Uncovering Your Unique Style

Artists have always been labeled, but we’re more flexible, and unfortunately more amenable to accepting others’ opinions of what kind of art we’re doing than we should be. When we start out as artists, we create art that is so natural to us that we mistakenly think we have no particular style. I remember trying to let figures emerge from dark backgrounds like Rembrandt. It was a style I was trying on for size.

A neighboring young artist’s walls were filled with vivid, striking images that he outlined in black. When I talked to him about his dramatic style, he looked puzzled. He said, “… but that’s the way I see the world – it’s not a style.” Another artist I worked with used soft colored images that were tonally similar. Again, this is the way he saw things. It was his reality.

Many of us have had the experience of leaving fine art for a long time before we rededicate ourselves to it. Raising a family or holding a job can take all our creative energy. I was both lucky and unlucky to have a “day” job that both fulfilled my artistic urges and denied them.

How? Easy.

1. I was a commercial artist who started out learning how to do the psychedelic Peter Max style illustrations, then followed the trend into Art Nouveaux Redux, and rather prided myself on being able to imitate any artist’s style for advertising and publishing purposes. That was my day job, and I won awards for it. It fed me, clothed me, and put a roof over my head.
2. At home I was a fine artist who did portrait commissions and painted my own dreams. I joined art groups and painted from models; entered shows and sometimes came away with awards and cash.

But, even working at home, I still thought of myself as an artist with no particular style, because of my ability to imitate the styles of others. I had no identity as a fine artist that I could recognize.

Now that I’m doing fine art exclusively, I’m thinking. Really thinking hard. You have to think about what you’re doing, or it’s only irrational excess. Animal reflexes. And the thoughts are: what way do I paint when I am painting exactly what I want to paint? Are there particular strokes or color mixtures that are part of my identity? Is there a particular “twiddle” that is mine and recognizable as mine? Look at the masters and see if you do something similar to one or two of them. Look away from your works and quickly glance at them, with a cold eye, as if you’re a stranger. That cold eye can also be encouraged if you hold a mirror to the artwork and look at its mirror image.

And ask yourself the crucial question: given that I can paint/draw/sculpt any subject that I want, what subjects identify my art and my style the most?

Now that we’re beginning to recognize our style, our quirks and our particular genius, do we want to trim away the subject matter that does not reflect our style well? Hard decisions have to be made, because each of us is allotted only so much time in the world.

I’m still in the middle of trimming my inventory to my most beloved subjects; the ones where I apply every brush-stroke with dedication, but you’ll see my website cluttered with many things that I haven’t been able to abandon. It’s an ongoing process, and I work on it. As long as you create, you’ll always keep honing the effort to refine and nourish your own style.

Nancy
www.nancyparkart.com

New Paintings Up!

I've just added ten more paintings to my website. To take a look, click the url below. Here are a couple of the new ones. Ah, art is all of life itself!

Nancy
www.nancyparkart.com

Festival of the Arts

The Festival of the Arts, Oklahoma City's biggest draw in outdoor art shows, has invited the Oklahoma Art Guild to participate in the show by asking members to do demonstrations from Tuesday, April 22nd, through Saturday the 26th. Four of us will occupy one tent and paint (or whatever each volunteer does best) for four-hour segments.

The demos are from 10 am to 2 pm, 2 pm to 6 pm, and 6 pm to 9 pm. I'm delighted to be one of the demonstrators! The best way to spend time well is to take a dip into eternity, and that's what creating art does for artists. (The pay's certainly not that good!)

Here I am, working on the first sketch in a portrait commission.

Nancy
www.nancyparkart.com

Oops! Correction...

I should have looked at my painting first before I said anything. It's the artist's painting that is in the sweet spot! Sorry.

Nancy
www.nancyparkart.com

The Golden Ratio

Most artists and designers of some experience use the golden ratio unconsciously, but for those who want to learn it precisely, it is "the irrational number," or the Greek letter Phi. You can look up the number, which is 1.618.... something or other, on Wikipedia, and you'll also get instructions on how to draw a square and arrive at your golden mean by using a compass. The diagram I'm including is a lot more casual, but accepted as a way to get there without stopping your painting, photo or sketch to use algebra. It's the method I learned and it works in a natural way. I put up a 12" x 9" box, and divided it not three areas across and another line 4" down. That leaves the area under the four inch mark close to the golden ratio. The circle that I put in red indicates what we call the sweet spot, which is, formally, where you put your focal point. You can turn this diagram any direction, flop it, or just discard it and use the irrational number, but eventually, you find yourself out somewhere with a sketch pad and something you need to draw quickly. Then you can remember the thirds lengthwise and the just above the middle or below the middle widthwise (your horizon). Take a look at a painting on my website, "Artist at Work," and analyze the composition I used. It's a cruciform layout, and the artist's head is in the sweet spot. Sketch a lot. Work a little every day at this and it will start to come naturally. The golden ratio actually is the most common design in nature. And you are part of nature.

