Thoughts on my Art

The “Right” way to make Art?

| Ifat Glassman

and I think today I have made a breakthrough in finding the answer to a question that has been bugging me for a very long time.

I’ve been trying to study the “right” and the “wrong” way of making art, to find some guiding principles, something to go by in order to make “good art”.

And at the same time asking myself – those artists that lived in the past and even in ancient civilizations, did they really know some magnificent secrete that we, in modern times, have lost? Why does their art seem serious and whole, while ours, which is more informed, more realistic, lacks that sense of telling a simple, fundamental truth about the world?

For example, one step in my chain of discoveries was that good art involves storytelling. And like any verbal storytelling it has to be selective. It has to be tied to the theme.

But can that be used, like some kind of formula, to create “good art”?

That’s what I question. Surely, yes, it can, to some degree. It can help you debug your novel when it seems to go awry with too many details, for example.

But fundamentally good art comes from the artist’s genuine desire to describe something, and their focus on that thing that they want to describe.

Not their focus on how to impress, not their focus on how to please a critic, but just a focus on the thing they’re expressing.

Ancient Egyptian art lacks realism, but the confidence it has in its style and its devotion to telling its essential story are what make it beautiful. There is sincerity of a mind describing a thought there.

What have we done in modern times? We have replaced that desire with an impersonal aspiration of some kind. We ran away from realism in an attempt to find “individuality”, and then we came back to realism in an attempt to find “excellence”, and neither attempt is really fully successful, isn’t it..

Of course you could make the point that someone with no art training at all would just create a mess, and that is a very good point indeed.
But also, someone with lots of art education and excellent execution can create something stale and formulaic.

To speak beautifully – you need words, and then you need to have an idea that is Your owN.
Art that has no hesitations about the fundamental way it should be done, is possible when the artist has taken the time to learn the tools they need for that execution. And which tool they acquired was dictated by what they wanted to express. And that the tools themselves are a result of a sincere quest for expression.

 

A self trusting soul is earned and created by the habit of not hiding from its own questions, but trying to answer them, instead.

Invented Dancer figure

Image | | Ifat Glassman

'Dancing Through Fire'

8”X11” Graphite on Paper. I named this one ‘Dancing through Fire’. I started it while listening to the lyrics of a song I heard on the radio earlier that day. It was a pop song about self-empowerment, but the visual image of a dancer dancing amidst flames ignited my imagination and I grabbed my sketchbook and drew a sketch of how such figure might be.

Her body posture must reflect the nature of the flames; a wild, selfish, free force reaching up for oxygen but grounded to the ground where it begins.

It needed to be uninhibited and in full force of motion.
When I was done with the figure I added shackles, which I did not initially have in mind. The pose seemed powerful and she needed to be grounded, like the flames. A powerful force ignoring its external bonds.

It stands in my mind as a symbol of life amidst difficulties; a dance as a response to shackles, saying that one’s spirit cannot be bound.

I started with the gesture, then general volumes, then anatomy and lastly all the values (the lights and darks) had to be figured out. That was the most challenging part, to imagine a light source and how this light source would influence a figure, how to arrange it all to make the figure stand out and still allow it to have dimensionality (rather than being 2 dimensional).

It was a difficult mental exercise but satisfying nonetheless.

Finally Graduated..

| Ifat Glassman

So I figure I’d write an update about how things are going. June 29th I graduated from a full-time 3 year program at Georgetown Atelier.

Just in time… as even though I think I have so much more to learn, I was definitely ready to be out of an atelier environment. Perhaps this particular atelier, but nonetheless, it is nice to be on my own.

I have a couple of finished pieces which I will photograph and display soon.
One of the finished pieces is “Glimpse of the desert” – a painting I’ve been working on for a while from a miniature setup I built. Continue reading →

Thoughts about music and Painting

| Ifat Glassman

Trying to find a good version of Chopin’s Nocturne Op.9 on iTunes I find myself going through some strange feelings while listening to the different versions by different artists. In most cases, I feel this strong irritations at those who are doing it “wrong”. They slow down in sentimental parts too much, making it sound artificial, or they play around with the notes trying to sound fancy, or they space the notes in such a way that makes it sound “sophisticated” but completely loses touch with the emotional content.

I think to myself: It is just like those dancers who have perfected the moves of the dance so much that they seem to be a caricature of expressing feelings instead of expressing them through dance. Continue reading →

‘Looking Forward’: My recent painting

Looking Foreward
Image | | Ifat Glassman

'Looking Foreward'‘
‘Looking Forward’, 17”x24.5” oil on Board

Here is the study I did for this painting (minus the last few brush strokes to finish it):

Study for "Looking Forward"

The model I was painting was a beautiful woman in her 50’s. I decided it would be a good challenge to paint her younger because it would force me to understand how the light interacts with her flesh. It wasn’t easy and if anything, it was a good reminder of the need to further study the anatomy of the head. As usual, trying to draw from imagination is the best way to realize how well you have the form conceptualized (or not!).

