What About That "Magical Talent" Myth?

Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours of easel time to become "the best painter in the world."

10,000 Hours? Are You Kidding Me?

Here's my take on why it takes some time to become a good painter: it's the neurological training of your brain to a new task.

10,000 is a hard number to reach and most ordinary people bail long before reaching that goal (and presumably this is why most of us are not great painters).

Learning the craft of classical oil painting isn't easy if you're starting from scratch - but logging in whatever time it takes to become a competent painter really is doable for everyone.

You can learn to paint in an "intellectual" way - read this blog, pick up a brush and find out how "easy" it is - Ha!

But there is no substitute for putting in some serious time. Here's why "time" will teach your brain how to paint - and then painting will grow into an "easy" skill.

The repeated act of painting - over and over - builds a type of implicit memory - which means that your brain holds knowledge of something your mind cannot explicitly access. (i.e., you do it - but it is tough to explain).

Albert Einstein said: “Love is a better master than duty.” (In other words, it you love to paint it won't be hard to put in a lot of hours to learn this skill).

Riding a bike, tying your shoes, typing on a keyboard, and steering your car into a parking place are examples of what you learned by "doing it." And the more you do these things, the better, faster and more accurate you get.

But can you explain exactly how you do it? Not so easy...

By the act of painting repeatedly, you'll develop a perfectly timed choreography with which your muscles contract and relax as you navigate your way around a canvas with a loaded brush. The more you do it, the happier the result and the easier it gets.

ALBERT EINSTEIN:

“It is not that I'm so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.”

This is the gap between what your brain can do and what you can tap into consciously.

The old studio system made it easier to learn to paint. The master would stand over the apprentice and watch and give feedback. After some period of time, the student's brain was trained to be masterful - albeit unconscious.

Sometimes this is assumed to be "talent" - but I think that merely putting in time counts for more than the "magical talent myth." In time, it actually becomes part of your neurology.

Good painters - and people on their way to being good painters - put in whatever hours are necessary - over some period of time - to learn the skill of good painting.

Einstein talks about time and repetition:

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

Handling paint is subtle. Oil paint "feels" different and behaves differently on different days. It depends on the temperature, humidity, how long it's been on the palette, the medium and canvas you're using, etc.

It takes time to learn these things and if you discover a substitute - please let me know.

If you painted 40 hours a week for a solid year you'd accumulate about 2000 hours. Thinking about 10,000 hours is a bit humbling, isn't it?

KARIN WELLS (trying to sound like Einstein):

“It is not that I'm such a good painter. But I probably worked more hours than most.”

The conscious mind is not at the center of the action in the brain; instead, it is far out on a distant edge, hearing but whispers of the activity.

You have to sit down and paint - repeatedly - if you want to become a good painter.

Grape Expectations: A Mini-Lesson in Massing Small (and Large) Objects

My friend Paul Pedersen* sent me a copy of his latest still life painting.

He was kind enough to allow me to stomp on his grapes as a way to teach you all a mini-lesson in correcting a common mistake.

I am grape-ful for Paul's nice little original still life above.

Paul has painted perfect little portraits of each grape - but he failed to "paint the bunch."

I photoshopped the painting to show how to "mass" this bunch of grapes together.

The bunch of grapes need to be painted as one entire unit - with both light and shadow as shown above.

In painting "reality" you paint the desired illusion (not merely what you see). In this case the "illusion" is meant to be "a bunch of grapes" - and not just sixty eight individual portraits of similar grapes (even though that is what they really are).

On the overall mass of grapes, the part nearest the source of light are the lightest - and the portion farthest from the light turns into shadow.

Massing small objects will always strengthen a painting.

Here is Paul's picture - photoshopped to show the result of massing. You can see that the overall light and shadow are maintained.

In painting the individual objects (in this case, grapes) you must not violate the light and shadow pattern you established underneath.

In other words, the values of each individual grape will completely respect the light and shadow you have established in massing the bunch.

Massing is so easy to see when you know what you're looking at. Chardin masses the bunch of strawberries in his still life.

Or when George Inness masses foliage in his landscapes...everybody does it - or they'd go nuts painting each tree branch and leaf.

Corot (and every other master painter I can think of) masses objects . . . trees and even those buildings in the distance.

Titian masses hair and fur in this portrait. Just imagine how impossible it would be to paint individual hairs?

Raphael masses hair and landscape elements.

