Back in my high school days, my art teacher signed me up for
a painting class at the local museum.
The teacher at the museum was one of the local high school teachers. He was
not really much older than I was. He was probably a new teacher in the WFISD.
He is now retired and still in WF. I see him from time to time and visit with
him, but he doesn’t remember me. But, oh how I remember him.
It was the early 70s and Mr. K was all about modern art. “If
it feels good, paint it” was his motto. Even if you just want to paint a circle
because it feels right – do it. Strokes, slashes, whatever! If it feels good,
do it. My eyebrow went up. I think I
painted a silhouette of a windmill against a night sky. And I argued with Mr. K. He loved it – my arguing,
that is. I told him that a painting
needed to be liked by other people or what good was it? If no one liked or enjoyed or understood your
painting, why do it? At the end of the class
when the parents came to see our work, Mr. K told my dad how I had disagreed
with him and argued my point and how much he liked that. Although these forty-plus
years later he has forgotten that time, I have not.
Now days, I can understand his point better, not that I want
to paint a circle or some other modern/slashes. But sometimes when I’m
painting, there is a feeling that “this is so right!” When a painting comes
together the way you want it to, it can feel great. Sometimes painting is just
a struggle – things you have to work through to get the painting to work the
way it does in your brain. Working
through the struggle can feel good too.
Most of the time I paint from photographs. When I sort
through a stack of photos, there may be something that jumps out and makes me
feel, “I can paint that.” Sometimes I look through the photos of things that I
thought were great, and they make me feel nothing at all. So, maybe it does have to feel right.
So, I am getting ready for the next Art Battle on November 9th. I have a couple of ideas for paintings. Here
is the thing: it has to be something that I can paint well in 20 minutes. It
cannot be something with too much detail. Mixing colors is time consuming, so
it is better to stick with basic paint colors and little mixing. It needs to be something that catches the
audience’s attention. Contrast is great. And here is the kicker: it needs to be
something the audience can relate to.
So there, Mr. K! I was right! People like to
connect to a painting. If they don’t “get it” they won’t vote for it. If it doesn’t “pop”, the people will not like
it. Two examples: In my last art battle,
there was a lady who was an excellent artist and my biggest competition. She
painted an amazing face, but her colors were very muted. I painted a little boy
in an airplane with bright colors.