It was interesting, and I appreciate how the model brought this mood and attitude with her to her sitting sessions (most notably at first! before it started being boring and uncomfortable I’m sure).

This painting got me thinking of just how much of myself I bring into a painting vs. how much it is about capturing the model.

I think nowadays (or maybe always!) it is considered graceful to focus on capturing the essence of the model who is sitting for the artist. Paintings are usually named after the sitter, as well. But for me, I always make it about myself and how I feel  – even when it is a male model. It is a human being, and that is enough for me to relate to their experience.

I feel like when I re-create them on my canvas that figure exists in a different universe. And I capture how they feel while in that world. It’s almost like writing a story in the third person… Often this form of writing makes the writer relate to the characters more personally than if they wrote it in first person form.

About getting in “The mood” for painting

| Ifat Glassman

An artwork must have all its elements integrated around its theme to be good. This means that every detail that is being painted has to be painted such that it helps to emphasize the meaning of the work.

A painting involves so many things to keep in mind to create it: the colors, value, brushwork, edges, colors, thickness of paint, drawing aspect and so on – that something must be used to allow the artist to maintain the cohesiveness of the work while creating its different parts.

The only way to do it, in my opinion, is to let all the artist’s skills, experience and knowledge work from the background and work primarily from their emotions and inspiration in terms of the artist’s state of mind.

When I’m immersed in the work such that I feel as if it is a real world and I am inside it – I do things right. When I find myself thinking of other, technical things and try to work that way the result is always inferior.

To illustrate: suppose you’re working on the background of a painting, the environment in which your figure would go; you can paint it while thinking things like: “A background needs to be unified, it needs to be subtle, so I’ll work my brush thinly and do this and that technical details”, OR you can think something along the lines of how the figure would feel about the background, as if it were a real place. Something like: “The sky seem distant such that the figure feels that they are inside a huge space. Nothing is pressing on them and the sky surrounds the figure as if it belongs there”.

Surprisingly, the sky would come out looking like all the technical things you wanted it to be if you think of the later, but will likely not be as nice if you try to think of it in technical terms as you’re creating it.

 

Now this long train of thought it actually just the introduction to a different topic which really bothers me. That is; the difficulty of getting into that state of mind.

I think that this is the most difficult challenge I am facing as an artist. I find the mood inspired upon me by my day to day life is a huge obstacle to “getting in the right mood” to make my art.
My art demands the best of me, the best part of my soul, and I feel as if, either the circumstances of my life or something in me that does not allow me to delve into that.
If I start working on a painting and I am at the easel every day (like when I’m at my school), I might eventually get into the right mood, if I feel it spiritually “safe”.
Years ago, when I was done with my army service (at age 19), I lived alone, in a nice, isolated studio apartment with no TV or computer and a phone I barely used (by choice). I painted all day and night, every day and every night and in the rest of the time worked or took walks in the area by myself.
I have never been more productive in my art in my life. It was the right environment for it. I was very happy, but also lonely (and not financially stable).

I need to find a different way to get into the mood that doesn’t involve the extreme of removing every trace of human contact from my life.
I wonder what it is, and why, that having no one around has such a powerful effect on letting me allow that inside world to come out, to make it real and to immerse myself in it.

 

Not being able to get into the “mood”, I usually just do something else. Days and weeks go by and no painting gets done. True, I could discipline myself into being at my easel, but the clash of motivations is very strong, and unless I manage to really immerse myself in the mood of the painting, I won’t paint it well anyway.

I bet this is a big problem for a lot of artists who create work based on inspiration.

 

Tomorrow starts my second term of my last year at Georgetown atelier. I wonder how the routine of getting back to the easel every day and painting will affect me. I hope it will affect me for the better.

 

-Ifat

 

Short paintings and thoughts (weekly #23)

| Ifat Glassman

Here are the two studies I did this past week. The photos have some glare, but they will have to do for now.

   
Getting back into painting after several months of not painting proves to be challenging. A lot of times it feels like I am learning more about what NOT to do with oil paints rather than what TO do with them.

One important thing I must learn to do is to trust myself and move on once I painted an area. But I also realized that trusting myself must be earned – I cannot simply convince my subconscious to “trust”. If I am sufficiently thorough in my method of painting, trusting will happen, but if I’m not, I will not “trust”.

It is very easy, early in the morning, being tired, to be tempted to mix a paint that is “just close” and say to myself: “I will adjust it later”.
It takes a lot of discipline to slow down, consider the place of a particular area in the painting in relation to the global values and global color scheme.
It is much easier to try to mimic that particular color that you see in that particular instance and move on. But great paintings have that analysis completed before the painter starts painting. This way, every part makes sense as part of a whole color/value scheme and is not just copied.

I think a lot of modern works are more “copied” than arranged around a value/color scheme. They look more photographic, but less harmonic.

I’m afraid that if I will attempt that level of discipline I will go mad, maybe even not be able to retain the complexity, yet I think this is what I need to attempt to do. I know that over time, something that at first appears difficult becomes automatized. It’s just a matter of pushing yourself through the initial difficulty. The effort is worth it because it will make my paintings better in the long run.

