One of the things I’ve been working on recently is painting more loosely.
It’s something I’ve struggled with for a while. My natural instinct is to fiddle, tweak and polish. If a detail doesn’t look quite right, I want to fix it immediately and the painting can lose its spark.
So I set myself a little challenge.
Twenty minutes.
That’s what I’ve been allowing myself to complete a small painting. No extra time. When the twenty minutes are up, I stop.
The results have been mixed to say the least…
I’ve been really surprised by the freshness and energy in some. Some have been less successful – but still useful learning exercises.
The hardest part has been learning not to worry about perceived mistakes. Even harder is resisting the temptation to put them right as I go. Sometimes what looks like a mistake at first actually adds character but I cant tell until I’ve left it alone for a while.
I’m beginning to think it’s helping. I’m seeing shapes rather than details, making bolder marks and, occasionally, producing paintings with a freshness that I’d normally struggle to achieve…
I realise that none of this is new, and artists have always discovered this for themselves as part of their own art journey. I recently completed a short on line course by Aly Harte a very talented artist from Belfast, Northern Ireland. On her Instagram bio she says she is ‘teaching the world to paint loose’. For me it was like discovering a secret; a little bit of magic that gave me permission to have more fun with my painting. Here are a couple I finished in twenty minutes.
Neither is perfect. In fact, there are things I’d love to change in both of them. But I made my decisions and stuck with them. I think they have more life because of it. Hope you like them.