A Moment's Pause - Further Along.....

With the right side grasses essentially done, am now on the stones - laying in the sepia shading and pits.....

On Showing Completeness...

"And GREAT art, to be great, requires awareness of the means of greatness - even if few works succeed at it or artists care to strive for it - if for no other reason than it gives satisfaction to the artist of being successful in showing, in communicating, what is thought by the artist as of great importance - and that all the elements involved in the composition is integrated to that end..."

It may seem grandiose, but this ongoing WIP is to be, hopefully, of a masterpiece - that is, of a rendering thought out and constructed to be integrated to its end, thematically... as mentioned in the quote above, I am seeking to see if I can deliberately have 'all the elements involved in the composition [being] integrated to that end...'.... all too often it is said that the sense of life in a work, the emotional responding to it, has to be done without thought - that is, without analyzing the component parts, without giving mindfulness to the work - else the emotions flee.... to me, this is nonsense.... nothing is more prone to being destroyed than to be driving down a road drunk and blindfolded - and without the using of mindfulness, without thought to what one is doing in a rendering, ESPECIALLY for pen and inkers, that is exactly what would be the case of an artist 'plowing ahead' without forethought - especially, too, if serious work is desired to be achieved... so - what I hope to show is how I go about this mental planning - why things are placed where they are, what purposes are served by some of the objects within - and in that way give a clue to others of how to look within their own works, regardless of size [for am well aware am even pushing my own envelope here well beyond anything I've done before]...

In a sense, tho, this is but another extension of what was mention in the Aeyrie posting, carrying that mostly barren canyon to one of its possible completenesses...

A Moment's Pause - to be Continued...

Thanks to Shari, some time ago, there was posted a WIP, one of a pintail duck - and a fine WIP

it is.... however, no more has come to be posted... so - tho this will be a very intermittently done one, I am going to post my ongoing 32"x40" full color rendering, "My Bigger Back Yard", in part as perhaps a tutorial of techniques being worked out as

I progress along... in part, also, as an ongoing explanation of my thinking processes, so others may find something of use in advancing their own explorations of their respective rendering ideas and

how maybe to expand on them...


What is first seen here is the fore ground, which will over look a vast canyon curved around a bend, and

all the various parts of some of the ideas I've had for what I'd like in the way of seeing in an expanded version of my back yard...

These close-ups constitute stages in my coloring of the grasses... initially, light green was laid on the blades... then sap green was added for the shade areas... afterwards, emerald green was added to cover for the deep shade areas between the blades, as well as to add some detailing of the blades themselves... lastly, so far, is the ongoing of adding lemon yellow to the lit parts of the blades... from there, I will then begin the coloring of the stones - and lastly, for the foreground, the rest of the grasses, those on the left side....

THEN will begin 'seeing' into the vastness of the distance...

Visualizing the Productive...

One of the more seemingly difficult ideas to get across is that of being able to visually show productiveness... not the best possible, but "Aeyrie" is an example - note a naturalistic setting, yet showing a distinctive advance in direction, that of an overlooking habitation indicative of future-oriented progression, that of taming the desolate and making fertile the barren... note, too, the metaphoric usage here which leads to other possibilities - a series perhaps on this, including, as it were, one in color, thus displaying a more comprehensive involvement of the transformation... sometimes the subtle in simplicity alludes to much more than at first seems to transpire...

[this, btw, is a 20"x16' rendering]

Purpose and Productivity...

While, as mentioned, productiveness does not require that one makes money from productive endeavors, work does, properly, need to be the central purpose... Indeed, considered properly, that work - the renderings by the artist - should be THE principle form that the 'pursuit of happiness' takes... this is especially important to an artist, no less then for others... it is not a case of simply being an element of the good life - IT NEEDS BE THE CENTRAL ELEMENT...

Why?

To begin with, a central purpose is the long-range goal that ought to be the basic or primary claim on a person's time, energy, and resources...properly, all the other goals are not only secondary but they should be integrated to the central purpose - pursued as compliment, not distractions... the issue is the necessity of being an integrated being - something which humans have to learn, and have to choose the specific anchor as it were on which to tie the rest as flying buttresses to help hold and enlarge the purposefulness... without a central purpose, a person would not be able to know how valuable anything is in relationship to that person...

This is something most artists intuit or sense, but unfortunately rarely consciously grasp and understand... there is recognised the 'compulsion' as it were to render, but all too often its placement as the center from which all else radiates is mitigated by a belief other factors need take greater presence... the consequences are often devastating - fewer works, less thought given to the works done or contemplated on, and more emphasis on visceral means to choosing subject material - and this is just the art itself... without a central purpose, actions are more susceptible to being determined by emotions - with the consequence of not seeing compelling reasons to stay with a particular rendering, for instance, when it becomes difficult, tedious, or even just mildly unpleasant... if an artist lacks a clear primary objective, there will seem to be no grounds for evaluating the benefits that might be derived from various other activities - greater insight to the rendering in progress perhaps, or derivative variations from the central themes of the work, and so forth...

