September 4, 2009

...Speaking of materials (and I was, back there, going on about my brush fetish), I've long pondered the peculiar effect of good stuff vs. cheap stuff on the quality of the artwork in progress. Buy an expensive canvas or watercolor paper, and you can suffer a paralysis, sitting before it figuring where to defile its purity with your first mark. Set up newsprint, brown paper, or the back of something, and the work will flow. When you've finished, there will be a fine piece that will surely yellow and disintegrate over time, or one whose backside must be disguised. (People who buy paintings seem to be less interested in one that occupies the reverse of a loser.)

The answer? Put a ban on all cheap materials for students. That way, we'll practice on the good stuff so much that it will hold no terror for us.

...And have you noticed that our pen-and-ink drawings can be stiff and labored? This is because most of us doodled in the margins of our notebook paper with number two pencils for years, and now we're faced with the unforgiving ink pen on expensive paper.

The answer? Bring back the pen-and-ink system for students and require that all doodles in margins be executed by the same. With years of this kind of practice, we would be able to knock out a pen-and-ink drawing with confidence and ease.

You never know when you'll create a winner. Let's broaden the odds as best we can!

PW