Raphael masses hair and fur. You can see massing is everywhere - go to any good art museum and look at the Old Masters.

*NOTE: I trust Paul will forgive me for "raisin a fuss" about those grapes. (Groan - I ust cannot seem to help myself with those puns).

Who knew that Leonardo da Vinci liked Kitty Cats?

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

My eBook Update

In case you're wondering where I went - the answer is "nowhere." I am busy writing a book on "The Nuts and Bolts of Classical Oil Painting."**

My focus: Painting is a Craft that you need to master - before you get to the "art" part.

My aim is to write a basic textbook for someone who doesn't know a darn thing . . . except that they wish to paint in a classical realistic manner.

So many of us are visual - and need to be shown, rather than told, "how to make it look real." (There are rules for this, you know).

The format of this blog maddingly does not allow me to go into the detail I wish. So I am writing/illustrating an ebook to teach classical realistic painting.

So far it's a technical nightmare - but I'll eventually figure it out.

Stay tuned.

** This is only a working title, suggestions welcome.

Obvious Advice (for the Oblivious)

I keep this painting around the studio to remind myself that some lessons are really painful.

This is a detail of an oil sketch I did many years ago. In those days I was a bit too "casual" with my work and set this painting on the floor next to my easel to dry.

One day I discovered that I had managed to splatter paint all over it - which was dry and could not be removed.

Still . . . I left this work on the floor until a week later - my full-time-dog and part-time-art-critic evidently mistook this piece for a fire hydrant.

Sarge (named after John Singet Sargent) never did that again - thank heavens.

So the point of this story is: Treat your work with the respect it deserves and don't leave it laying around where it can get damaged.

Some of My Favorite Ready-Made Frames

Every artist wants their work to look good. And here is a way to do it if you are on a budget.*

*"Budget" is a nicer word than "cheap and lazy" like, er . . . me.

I like a ready-made frame. I tend to paint on "standard size" canvas in order to fit my work into a ready-made frame.

Some standard sizes below:

I have gotten a lot of my frames from JFM.

The purpose of a frame is to visually separate the painting from the wall it is hanging on.

I like a wide gold frame - at least 4" wide to do this - just because I paint in a classical style.

Sometimes I choose a frame by placing my painting in a frame in Photoshop. I like to "try it on" before I buy if possible. Like this recent reject below:

I'll have to keep trying "Doris 'Granny D' Haddock" in frames until I find one I like....maybe something with a touch of silver perhaps?

There are many framers and frame companies - but fast, elegant and relatively inexpensive appeals to me.

FRAUD ALERT: Djordje Prudnikoff

I am not pleased.

Not one bit.

I just got an email from (con)artist and world-class braggart Djordje Prudnikoff who sent an email to his "group" shamelessly complementing his own work ~

- and then he signed my name!

I did not send anybody this email.

I do not support this good-for-nothing shyster who used my name without my knowledge or my permission.

I am stunned that any artist would do such a moronic thing.

How to Draw an Ellipe by Eye

I moved this up from an earlier posting as I have had so many questions about how this is done.

Knowing how to draw an accurate ellipse "by eye" can be an extremely useful tool...i.e., from rendering vases and teacups - not to mention its use in portraiture.

Here's how it is done:

Determine the outside dimensions of your ellipse with a rectangle.

Connect the corners of the rectangle with straight lines (CC).

Where these lines intersect is the center, point B.

Divide line BC into thirds by eye and mark with dots.

Point D is the outermost dot and will be moved verrrry slightly outward so that it is a little less than 1/3.

Mark the center of the sides of the rectangle (Point A).

With a dotted curved line, the elipse will only touch the rectangle at Point A and pass through Point D.

Thank heavens this works with any perspective view too and that is when you REALLY need it.

NOTE:

When drawing a circle or any curve, it will always be easier to be accurate if you use a dotted line rather than a solid line first.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

St Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland.

I wonder if we could get him to stop by the House of Representatives? The Republicans just cut NPR's funding.

Kiss me! I'm Irate!

I like to listen to NPR in the studio when I paint. I am in rural New Hampshire where the hate talkers rule the airwaves 24/7 (Limbaugh, Hannity, ad nauseum). NPR saved my sanity.

Losing NPR really gets my "Irish up."

Your Name Tastes Like Purple - or - Living With Synesthesia

By Teri Floyd*

In my head, the letter N is green. The number 5 is blackish gray, and in his early 20s. The month of February is lavender colored and covered in ice.