During the first week of painting I felt unusual lack of control over the behavior of the paints.

It took me a week to realize that the problem was that I was using only one brush to paint and constantly cleaning it with mineral spirit, which made the paint very runny.
Oy! Everything I tried to apply would instantly get mixed with everything else and it was impossible to assert the power of a new brush stroke.
I was also reminded again how quickly a painting can fall apart when you use the existing paint on the canvas and move it around instead of adding new paint. Oy.
Then I also realized that with a palette that is too light, it is near impossible to distinguish the hues of dark colors. They all look the same – simply dark.
My thoughts dangle between “YES!! I got it! I can succeed!” to “I will never be good at painting. It’s not my thing!”.
My painting schizophrenia ends when I remind myself that I have the right motivation, that I love what I want to create, that I have already accomplished some good paintings and therefore, just to shut the hell up and keep practicing. It usually works after I use some harsh language. 🙂

Getting sleep also helps with mental stability and calmness and an overall positive approach.
On that note, I will do just that… go get some sleep.

Have a good week and glad to have you as a reader on my blog.
-Ifat

 

 

 

Paintings, Drawings and Atelier projects (weekly #22)

| Ifat Glassman

Been busy busy in the past 2 weeks. Finally started painting this week.

Here is the first painting I did this year, during a 2 hour sitting:

(Enlarge all images by clicking on them).

I also went back to my dear skull, this time to finish the battle. Indeed, it is a glorious one. One which will be remembered in the Ifat history books of painting progression. This is the second skull I am painting, in the same setup. I worked on the first for 3 months and decided to start over because I judged it to be overworked and too far off.
In working on the current one I realized that I am unclear on the global value relationships and did a small study to figure it out. It’s a very analytic process, not a lot of fun and surfing going on there. Here is a neat photo I took of the painting, the study (middle) and the setup of the skull itself.

At the bottom of my easel is attached a new note I wrote to myself with some stern reminders on proper work methods. This is my attempt to assign myself as my own enforces. I even added some dramatic emphasis to make sure I understand how serious I am about these rules! It’s working great so far.

The one thing I still need to add in my studio is a note my brother wrote me for my last birthday which made me feel very good about what I’m doing.

 

More stuff:

The sketch I discussed in this blog post has developed into a fully developed skeleton on which I planned to overlay muscles, flesh and ultimately make into a full human being with invented lighting and all. Now that I started painting this drawing will have to take a second priority, but it is wonderful to be able to draw something from imagination and see it come to live without a model. It will be interesting to see it through. Here is the skeleton I drew (the sketch from which it started on the right):
 

Another quick and fun drawing I did a week ago:

Turns out that sometimes being in a bad mood helps me bring more emotion into an artwork. The art process can become an outlet for what I’m feeling if the subject matter fits.
At this time I kiss goodbye to the quick block-in’s section of the curriculum. Here are a couple of the last block-in’s I did:

  

 

One of the forms of analysis that come to me most naturally, as a natural desire, is to understand the form I’m looking at in 3D. I think every artist has different tendencies in this regard. Some tend to see more graphical shadow shapes, some focus more on gesture lines. For me it’s been the planes and 3D connections. I don’t remember experiencing it when I drew from photos before joining the atelier, but once I started doing long drawings from life, it was one of the main things I was thinking of when drawing. I find this pleasurable in rendering as well, because I feel that by pulling my lines in the direction of the turning of the form I’m creating something real inside the page, as if I could almost slide my hands on it as if it were a solid object. Sounds a lot like how a sculptor would think. Indeed, I love sculpting too. I would definitely do some of that in the future, if time permits.

I find that painting does not come as easily to me as drawing does. But slowly I’m beginning to remember how to paint. I’ve had nearly a whole summer to forget it, with exception of a painting I consider successful which I painted in August.
I wish you all a good week, I appreciate your interest,

Ifat

An Evening of painting outside

| Ifat Glassman

This first step in what will become an oil painting is about light, Forest light.
That’s also the name I will give it.
Objective: Make this a short painting for inspiration and study. Let’s see if I can keep it this way. Short and simple, that is 🙂

I started painting this tonight, at dusk, enclosed in my green backyard. Music flowing free in the evening air, feeling absolutely amazing.

I started the evening with the following song [Link], which, to me, feels like it’s capturing the feeling pretty well.

I want to describe just how I feel because, really, if I can ever capture it in a painting, fully and completely, I will know I have achieved my goal as an artist.

The way I feel is – absolutely invincible. Not a victory over anyone specific or any particular problem – but a sense of uncontested freedom and victory over life’s obstacles as a whole. More than that – it’s as if life is pure joy. I feel self confidence so absolute, it doesn’t even feel like it relates specifically to me as an individual, but as if I am that feeling and there is nothing left but to bless life.
I was thinking to myself… feeling the way I did is the reason I am an artist, so that I can communicate it through art.