However, if the artist grasps that the doing of art is the central purpose and has embraced that, then by contrast, there is a reason for doing various things and a basis for deciding which things are worth the doing... as such, that central purpose involving being the artist can provide motivation throughout the artist's life, anchoring the lesser purposes on a relative scale, thus enhancing the life being lived... this is so even when the monetary rewards are not such that remuneration is sufficient on its own to allow full-time concentration...

While this is a general statement regarding artists in general, it seems to be more important to those who deal with pen and ink, in part I suspect because of the amount of seeming time needed to do the works, small as most are, and the also 'non-expectations' of the renderings being considered as fine art by others... in other words, there is a stronger psychological pressure to bear - and in consequence, some simply cast aside their inner ambitions regarding pen and inks and either become just hobbyists or worse, discard to a more socially accepted medium... if, however, this grasping of purpose and the artist is made, and the organization of the artist's life is then wrapped around the greatest value - rendering, then there is better chance of 'survival' as it were, and flourishing as long term consequence...

Patience...or Lack of......

"it is the doing, the creating, the visualizing which is the productive and thus the important - and in that regard, the success of being..."

One of the things I get often regarding my renderings, and am sure is the same with others, is that in doing them, I must 'have the patience of Job' or some similar... this has always struck me as odd in that so far none of my renderings have gone beyond some 60 hours of labor... further, many of those doing oils and acrylics, to say nothing of egg tempera, have reported taking hundreds of hours to completion... what, then is it that spending some hours on a work to achieve the desired quality means having a 'lot of patience'? Sunday painters perhaps? short attention spans or ADHD run amuck? for sure, it does not seem like dedicated artists seeking to ply their visions as well as they can, and in a manner to gain further enhancing quality of craftmanship [and yes, craftmanship applies to artists as much as do to artisans]... perhaps I am unique in that it is the doing - as the quote above says - which is the productive and thus the important that matters... I don't think so, but it is something which would seem a given when being an artist, just as is the case in other endeavors - and yet this patience issue keeps popping up time and again... perhaps it is best, then, to say [to paraphrase from a very popular movie] - anyone can paint, but not everyone should.... the difference between dabblers and committed - and it is the committed ones who are certified, by their efforts, to really being artists - and being proud of their doing, time after time after time, over a lifetime of increasingly progressive improvements, continually 'raising the bar' to achieving Fine Art...

This certainly is no less so when referring to pen and ink artists...

Remuneration...

While many of these examples given of various artists and their works show those who have made a financial success of trading their works, not all have - indeed, a number of highly creative artists never acquire the means of achieving their material well-being thru just their creativity... does this mean anything in the way of failure? no, because while the basic reason person need be productive is to meet the needs for material values, and normally this is thru trade as means of payment for the work - this is not always the case... money is not the only type of material value, and not all work that creates material value is well compensated in the market... thus a person may need be making the money at a less productive, relatively undemanding job, in order to enable the more rewarding and challenging and productive work - in this case being that of the artist... this is often, perhaps especially so, when the artist as creator has blazed a new direction in creating, showing work which requires more conscious attention to being appreciated, or appeals to a more selective set of viewers... this does not detract from it being productive work, only that the burden of being able to achieve the creating may be harder than otherwise, a situation which, to the creator having the success of the creating, is, relatively speaking, small and unimportant... it is the doing, the creating, the visualizing which is the productive and thus the important - and in that regard, the success of being...

One could say this applies more to the pen and ink artists than to any other medium, if for no other reason than that it is a medium less given to the status of 'fine art' than other mediums, and thus more effort is needed to having the renderings appreciated for the same contemplative assessment as given to other mediums... of course, one of the reasons for the creation of this Society is just that - to help in formulating this upgrading of status and to inspire further renderings to this direction...

Landscapes and Leben II...

While the black/white ones run about 16"x24' in size, he has turned to doing large color ones of 60"x24" - a fascinating series of staircases, but worth the looking for ideas in how to plan large works and establish the desired sense of depth...

Landscapes and Leben...

One of the more interesting of contemporary pen and ink artists is John Leben, whose renderings are exampled here, clearly showing the extend one can do in the values pertaining to effective visualizations...

Note the effectiveness in utilizing the dark of the inner trees to push out the fore, both in the trunks and branches, and the buildings - and how the white of the sail pulls the boat away from the dark of the rear...

and how the strong light/dark contrasts on the palms bring then away from the surrounding vegetation and sand...

While I do not think much of his use of the sky, the setting sun is otherwise very effectively rendered, with the chairs silhouetted well and anchored to the sand...

And the water reflection is very illusional, with the sunlit fore leaves very effectively framing and giving depth to the scene...