painting process as of july 18, 2024
I often find that it's pretty difficult for me to stop what I'm doing to take notes, process pictures, or even videos. It feels like a wrench gets thrown into the flow, but every time I finish a piece, I always, always wish that I knew how I created that specific color of paint, why I made a certain decision, or what the piece looked like as I built it up.
I recently began listening to the book Show Your Work by Austin Kleon to jazz myself up about sharing the process, and hoo-boy was it a great reframe on the joys and benefits of sharing your work with the world, and how to go about doing it. One of my main takeaways was how we, as humans, tend to want to see how things are made, or why a specific decision was made (I know I always watch a director's version of the movie when it's made available, and nerd out on learning about the process and exactly how something was created) and that I had the opportunity to do the same thing for folks with my own work.
And so, here we are, walking through the process of painting the zebra. Without further ado, my very own director's cut, where I'll walk you through how I went from the very basic sketches to the second piece in my first big series, 'enmeshed' (working title).
intuitive sketches on the left made in early July 2024, prior to any sort of inkling of where I was going, to the in-process version of a 36x48 inch painting for the 'enmeshed' series.
the inspiration
I've been thinking a LOT about yin energy lately (read a little bit more about this and how it's been inspiring me here) and I've also been very much into striped animals (hello zebras and tigers). One core element of my life in this current moment is the interconnectedness of literally everything, and that there are so many more layers to "what is" than what meets the eye. If you are a Meyers-Briggs person, I am a very strong ENFP personality, and have really leaned into it ever since deciding to become a full time artist.
Right after graduating high school, I backpacked through the Grand Canyon. Never have I felt so small, so aligned, so human as those four days of working with the cool hours of the morning to hike, then resting during the heat of the day in the river, with nothing to do but be. As I hiked out of the canyon, I remember feeling so insignificant and so at peace. I realized that it was only through the utter and loving acceptance of our insignificance that we can truly be significant - big feelings for an eighteen year old that have stuck in my brain ever since.
After quitting my full time job last year (scary), I began to reinvigorate this thought process and pattern, and devoted time to allowing it to build and blossom. I started a more thoughtful meditation practice. I talked to a lot of different people. I sat with my thoughts. I connected some more. I got angry at capitalism. Really angry. Like I was angry before, and then I began to see and connect all of the injustices that classism causes (hint: it's kind of the root of all our problems), and got even more angry - blind with rage, really. But that anger does not feel good. And I feel things very deeply, so I knew that holding this anger inside would be not great for me (save this feeling for your art, Carly). At the time, I was painting a lot, but not really creating anything that felt super meaningful. And then something clicked. I am an artist who is devoting her time to the sharing of thoughts and self: share the thoughts and self more directly and move beyond the fear of creating things that no one would like.
And so, I began to make more intuitively. I journaled and took silent hikes and laid on the floor and thought. I did a lot of sketching and slow-looking and drew what resonated most deeply with me. I thought about how I want to move with the flow, rather than exert power or control over it (because, newsflash, I can't really control anything that happens in the world, so adjusting to it and moving with it feels a lot more empowering than building up a fake structure of control that I tie my sense of worth to). I started going to yin yoga classes at my studio, where you hold a pose for 3-5 minutes at a time. Creating intentional physical stillness is a way of creating mental/emotional/spiritual space (mind-body connection, anyone?). And we, as humans, have a tendency to fill the space. But what if I just sat with it? What if I just let the thoughts flow through my mind and out of my ears instead of chasing them as they passed by? Would the space continue expanding? Would new ideas turn over in the empty space where the loop of rerun thoughts used to be? Turns out, this is a good way to build new neural connections in your brain (ie. meditation) and for previously unconnected dots to be connected, because it seems like all of those things did begin happening.
So in this concoction of meditation, sketching, making, being, and slowing down, I was drawing a tiger one day and saw the stripes in her back turn into little human forms who were dancing and meditating and connecting with one another. I saw, from my own pencil in 2024, figures emerge with a similar resonance to the cave paintings of Lascaux (here's the link to the images of cave art available on wiki commons).
[insert image of sketches of people moving around, dancing, animal paintings, etc, from my sketch book/images of the tiger sketch]
The discovering
Back in the fall/winter of 2023, I was intuitively painting abstract zebras on large canvases. I had not yet played much with intuitive/abstract painting. In fact, I usually sketch, thumbnail, and color test paintings before committing to a piece. This time, I picked up a palette knife, made a few VERY basic sketches, and went for it.
When I say 'basic' I mean BASIC. Literal ovals and lines.
I really just make these to know the composition I'm going for.
I loved how they came out. I felt so called to reflecting these zebras and zebra herds in their connection to movements of other beings, namely starlings and fish. I think I also really enjoyed the freedom of painting them in a non-realistic way, and instead painting a poem dedicated to the flow of energy each animal shared with the next. I had also just come across the openness and colorful rhythms of Mia Pensa's work and felt inspired in a way that drove me to make. So I made these three pieces, then I put zebras/abstract painting down for a while and focused more on landscapes and realistic work. I always felt the pull to return to animals, but wasn't yet sure what or how I wanted to do that.
These are the intuitive zebra paintings done in fall/winter 2023-24.
So I started sketching and studying the forms of tigers and zebras without too much direction. I focused more on how the animal's form worked together, how their expression could come through their posture, how an animal's soul and sentience can be felt if we simply tune in (this also further cemented my difficulty in eating meat, but that's a story for a different time, and this is a very personal decision and not a guilt trip for you, dear reader, to become vegetarian), and how we could see our humanity reflected back to us without centering ourselves as the point.
Initial block in of 'Resting Tiger, Zestful Stripes' at Narragansett Fine Art Festival 2024. If you zoom in, you can see the human figures abstracted into the form of stripes.