People often wonder in today’s culture, what reason a man has for staying loyal to one’s conscience. This is my answer; To be able to feel like this, despite all of life’s problems, struggles to figure out right from wrong and all the stuff that brings one down to the point of wanting to give up one’s goals. Personally, I’ve had my share of those and still do. I’m not gonna lie about it.
But so long as I can feel the way I did tonight, life is worth living and the struggle for your goals is worth having, no matter the hardships. Bring it on.

 

My weekly post #16

| Ifat Glassman

A sketch I did from my head over the weekend:

I consider drawing from my head to be a very important part of my art training.
This stage of sketching out an idea is the most critical to the creation of art. I am essentially building the backbone for what might later become a finished work. This gives me the idea of what I want to see and achieve when I look at a real model. It might turn out that the pose in the sketch cannot be achieved quite the way I drew it in real life, or the model might not look the same and so on. The sketch serves as a blueprint and guide and can be combined with a real model to selectively create this vision in a realistic way (I should say, selectively real way).

On a different subject, I am officially on my summer vacation now. I return to school in mid September for my final year at Georgetown Atelier.

This summer will be dedicated to making and saving money for next year, some teaching, studying anatomy and perspective as well as moving out to a new apartment.
I am trying to sort some things out for myself, some personal and some relating to my profession. One interesting article I read today, was recommended to me by an acquainted who have had Atelier training himself: “Working on two tracks” by Steven Pressfield. I find the article very interesting. I find that the topic requires a lot of analysis and deserves serious consideration in depth.

The article discusses two possible paths of motivation as an artist: external vs. internal validation.
Granted, this IS indeed something to tackle and think about. Obviously, the right way to go is the path of objective internal validation. On the other hand, External validation is very valuable when other people are a good judge.
This, however, brings up some heavy heavy philosophical questions, one of which is the objectivity of art.
I do believe that external validation is important when it comes from the right source. When it comes from people whose opinion you respect for reasons for which you would judge your own art to be successful or unsuccessful.
Since it’s 1:30am now, I will postpone the continuation of the discussion to another time.

 

During the summer I will be taking a break from my weekly posts since I won’t have as much content to post. I will post occasionally when I have new things to share. 

Last note; I am selling my student work from the past 2 years. Some are 1 week paintings and others 5 months drawings. Sifting through it could be a bit like a treasure hunt.
If you find one you like, contact me about buying it. This will help me pay my tuition and related expenses next year and will be much appreciated.
Here is the LINK to the list of works and prices.

Thank you for your continued interest,

Ifat

Creating art as introspection (weekly #12)

| Ifat Glassman

My core motivation in making art is a process of self discovery and contemplation.

Drawing or painting an image from my head allows me to look at it as a concrete and better understand what it is I had in mind. It is a process of translation from something abstract in my mind to a physical representation of it.

As I’m creating the drawing, I would feel compelled to move some parts, increase certain aspects of the gesture or minimize them, have the head turn a certain way, have the character look a certain direction or have a certain expression – I don’t always know all the parts beforehand – sometimes they become clear after I put down some core part of the idea I had in mind.

The best examples to illustrate this can be found in my old drawings (about 10 years ago) when I was drawing from my head. These drawings are anatomically bad, but they have something good. The stuff that makes art – art. That spice that cannot be mistaken for any other – authentic introspection (or inspiration).
They show a process of discovering the physical representation of something I found interesting and appealing, the process of finding that translation.

For example, in the drawing above, I had in mind a certain character, which was best expressed in a moment of fleeting attention to something.
Usually, no one would give this drawing a second or a first look because it is technically poor, but, wait one minute longer, see if you can find something interesting about it that would make you want to see this woman as a well-developed painting.
What I see, is a face and an expression one rarely encounters. She seems cold and mildly interested in what she is looking at, but at the same time she seems like a person who is not easily interested in things because she knows so much already (not because she is shallow or not curious as a person).
For me, the drawing started from a similar feeling to how this woman seem, and the motivation to draw it was a compelling urge to make it real so I can look at it, move some lines, change things, move her eyebrows up or down, decide if her mouth should be open or closed until I know it’s captures “that thing” just right. I don’t know what “that thing” is as I put it, nor why it is better if she has her mouth open and not closed – those questions are answered later, maybe, say, 10 years later as I’m looking at it, or ideally, after the first sketch and before I move on to working on making it a final, well developed piece.

I go through a similar process in drawing the whole figure from imagination, or while describing a certain situation. In the next drawing , for example, I actually had the dragon in mind, and the lady with it was a derivative.

The dragon is upset – it has to go through a long journey chained and shackled. It’s sitting in a corner, looking at its chains and crying, while its captive is care free.
The funny thing about it is that the dragon is 50 times stronger than the woman – the chain is not secured to the ground, but loosely tied to a thin, brittle stick which the girl is holding. The dragon can escape at any time, yet it doesn’t know it because it is busy looking at its shackles and crying. Too busy following its captor obediently to realize how easily he can be free. The idea doesn’t start with a dragon, in this case I couldn’t tell you what the idea started as, it somehow just was in my mind but then I still had that need to see how it would look like, to go through the process of figuring this idea out.