Nancy
www.nancyparkart.com

More Art on my Website

I'm uploading a few more pieces of art of my website. One of them, "Suburban Cowboy," has been accepted into a juried national show, so it isn't for sale yet, and won't be until May.

Of course, if it sells at the show, it never will be! The model was my husband, Joe. He makes a great model, since he's a native Texan, and there is something about Texas "attitude" that you can capture in a painting!

Another one is a portrait of a little boy that I delivered last week, and I was given permission to put it on my website. Herewith is a sketch of the child that was rejected for the painting. I still like it, but when you see the painting, you'll see why my buyer wanted the standing pose.

Wait a couple of days and the new art will be there.

Nancy
www.nancyparkart.com

Sketching is art, too!

When we think of sketches, we (or at least I) think of a slim idea, or a half-formed vision. It's amazing how fast they take shape and invade the "nobler" realms of art as paintings, sculptures, and finished drawings. Think of Leonardo's and Michelangelo's sketches and see how artists' minds solve problems while accidentally creating a study or sketch which, centuries later, is as precious as the finished artwork it helped shape.

While I'm not of such stature, training, dedication, talent, and brilliance as these masters, I'm fond of my own sketches at times, and can't toss them after I'm through with them. Here are a few of them. You might see the finished paintings of some of them on my website.

Nancy
www.nancyparkart.com

The art of salmon patties

I got a yen for the food of the fifties tonight and looked up how to make salmon patties. My mother called them salmon croquettes, but they looked like patties, and I seemed to remember that she used salmon, bread crumbs, egg -- simple items like that, and it only took her a few minutes to make them.

Either my memory is awfully, unlawfully flawed, or she did not face anything like what I did tonight. Did I mention I'm a really good artist? (I have to say that to restore my self-esteem, because I made such a cookery mess this evening!) First you saute the onions until soft in a small frying pan, and add your minced garlic, lemongrass, and jalapeno pepper. You set this aside to cool.

I'm almost certain Mom wouldn't have known what lemongrass was even if it spit a seed in her eye.

You mix of a small bowl of "whisked" eggs. You set this aside. Mom would have said she won't cook with whiskey. I also doubt if she ever heard of cilantro or of canola oil. Or rice vinegar. Then you put a lot of exotic stuff in a large bowl. Once you add the eggs and the cooled onion stuff, you carefully fold the salmon into it. I really think the salmon is beyond caring whether it is carefully folded or not.

You form the stuff into eight patties and chill for a half-hour. That called for another pan. I used my cookie pan to do that. Finally, weak from hunger, I plopped the patties into a large frying pan with peanut oil.

I chow down, and it's not too bad, but Mom's simple recipe was better. Then again, through my rosy glasses, almost everything was better when she cooked it.

My kitchen looks like a tornado hit it. I just got both frying pans, both bowls, the chopping board and the dinner plates washed up. I am absolutely sure my mother didn't use that many pans, bowls and cookie sheets to make salmon croquettes.

She didn't have a dishwasher, except for us girls.

Tomorrow I'm getting Chinese carry-out.

Nancy
www.nancyparkart.com

Art as Reality

Art as reality. I'm a long-established "paint-slinger," and I've had people comment on my art that it looks so real it could be a photograph. Even my husband jokes that I've got cameras at the end of my fingers.

I say, "Thank you," politely, but there has always been a reservation in my mind: I don't think most photographs look that real. Great masters of photography, of course, are the exception, and I think it's not just the eye of the creator, but the soul, that in its perception of another soul, elicits the inward features that the camera cannot see. There is a gesture or a twinkle that captures the personality and character of human being, no matter how young or old. The same is true of landscapes, still lifes, flowers, and, as far as I know, abstraction.

There is a pull of enchantment that I can only see as ultra-reality. Magic is everywhere, and it's real. What do you think?

-- Nancy
www.nancyparkart.com