After live painting this first tiger during my first Fine Art Festival in Narragansett, and getting to connect with passerby's on what I was doing, I was pretty much hooked on this exploration, and it has become mainly what I think about on a day to day basis. Where is the connection for all of us? How do we enmesh ourselves with the natural world more fully and move with the flow rather than try to control it? I knew a zebra was the next step for this exploration, and began more sketching and reference collection.
images from my sketch book, first two with reference, the final without. You can start to see the groundwork for this piece unknowingly laid out in the right-most sketch.
The first painting draft began to emerge. I got about halfway through painting the 8x10in version and finished it digitally with photoshop to see my initial reactions. I shared it with some good friends whose opinions I trust to be loving, honest, and true.
Left most image: the partially finished zebra painting sketch I did at 8x10in to study lighting and color options. I ultimately used the final right most image as my color guide, with a little help from the input of my friends.
I sat with this version for a while, and did more studies, took more notes, and played with more options. I was trying to answer the question 'does this work?' It was basically a proof of concept. The second and third images are a digitally finished renditions where I used photoshop brushes to quickly 'finish' the painting and fine tune the colors. This allowed me to really nail down the temperature and color conversation happening.
As I finalized the color temperature and palette, I realized something in the fundamental structure of the painting. I gave this zebra a bit too much of a "beak" where it looked like a draft horse nose rather than a zebra. I'll show you what I mean.
Thank you, Andrea Brewing and Christie Reeves for these wonderful reference photos. The horse on the left had a nose that takes a big "dip" downwards and slopes underneath, while the zebra on the right has a bit more of an upward curve from it's forehead to the nose.
My inital zebra was just looking a bit too horse-ish. They're related, but there's some clear nuance you can see, especially with the two photos above. Back to the sketching board. Then I thought about what I was trying to say - did the side silhouette of the zebra best communicate the idea that we could recognize ourselves in other beings if we only look? I played with the idea of the zebra looking directly at the viewer, rather than off the canvas. It clicked. I needed the zebra to look back at the viewer, for the viewer to recognize the zebra, and that the zebra herself is simultaneously recognizing us. Below are the resulting sketches and the reference I used to help create them.
The upper left sketch of the zebra became the template for the final painting. I did that one first, then the lower right one of the head profile. I went back and forth between the two for a day, then ultimately settled on the upper one for reasons mentioned above. You can also see some notes I took while painting the large version on color.
Reference images I used in the sketches courtesy of Christie Reeves (left image) and Gina Rosner (right image) through the facebook group "Free Reference Photos for Artists"
I am so grateful for the library of reference photos from photographers and artists alike who are so willing to share their work as free reference. These two photos above really helped to inform the stripe patterns and facial expression of the zebra. You can see some of the influence of the left image especially in the upper sketch used for the larger painting - some of the main changes I made were in the arch of the neck, the body angle, and the human patterned stripes.
I knew this was going to be a big painting, and thought I had a 30x40in canvas in my studio. Turns out, I only had a 36x48in canvas, which I became even more excited about, but, whomp whomp, had no easel big enough to handle this size of a canvas.
In a stroke of serendipity, I took a peek at Facebook Marketplace and came across the exact easel I needed right in the price range I was looking at, and it was only 10 minutes away. I picked it up the next morning, right after another fantastic spur-of-the-moment chat with a fellow artist and framer named R. Wayne Reynolds at Jerry's Artarama. I went home and immediately began working, even though I still had some details to flesh out. It's cool how the universe can line everything up for you as you keep taking steps... action creates clarity, and I've learned that waiting for clarity before starting anything seems to be a great way to move nothing forward.
The Process
I transfer small sketches to large canvases often using the grid method, which is an incredibly helpful process that ensures I keep the ratios and layout as similar as possible to the original. The grid method is drawing the same number of boxes (a 'grid' if you will) over a photo of the 3x4 inch initial sketch, then sizing up the size of the canvas, which is also a 3:4 ratio. It took me about two hours to draw the grids and sketch the zebra onto the large canvas.
There is a lot of walking away and returning in my process, as it gives my brain a chance to "rinse off" and see the sketch with fresh eyes. It's kind of like when you look at a word for too long and suddenly it loses all meaning, and you're left questioning if it's really a word after all (looking at you, "limo"). When I return to my canvas, I can look with way less judgement and focus on observation, making little notes about fixes, or finding that I am actually pretty content with the progress.
I then mixed my palette and worked stripe by stripe. In the future, I don't think I will be doing this, as I think I could get a more cohesive color and lighting story with less headache if I filled in the light and shadow shapes based on the white coat using a warm and cool color, then added in the stripes with a translucent paint, but we learn as we go.
My palette consists of alizarin crimson, alizarin magenta, cadmium red light, titan buff, ultramarine blue, dioxazine purple, cadmium orange, titanium, cobalt, and perhaps a few other colors that are not currently coming to mind.
Here's what it looked like after about two hours of painting.
I added the human forms pretty intuitively. I knew the approximate locations of the stripes and just painted in bodies as they appeared to me.
Another hour later:
The next day and two hours later.
Two more hours of painting.
You can see it's a pretty slow process. I have a hard time mixing enough paint sometimes, so I often find myself having to stop as I go to remix a color. I know I need to walk away and take a break when I am impatiently scraping any dwindling paint on my palette and hoping it makes the color I'm looking for, rather than just unscrewing the cap on the paint tube and adding more of what I need. At that point, I usually know my brain has reached it's limit for the time being.
I'm writing this blog post as I sit in Provincetown, MA, so this will only be part one of the process, as the zebra is waiting for me at home to continue working on. Thanks for taking this little journey with me, and if you have any questions about the process, I'd be happy to answer them in the comments :)
Be well,
Carly
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