I had a similar moment to that as I was working on the background for the current painting I’m working on at my school. This one, however is different because I have limited choice in the subject matter. I did, however, choose the background:

I was struggling with the background for a while, trying different things that didn’t work until finally, I gave my self permission to just put things down boldly, to put down what I really want to see. So I started by making the curvy line and darkening the area bellow it, then, I knew I wanted bright sky behind her, I put the ocean line and the sky, then I realized this could be the edge of a large round window on a ship.

This is how groping for ideas for the background looked like at the beginning:

 

One last thing I want to talk about relates to the content with which I started this post.
In the past I would draw, not knowing what my technical drawbacks were. Being unaware of any flaws, I felt free to put down whatever was on my mind. I had total freedom to explore my ideas and I produced a lot of such fast drawings and paintings too.
After a while I realized the drawbacks and I was not satisfied with the technical side of my art anymore. I refrained from drawing because I was afraid to disappoint myself.
Today I realize, it doesn’t matter at all. You can always have room to improve the technical side of your work, as an artist, but what is equally valuable or of greater value, perhaps, is to be able to express your ideas; to have open communication with your subconscious and to be able to put down lines to create a drawing like the first one I shared here, of a woman’s face.
Today, equipped with better knowledge and experience I can improve the anatomy of that face, but I could never get back that moment and expression had I not put them down. If all I focused on was getting the anatomy right, all I would have now is one more anatomically accurate face. Boy, am I glad I didn’t worry about all that stuff!

The realization I had was that as an artist, preserving your soul is just as hard a job as improving your technical skills. You must give yourself permission and place to screw up in technique; to be wrong; whatever it takes, but keep that “channel” to your subconscious open.
Creativity is a habit, but a fragile one that needs to be nurtured and guarded. The good news is that all it really takes is your own permission.

Today I am celebrating my 31st Birthday. It is not a coincidence that today of all days I am sharing my oldest work which is also technically worst, something you would expect an artist to keep hidden in their closet.
As an artist, it is THOSE paintings and not my current ones (which are technically superior) which I would celebrate primarily. Those have my soul, these have my mind (as well as some of my soul). I find both equally difficult to make and eventually I will have the combined challenge of both things.

I hope that by putting my old work here for display for all to see, I am giving courage to someone else out there to embrace their own work and cherish their inner “spark”: don’t trade it for a better technique or for compliments. It just ain’t worth it, man.

I wish myself a good birthday and a successful and happy year to come.
Why, thank you, that’s very nice of you to say, Ifat. You too. 😉

-Ifat

Painting and Abstracting (weekly #9)

| Ifat Glassman

Progress with my painting: 2 weeks ago I posted a drawing and the study of the painting I’m working on now at my school. Friday I took a picture of it with my cellphone. This picture is unfortunately not true to color, please take that under account when viewing.

This week’s plan: Work on the shirt and vest, finish the hat, the background, and do final touches on the face and neck.
This picture shows the “sinking in” phenomenon very well. It’s a phenomenon where the oil pigments appear lighter than they are and in a different color. The vest, for example, appears black-gray even though it is brown in real life. This is why it is important to cover the painting with a thin layer of oil before working back into it to revive the color and see it correctly. This process also has its own difficulties; for example, if the paint is not thoroughly dry, the oil may lift it up, it may even get smeared into new areas and make the painting “muddy”. It’s therefore very important to be in control of the painting and know exactly what parts are wet and what parts are dry.

Abstractions.

One thing I thought of is that the skill of figure drawing involves abstracting things about the figure and then using those abstractions as a guide when drawing or painting. The abstractions can take a literal form, such as: “the eyes are located in the halfway point of the head”, or a more perceptual form, such as remembering the general shape of the eye socket.
I’ve been doing a lot of this process of abstraction, which I exercise at home sometimes by sculpting or sketching from my head. Here is one small plasteline-clay sculpture I did this weekend:

I don’t know why, but I find that the pleasure in working entirely from my head is not surpassed by any other process of making art. I realize that the result is not as good as working from a reference, but I wish I knew what causes this feeling of delight and how I can replicate it when working from a reference.

I think it is really important as an artist to let your emotions run the show. I don’t quite know how to explain what I mean perfectly; I am not talking about any sort of random emotion that comes up during work (that can actually be an obstacle), but rather about the feelings relating to the artist’s subject matter. Some parts of the subject matter are bound to carry more interest than others for the artist. I think it’s OK to be bored with some aspects of the painting and let that affect how you paint. In fact this is what produces a good painting in my opinion because it replicates that feeling the artist had about what he paints in the viewer’s mind. It enhances the parts that are interesting and central about the piece and sends to the background the things that are not. It is, perhaps, the closest a person can get to experiencing something through another person’s mind.

Lastly, I’d like to share a small piece of writing by my teacher, Tenaya Sims, which I found interesting and which relates to “seeing through someone else’s eyes”. This is from the latest Newsletter of Georgetown Atelier (where I study).

