fruits of her labor.

I think of them to myself as painted boards.  That keeps me in perspective!

The one I am working on right now, I am pretty happy with so far.  But I think I will not post stages as I go along.  I found that caused me to think too much about the viewer and not enough about the paint.  So when its done I will try to photograph it so that it looks something like it will in real life.

I don't know if any of that helped at all. lol

So, I like to watch this character restore artwork.  Very interesting series.