Landscapes, or how I went sleepy

I've been absent for a while from the desire to write about art. Mostly because I want to write about an idea that excites me. And mostly, I have been busy drawing and painting and fishing out problems that I then try to solve with pencil and brush. I have thought about writing about some of the things that bug me - and I think, after some careful consideration and a weekend painting mountains in Rocky Mountain National Forest, I can combine many ills into one post, thus cleansing my palate and admitting my sins.

I am not a good landscape painter. I'm really really bad in fact. Mostly, I am really really bad because I have never spent any time or energy doing it - I have never had the desire, truthfully.
This weekend, I had the opportunity to join my best friend, Ned Aldrich (www.edwardaldrich.com) for a jaunt to Rocky Mountain National to try my hand at landscape painting. I felt that I would probably do okay, considering I am a passable painter, familiar with the tools, and really, how hard or how different could it be than from painting pigeons?

First problem: The palette used. Ned supplied the paint, based on his own palette. I realized immediately that I use very little yellow in my work. I also only use veridian green for skies. In his case, he uses veridian for every green in the painting, mixing in other colors to suit his need. I found this initially confusing.

Second problem: The brushes supplied, while familiar to me (hogs hair filberts, and sable flats) were not the brushes I would use to make the marks I wanted to make.

Third problem: It was fricking cold.

On the first day, we started painting just after mid-day. I set up my french easel, chose a spot and went at it. I forgave myself for the mess I made of the first attempt - dialing in the materials and getting my eye used to my surroundings. I watched Ned for a while, just to steal some techniques. For the second painting, I attempted to ape his brush work and his palette, only to make another mess. This one looking like majestic ice cream.

The weather was cold, and it was windy, despite the sun. Ned and I split a pair of gloves, since he is right handed and I am left. Each taking a glove for our less dominant hand. My left hand still went numb. Ned continued to paint while I sat in the truck trying to get warm. He was on a roll. I chalked his desire to stay in the cold to his ability to actually paint in the cold. If I were having successes with the brush, I reasoned, I too would most likely be standing, shivering, and applying paint to canvas.

The next day was more of the same. Up at 6 am, painting first light by 6:30. I got in some decent colors mostly by virtue of my experience in painting clouds. I still wasn't putting anything down that was worth saving. I scrubbed off the paint on at least one painting, and ended up satisfying myself by just watching Ned paint.

It wasn't a failure of a trip. I did learn several things that were very craftsmanly. I learned a lot of concepts that I am still mulling over, and I learned a very important lesson.

The reason I don't paint landscapes is that there is nothing about them that speaks to me. There is nothing I want to capture. I do not see the landscape as a challenge that I wish to record. It all looks very very green to me. The problems inherent in landscape painting are not problems that interest me. When we went back to Ned's place after our two days in the mountains, I looked at books on the subject, and found that there was nothing exciting me about what I was looking at. It all just looked like paint being applied in a very craftsmanly way. Which is to say, it didn't look bad, but it didn't look like anything to me. It looked like a skill set that I would bore myself to tear to try to acquire. Which is interesting. I'm a painter, right? I should want to paint well, right? Why shouldn't I aspire to paint like these guys Ned was showing me?

Because their work is devoid of the kinds of content I find compelling. Being able to paint well is not enough to make me hold my breath. It's not about what the painter is wanting me to see - I need to see what else the painter wants me to see. Velazquez and his human details. Sargent and his worn shoes and scandelous makeup. The subtext that exists in the narrative is what interests me. The commentary on the human condition - the poetry of the work.

Just like virtuoso guitar playing makes me yawn when it has no soul, virtuoso painting solely for the effort makes my eyes glaze over. The technique is part of a language, I want the work to be more than a recital of the alphabet.

I hate Thomas Kincaide. He is a bad painter. His technical skills are lacking and he has made his stock and trade the palette he acquired while working for Walt Disney. The rich purple sitting next to the orange. The drama of dark and light values paired against one another. There is no investigation in his work. Only the effort to portray an America that Norman Rockwell would find to saccharine.

Mostly I hate him because of his poor brush skills. The precious hacking and slashing - the lack of brovura paint handling. The expedient and oblivious application of paint as he races to excrete another painting he can dedicate to a bland and indifferent god. it says a lot about organized religion that he is a multi-millionaire.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with G-O-D. I just have a problem with a god who can be marketed in the crassest of ways.