The basic idea is if you approach painting your shadows in a thin/transparent manner, while building the textural qualities in the lights,  it will increase the depth and three-dimensionality of your painting. Executing shadows in this way helps keep them more atmospheric and ‘shadowy’, and pushes them back into the depths of the painting.  People naturally focus on one area at a time when looking at anything, and usually look first at the illuminated forms rather than those in shadow. Everything not in our focus is more hazy, or by definition is ‘out of focus’. For this reason it’s more effective to simulate the way people see in our paintings than to render each passage equally in focus. Putting in too much information in the shadows, or painting them too thickly (resulting in the surface of the painting coming forward) can negate the effect of how we naturally see. On the other hand, building up the texture and opacity in the lights, or ‘sculpting the lights with paint’ as I like to say, helps to enhance the focal areas of the painting and brings them both literally and perceptually forward to the viewer.

Simulating the ‘way that we see’ in a painting is much more difficult than it sounds. This is simply because while we’re working on any one particular area, that area is in focus for us, but may not be for the viewer taking in the whole scene of the painting on first glance. It requires us to plan out the ‘global relationships’ of our painting, and remember to stick to that global plan even while working in specific ‘micro’ areas. It requires us to be both the General and Marine, or in other tems, know how our ‘shadowy village’ fits within its country.

This method of simulating the human way of experiencing what we see in a painting is a way to further refine an experience and bring it closer to how we experience it as conceptual beings rather than raw sensations (which is closer to what a camera sees). It’s a little bit like a double filter: seeing something after someone else saw it for you first.

 

I’ll end the post here.
Have a good week,
-Ifat

My weekly post #3

| Ifat Glassman

Back from a vacation in Florida to write a belated weekly post.

I spent my vacation with my husband and a couple of friends. We drew and painted one another and I was reminded of what art means to me and where I want to go with it.

It is best explained by showing the drawing of me that my friend did (Rina Cheah).

The drawing is simplified and stylized – it is not an exact replica of the subject and yet captures something both about me and about her that is much harder to see in real life because it is mixed with so many other things that are visible in a face (values, colors, changing facial expressions, freckles and so on). But to her, this was the most appealing and essential aspect of her subject. This, is what I think art is. Art is not camera-reproduction of what we see, nor recording of random occurrences – it is, rather, a way to make our soul take form through concretes. It is a Selective recreation of reality, according to the artist’s deepest values (to paraphrase Ayn Rand’s definition).

Her drawing has such innocent joy in putting down what was most important and appealing to her and that is what I strive to use as my motivation, especially once I finish my art education and work on projects whose subject is my choice. When inspiration is one’s motivation, combined with automatized skills – one is equipped to make great art.

People think that working from inspiration is easy and given, but I think it is rather rare. There are so many “traps” along the way: Paint to please people, paint to sell, paint to have a “name”, paint to surpass other artists in skill, paint to be considered “sophisticated” or be considered “a great artist” and so on. To paint from inspiration, to fall in love with what you paint and have that be your guide – actually takes a very selfish and individualistic approach.

To fight through all the difficulties, through seeming failure – to fall behind when some others do well instantly it seems – it takes strong and genuine motivation to disregard all of these and to devote one’s efforts to getting better – not for the sake of proving oneself, but for that passion that drives the making of great art (and is experienced by those who observe it).
If I live long enough and if depression, self-doubt or other difficulties won’t get me, I believe I will become successful. Not because I have some god given ability – I don’t – I actually started from scratch – but because I love what I want to make enough to focus on that and fight for it.
Lastly I want to share a painting I started over the summer of 2011. This was an uninstructed session and the model (who is also an artist) chose the pose – however, it might as well been me choosing the pose – I loved it so much when I saw it I could not believe that that was what I was going to paint. But indeed I did.

When I was done with the figure, I put an abstract background. Later I decided to make an actual background that would match the mood and narrative the pose as I saw it. Right now, the painting is at an awkward stage of having rough lines and colors indicating the objects to be painted without actually having them painted, so I will be sharing a previous version of this painting that no longer exists. For those of you interested, keep an eye out – by the end of this summer I’ll finish the background.

(Click to enlarge)

-Ifat

My weekly post #2

| Ifat Glassman

For the past 4 weeks I’ve been working on a painting at my school (Georgetown Atelier). Monday will be the day I finish the figure – the background would take longer. I marked white lines to draw objects and figures I wish to add later and now it’s a matter of finding a source to work from for them. Here is a picture of the upper portion of it:

 

Ego stroking corner: I think I did a good job using the 4 colors on my palette to the max. Earlier this year I experienced a breakthrough in how I mix colors when I freed myself up to grab any number of colors to be mixed and let my subconscious direct which paint I reach for. From initially thinking that lighting things should primarily be done with white and darkening with black, I realized that it can also be lightened with yellow, red, a mix of yellow and red and anything else so long that it is lighter.
Struggles: Getting those edges to be softer, paint placement and handling, aiming for the broad first and the details later.

 

On a more general and philosophical topic: I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the process of becoming an artist and what is required to become a good artist.

