Rhythm & Blues & Painting

SAME OLD SAME OLD

There is one great obstacle to the painting life and at least one possible antidote: getting bummed and getting groovy again.  Since starting to oil paint again Ive had a little microcosm of an art career flash before my eyes and its reminded me of my actual life making art.  It goes a little something like this:

  1) Get excited and inspired to try something.

  2) Have a bit of success at it and feel good.

  3) Get distracted and stop creating.

  4) Feel bad, get more distracted.

THE HUES OF THE BLUES

That seems to be a farely regular routine in my art life cycle.  The trick is to intervene or snap out of it before you hit step four which just repeats itself in an endless loop.  Ideally you hit step three and then pop yourself right into step 1 before your mind gets involved.  The blues are unavoidable so its important to make something from it or to take control of the cycle.

This time around when I began oil painting again last Summer I was able to observe my cycle with a bit more attention.  It started as usual with me coming across some great plein air painting online (one of the main culprits was an old friend’s website, www.colinpagepaintings.com).  This got me wanting to get my hands in that good ol’ oil stuff again and have that beautiful linseed oil smell greet me each day.  So I did and it went great (some of the results are on my site, www.teejaymaher.com).  Of course I then got distracted traveling and such and found myself going months without really being able to get it started again.  This got me kind of bummed out about the whole idea of painting and doubting myself quite a bit.  There are all kinds of trappings your mind can use to throw you off your game.  Sometimes it gets you interested in other hobbies, other times it makes you totally wrapped up in some time wasting activities and other times it just convinces you that you don’t know what the first step is to get started or there are too many steps to even bother with that day.

SAY UPJUMP THE BOOGIE TO THE RHYTHM OF THE BOOGIE

Onward to the present moment where I have begun painting regularly again.  What is most important about the above is that I observed the pattern.  The months in between were really just filled with my wandering mind but once I started actually putting (or forcing at times) brush to canvas again it all fell aside and my rhythm was back.

I realized that the blues is a natural part of painting, getting discouraged by some poor results or distractions is just part of the gig.  What is important though is to keep my sites set on the rhythm.  My working rhythm is what keeps the cycle renewing itself and keeps a healthy dose of positivity pumping in with the blues I encounter.  For me Ive found that taking the rhythm idea literally helps and so I tend to work in series.  I make little production lines of work that I go through in sequence updating each painting in a row.  I did this for a long time with my Enso paintings and works on paper but I discovered this week that it easily applies to oil painting as well with a few adjustments (well maybe just that its with oil paint).

Im now a little more aware that the blues are gonna hit me occasionally no matter how good a painter I become but with a little planning and dragging through the initial slump its not so tricky or daunting to get back on rhythm.  It helps too to put on some really good old school jazz while I work.

Be well

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