Squint they say. Squint!

Wildflowers

Original oil painting  14x18"

by Susan Roux

I have to admit, I really can't see. 

I don't mean that I'm blind, though I often refer to myself as the blind artist. Without my glasses the world is a blur. I like to think of it as a good blur. 

Most art teachers will stress the importance of squinting. It eliminates detail and reduces your subject to a series of values. It's a great tool. You can quickly evaluate which darks are the darkest and assess exactly where the light turns to shadow. Sometimes color can be confusing. It can play tricks on your eyes. An object of bright color placed in shadow may appear lighter than another of a dark color in light. A quick squint and the real values come into clear view, instantly. I think it may be one of an artists most important tools. 

I teach to a new group of beginners twice a year through a local Adult Ed program. I've come to realize how useful it is for me to teach this class. It keeps me focused on the fundamental basics. When you take people who've never picked up a brush, perhaps never even drawn before and try to teach them to achieve pleasing results in a total of 16 hours, you find yourself focusing on the bare essentials. My first lesson is all about learning to see. I refer to it as apple night. We paint a single apple three or four times within two hours. I've found the first thing a student needs to know is how to begin looking at things.

Objects of any kind can be broken down as a form. If you learn how to see the basic make up of forms, you can be taught to imitate the values and thus capture form on your canvas. It is the fundamental premise of representational art. 

Squint. Remember to squint!

I began the above painting during my artist retreat at the mansion last month. In one sitting (standing really) I played wet into wet capturing this simple marsh scene. I was unhappy with part of the foreground. Now I wish I had photographed it at that stage to show you, but it didn't occur to me to do so at the time. All I was thinking of was fixing it! The swooping bush of delicate white flowers didn't read as a full bush. It was a problem of overlooking form. The entire form. In this case, the bush. I had focused too much on capturing the tiny delicate flowers and by doing so, overlooked it as an entity. What I needed to paint was the bush itself and then add flowers. 

Today I set this sorry painting on my easel. I removed my glasses. It helped me see beyond the dotted details I had spotted in. Looking at my reference, all I could discern were the values. I picked up my friend, the BIG brush. (It's a number 10 filbert that measures about an inch wide.) Fearlessly, I chopped into my white dotted flowers and began to establish the form of a bush. Immediately it improved. I dropped a few more quick colored strokes, adjusting my values. 

No squinting necessary. 

Without my glasses, I see a lovely blur. A blur that has the same effect as squinting. Not only is it a great painting tool, it's even saving me from developing an abundance of crows feet! How can you beat that? After capturing my form, I put my glass back on to clean up my details. 

I would have to say as a teacher, I forget to remind my students to squint. I've grown so accustomed to not needing to, that I forget to mention it. How about you? Do you remember to squint? Are you an on the glasses, off the glasses type of painter too? How do you go about finding your values?

Impressionist

The Window

Original oil painting 14x18"

by Susan Roux

Don't you just love it when you're relaxed, just blogging around, and you come across a post that makes you want to sit down and write? You know what I mean. Those posts that put some idea out there that really gets you thinking and you're compelled to explore it deeper. That's just what happened this morning as I read Paint Dance.

Maryanne wrote, " I love impressionism. I am a little sad that it has not reached the level of popularity that we currently see in styles like representational realism." It was a lovely post with a John Singer Sargent's Breakfast in the Loggia pictured.

Loving impressionism...

Now there's a common thought among many artists. Put me at the top of the list! I have adored Monet's work for years and over half of my rather large art library is publications on him and the impressionist. I've read everything I could get my hands on about Claude. So much so, that in time I came to feel like we were close friends.

How I loved the dreamy strokes, dashes of color, that came together in amazing reality! The light the Impressionist captured drew so many of us into their world. I tingle just thinking about it.

I never tried to paint like Monet though. I was a firm believer that you needed to be true to yourself and paint in a way that felt natural to you. For me, that which poured out of my soul was a colorful fairly-detailed representation with an acute appreciation for light. Painting in my own natural style worked for quite a few years.

Then it happened.

I exposed myself to more and more art and fell in love with lots of it. So many soft dreamy strokes, laid on impasto thick, I wanted to pass my finger atop it and lick it like frosting. I was so drawn to this look, I wanted to paint like that too. How many of us have started out tight and then struggled to loosen our strokes? I think its pretty common.

So for years I pushed myself in this direction, never being satisfied with my work. I'm still there struggling with it to this day. But recently something has changed in my mind. Like my eyes have been opened anew. It goes back to my original way of thinking, how you must remain true to what comes out of your soul naturally. My thoughts go deep and many questions arise. Questions about improvement and pushing yourself in the direction you admire. It can feel like its coming from within, when with all our being, you love these works you see. But what's in the mind and in the soul are different.

Its been difficult for me to understand. In the past year, I feel like I've come full circle, painting in a way that resembles my original process. Yes, those years of easel time have improved my work, but to think how far I could be with it had I only continued with what poured out naturally.

So the thoughts in my head intrigue me. I feel there is something very natural and in control that wants to come out. I'm ready to embrace the representational part of me, that for years I tried to suppress. But somewhere in there I believe there is a softness too. When I go off to the art retreat in February, I hope to explore this concept further. I feel its at the tip of my brush and is ready to pour out. I only need time to devote to it. I think, or better yet, feel I have a balance of dreamy and tight and they will come together on canvas. I've fought the representational side of myself for so long. It feels good to get to a place where I can be comfortable accepting it.

Unlike Maryanne's statement, I've felt an embrace for looser work over representational work in today's society. I do however think impressionist of today feel its work done quickly. Capture that first impression with bold strokes in a limited time. But the real Impressionist only gave the illusion of it being quickly executed. Monet returned over and over to the same spot, in search of the same light, to continue his paintings. When the light wasn't just right at the same time of day, he would begin a new painting. He returned daily and would progress the one canvas that had the same light, never working it for longer than 20 minutes. If he didn't find the same light within two weeks time, he could no longer continue because with the orbit of the earth, the light had changed visibly for him. This made it impossible for him to capture that moment in time he devoted his life to.

So why is it, I wonder, that the impressionist of today came to feel it needed to be painted within a short period of time? If today's impressionist spent the same amount of time and energy on a painting as the original Impressionists, would they rule in popularity?

Posted: The Window will be one of the paintings in Saturday's exhibition at CMMC, Lewiston, Maine from 10-4 in the main lobby. You're invited to come. If you're around, please do!