A lot of people think that talent is a given, but I think the answer is different.
‘Talent’ is a result of automatization of things related to whatever it is one does, and motivation to learn and automatize those things is the key to talent.

What it takes to draw the human form well is to really know it and love it – to have an abstract version and understanding of it in one’s head. It requires spending years just observing and taking mental notes of how certain things look and how they are arranged in space, years of studying anatomy – and the only way one would do such a thing during activities such as watching TV, reading a magazine, talking to someone, taking a shower or watching an Olympic competition is if one is truly passionate about it to the point of always having it in the back of one’s head.

A student can demand of themselves to do exercises out of a book (as I should), but the amount of time one ends up spending and the quality of learning will differ greatly depending on how enjoyable the learning process really is.

Another factor that goes into the learning quality is one’s psycho-epistemology – one’s habitual way of thinking and looking at things.
When I just started out, from my childhood until my late teens, I would not spend time actively studying the form from life. I thought that getting my own abstract idea is good enough.
A lot of times young people exhibit tremendous ability to draw the figure that seems to come from nowhere. Where it actually comes from is from their habitual way of closely observing things in reality over a long period of time.
It is when I changed my approach to that that I started improving my drawing and familiarity with the figure and I expect this process to continue for the rest of my life.

For me, The human form is the only thing in my life I don’t find boring to memorize. (That said, I still need to do a lot more studying).
I’ve been spending my weekends lately sculpting small plasteline clay figures. It is so enjoyable; it is my chance to make ART without the hassle of worrying about my technique, and that is just as important if not more for an artist: Keeping the voice of your subconscious flowing and singing is vital for making art.

Here are a couple of pictures of the sculptures I’ve been making:

  

The one on the left shows the sketch and the sculpture that was built based on it. I am still working on it  from my head (it now has an arm and two legs).
The one on the right is based on a 3D model of whom I had surround pictures.

 

More thoughts, this time on what I don’t know. I DON’T know what style I will eventually choose for my art. There are several styles that I find appealing and I realized I don’t actually know which one I want to have.
One style I like is one that renders smoothly and clearly the areas of focus while leaving the areas that are boring for the artist and none essential to the concept of the piece rendered loosely. How loosely – I don’t know yet. I think in some cases – very loosely and in others only slightly blurred out/visually simplified.
I also like, in some cases, some looseness in rendering the areas of focus and in some cases I like how the whole scene is tightly rendered. For now I put shopping for style on hold in order to focus on learning the maximum that I can in rendering things tightly.

Lastly, to conclude a very long monologue, I’d like to share a painting I did a couple of months ago that is a favorite of mine.

 

Cheers.

-Ifat

 

 

Subconscious “stewing”/ problem solving

| Ifat Glassman

Kate Bush to the rescue of my summer painting, finally solving the problem I had with what background would be right for the figure.

The figure is a naked woman, arching her body back while standing straight, her hands on her waist and her torso pushing forward. It is the kind of moment a dancer would have of total surrender to the music and the emotion it induces. Here is a thumbnail of it to illustrate the stage it is in right now.

I was extremely unhappy with the background. Too abstract, too dull, too bright, too empty. I could not figure out what background would be right for the figure. So, I opened the subconscious oven, added a few ingredients and let them stew (or bake, if you want to be picky) for a while until yesterday the oven ringer rung and let me know that an answer is ready. “You wanted it dark, not so well defined and fit the action and the mood of your figure? Well there you have it. Paint her in a dancing studio, with wide windows covered with curtains.”

The idea I had matches this video clip by Kate Bush perfectly.

On getting “stuck” on progress with an Artwork

| Ifat Glassman

I’ve been thinking today of the reasons that make me “abandon” a work of art for a long period of time, or simply what makes me avoid working on it.

I think if I’d be able to identify an abstract, general “structure” for how and why this happens, it would allow me to figure out such problems in the future when I work on art outside a school framework and allow me to be more productive.
The problems I would typically run into are:

  1. Problem identifying the concept of a piece.
  2. Having a clear concept, but not knowing what details to use to execute it.
  3. Not knowing how to execute something, even though I know clearly what it is I want to execute.
  4. Not trusting my skills to carry me through a specific piece
  5. Not having the right state of mind for a piece.

I’ll now discuss each in more detail.

  1. Problem identifying the concept of a piece. I have an idea for a painting, something I like, but I don’t have a definite understanding of what is the concept underlying my inspiration.
    For example, I might have in mind a certain pose that inspires me, but I have no idea what should be the context for it. I recall I once had a sketch of a female archer, stretching an arrow on a bow, her body stretched, mimicking the shape of the bow, looking at her target, but I was unable to figure out what environment such a painting would take place in. The archer is nude, she cannot be part of any kind of normal every-day, civilized environment. Or, even if she is (like, say, part of the ancient Greek Olympics) that changes the concept of the piece from being about the figure and the state of mind it represents to being about a culture and a member of that culture. It pushes back the intensity of that figure and the message it carries with it. So then that brings me to the question – what IS the most important thing for me in such a painting, what is it I want to express? Without knowing the answer to this, I’d stay stuck and the drawing will never get further to the stage of a painting.
    I can now answer that my concept for such a piece would be the state of mind of utter determination and concentration, when there is absolutely nothing that stands in the way of that figure or passes her mind as she is aiming. Her whole body is stretched because her entire body is expressing the one thing she is thinking of. The Target.I believe that the best way to express this would be apart from any daily environment, apart from any particular culture. It needs to be more symbolic and isolated. Like a desert which is rendered semi-out of focus).