So in case you haven’t guessed, I have Synesthesia.

I’ve had it all my life, I suppose. People who are experts on such things say that we are born with it, that it is a brain disorder.

The wires in your brain get crossed, and you experience all five senses simultaneously. They overlap where they should be separate.

Everybody who has it has a different form of synesthesia with minor undertones of other kinds. Mine mainly exists with letters and numbers. I see numbers, letters, words, etc in color.

All of my letters and numbers have different colors, personalities, textures, ages and gender. I literally see them as living beings. Colors themselves also have gender. When I was a child often I’d play ‘house’ with my crayons instead of dolls.

Seriously, I’d have red and blue get married or green and orange have a sordid affair. My Grandma used to think it was so funny. It was just normal to me. Words have colors – for instance, my son’s name, Callum, is a bright, sunny yellow with flecks of baby blue, particularly in the L’s.

The inside of my head kind of feels like a Jackson Pollock painting. All splotches and globs of brightly colored paint, roads leading nowhere, just an explosion of thick, goopy color with a nonsensical message.

Convergence, 1952 by Jackson Pollock is my favorite painting. Probably because it’s the colors of my name. Yellows, a hint of orange, lots of black, and a little fleck of blue peaking out; all of it streaked into oblivion. My name looks just like that; it did long before I ever saw a Pollock painting.

I also have synesthesia with regard to music. Certain songs bring vivid colors into my head. If I listen to ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’, by the Beatles, my head fills with alternating flashes of mustard-yellow and bright, silvery white. It has a distinct pulse and a gritty, sandpapery feel.

David Bowie’s voice always invokes a bright sky blue that sometimes turns darker, or has shades of gray, depending on the mood of the song. Rap music invokes a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes all spiralling through my head at warp speed.

Artist Gene Davis gives us all a taste of synesthesia as he paints the street leading up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

I prefer one sole theme, which is why I think I don’t usually care for rap music unless it’s really unique or exceptional (for instance, Lil Wayne’s voice is a silvery gray with purpleundertones that I find really pleasing).

Classical music takes me through a landscape of color, shape and feeling. Usually I close my eyes when listening. It’s like having my own personal DVD of Fantasia playing through my head whenever I listen.

Usually when I tell people about my synesthestic experiences they look at me like I’m some crazed hippie. I probably am a crazed hippie in reality, but what I experience is more than just psychadelic. It’s spiritual.

My synesthesia is so ingrained into me that if I lost my ability tomorrow, I would feel as if I’d been blinded or deafened.

Occasionally I experience the other types of synesthesia that have to do with taste, sensation and smell, but only occasionally. Smells and tastes definitely invoke a distinct color in my brain.

For instance, the smell and taste of fresh garlic makes my head fill with bright, vibrant green. Diet drinks with their saccharine sweetness always appear in my head as being a shimmering, blinding silver.

It can be strange, having synesthesia. If I’m out to dinner with a friend, and they scrape their fork on their teeth, my brain fills with unnamed metallic colors, and my ears roar with the sound of it. I can’t stand it.

I can taste the metal on my own tongue and it is unbearable. It can cause obsessive compulsive behavior sometimes. Occasionally the sound and taste of silverware is so loud in my brain that I have to use plastic cutlery when I eat.

Synesthesia certainly enriches my life as an avid reader and a writer. It always helped my poetry and as I become better at essays and stories I find that it enriches them, too. Certainly F. Scott Fitzgerald was synesthetic. No-one can read The Great Gatsby and tell me that he wasn’t. I think that is why I feel so decadent and wistful when I read his books.

I’ve read Gatsby dozens of times and never tire of the language and the way his words flow in an endless barrage of color. Many artists and celebrities are synesthestes, including Tori Amos, Eddie Van Halen, Frederick Nietzche, Stevie Wonder, Vladimir Nabokov, and many, many others.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t grateful to have synesthesia. I have had it so long that it is like second nature to me now. I often forget that I do have it, and just go through life assuming that people are experiencing the same sensations as I do.

I see the months of the year like a giant rolodex, spiralling through an open space. They all have colors, genders, ages and personalities. I also benefit from having a somewhat photographic memory with directions, phone numbers, addresses and names, because I see them as a pattern of colors.

It all tastes blue to me.

* By Teri Floyd and Reprinted from Persephone Magazine, 2/3/2011 - Original article here.