the expression of an emotion

^ Storm Clouds Over Landscape with Trees. 2013. watercolor.  6×9″. © Bullock Online 2013

^ Sketchbook page showing storm clouds over a landscape. 08.2012. © Bullock Online 2013

“Every genuine effort in Art is complete. It is the expression of an emotion, and being such is finished.”
– Alfred W. Rich, Water-Colour Painting (ch. v), 1918

Continuing to work with a limited, 5-color palette, I am working from past sketches and notes. I have a real fascination with the idea of working representationally from notes and color sketches, and have been trying to get better at figuring it out and creating convincing effects. The attempt is to recreate something which was seen and experienced, and which is now a memory, and to do so faithfully and accurately. Yet painting is, in fact, an interpretation of that memory — conscious decisions from the start require limiting and abbreviating the thing depicted, or at least bringing it in line with the materials at hand, ironically resulting in, possibly, a more accurate depiction by deleting everything unnecessary and leaving only the important elements remaining. And this is not an argument for total reduction. Far from it. But the history of painting is of exactly these kinds of decisions, I think, and paintings succeed or fail based on these decisions. No less so in the case of landscape painting.

Shape and Pattern

[^ Still-life with Bowls and Citrus. charcoal. 10×14″. © Bullock Online 2013]

“Unity is necessary because without it our minds and eyes are worried by disorganized muddle. Some shape and pattern has to be imposed; things have to ‘hang together’. On the other hand without variety, our second need, our eyes quickly become bored and lose interest.”

– Bernard Dunstan, Composing Your Paintings (1971)

Still-lifes offer the great advantage of being able to compose a painting and work on it at one’s leisure under what is pretty much a perfectly controlled situation. The objects, the lighting, everything. Fruit and flowers wilt but can be replaced. Overall, it is pretty ideal.

Composition skills are especially important in still-life subjects, in my opinion. I went about composing this with two aims — to disrupt all these round shapes while keeping visual balance. Ellipses are something I am still struggling with a bit, evidently.

But it is fun and productive to grab a few things from around the apartment, and to put something together, and to get some pencils or brushes to see what comes of it.

Just have to get better at those ellipses.

Visit Bullock Online: paintings and works on paper by Robert Edward Bullock.