    Another variation of this problem is inability to integrate the concept of a piece across the entire painting; for example, being indecisive on what exact pose your figure should have (or how much of its body to show, how to crop the painting and so on), or what background to choose for your figure, or what colors or values to use in different parts. However, it is usually the case, I believe, that you simply don’t know what your concept is (what it is you find most appealing; what is your central motivation for the piece and which are just side things you like here and there).

    To conclude: Problem #1 is failure to identify the concept of a piece. If you don’t know what you want to express you will have a hard time expressing it. (Except for those occasions when the entire concept flows easily and naturally from the artist’s subconscious, but unfortunately not all art works like that – sometimes inspiration comes from glimpses of something, not from a fully integrated idea, such as a specific narrative).

  2. Having a clear concept, but not knowing what details to use to execute it. For example, there is an ancient Greek story I love which I am going to paint some day. It is the story of Atalanta and the golden apples. [Link to the story]. The short version is that Atalanta is a fast runner. The fastest runner in whole of Greece. She was a beautiful woman and highly courted and so, to reduce the amount of suitors she had to face she offered a competition in which, any man who’d be able to beat her in running would have her hand in marriage, while all those who fail will face instant death. Despite the heavy price, many men have tried and died.
    One smart man who was in love with her sought the help of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who agreed to help him and gave him 3 golden apples. As Atalanta and the young man were racing, he threw the apples on the side of the road, one by one. Atalanta, being a women, found the apples irresistible, run sideways to collect them, which eventually cost her the race. The story ends well because she fell in love with the man for his wits.
    The scene I’d like to paint is the moment when one of the apples is thrown and Atalanta’s eyes and body go after the apple and away from the track, while the man looks at her in cunning, satisfaction and love, while still running. The story has so many elements I love, one of them being a love-story in which a man wins a woman over by outdoing her in her own game and, instead of being a victim to her strengths and tests finds a way to turn it into her defeat. I love how Atalanta finds the apples irresistible and how the motion of her body reflects that.
    This is one of those cases where the entire concept is clear and easy to integrate across the entire canvas, but it is hard to choose the exact details to include in the painting, the exact position of their bodies, the angle of viewing them, how to portray the environment, how to get a reference for this and so on.

  3. Not knowing how to execute something, even though you know clearly what it is you want to execute. For example, say you want to paint a couple dancing in a ballroom, but you don’t know how to use the rules of perspective to create a convincing room, or you don’t know what objects a ballroom would have, or how much light the room should have to create the kind of lightning you have in mind for your couple. In a lot of cases you don’t even know what it is your subconscious is struggling to know – all you know is that you feel like avoiding working on the piece because you’re stuck with it.

  4. Not trusting your skills to carry you through a specific piece. This is the same as #2 but broader. The solution for me was to seek education (and have it), which started with making my art a more social activity and talking about it with other people.

  5. Not having the right state of mind for a piece. If I find a piece very inspirational, I need to have the same mood as the piece have while I’m working on it to carry that message across the entire painting – especially when working on facial expressions, that’s when I need to be at my absolute most dedicated, concentrated state of mind.
    I found that when I have a framework, such as my school, in which I feel more pressure to attend regularly, 9-5 sort of thing, and I am sitting in front of a drawing and I know I have 3 hours to work on it, whether I feel like it or not, I end up (when I like the drawings), getting into the mood of it eventually, even if I didn’t feel it when I just set down to work.

  6.  Expecting something impossible out of myself. Such as, expecting myself to draw something from imagination and do it perfectly, without studying examples from life first. I also knew an artist that thought that unless you are the best in the world and naturally gifted, there is no point making art. I don’t know what other ideas other people have, I only know my demons, but at least I know what they were and I got rid of them. Things become a lot simpler when you don’t expect the impossible out of yourself and the first step is to identify if you have such expectations and if so – what they are.
Lastly, I want to give an advice, to any artist who might happen to read this, which I just thought of while writing this. Writing or talking about your thoughts regarding an artwork you’re stuck with is tremendously helpful. Relying on emotions or intuition as a guide is good, but when you’re stuck is when your subconscious cannot solve the problem on its own and making your thoughts conscious can speed the process of problem solving tremendously. In fact, just writing this little post today has allowed me to turn the archer into a future painting, where before writing this it was sure to stay a sketch in my sketchbook forever. When you write, just write to yourself whatever is going through your mind, likes and dislikes about your piece. What you feel stuck on and what you’re certain you want to keep. What intrigued you to begin with and what supports it in your piece (or what goes against it).