Arcadian Road (5x7 Study)
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today study is of 'Arcadian Road' (5x7 Study).
In today's video narration I ramble, sometimes interestingly, so please check the video out.
I woke up last night to go to the bathroom and a thought occurred to me that a good subject to talk about on this blog, would be my history in manufacturing and how it has influenced my approach to landscape painting. In my 20s and early 30s, I had a job as a manager for a company that manufactured decorative art for the hospitality industry. Basically, this was a framing job but on a more extensive scale than most retail mom and pop frame shops.
We would have to ship hundreds or sometimes thousands of framed pictures every month. Some of this art was created in-house but most of it was framed posters that had mats, glass and molding. I was quite adept at all of the ins and outs of the manufacturing process. Being of a philosophical bent, I was inclined to apply some creativity to what I was doing every day. One important thing about the place I was working, was that we had a strong emphasis on quality and creating a quality product. This instilled in me at a young age an ability to achieve productivity with quality.
This leads us to the question of how this manufacturing job influenced what I do now with my landscape painting. In a recent review of a show of my work at the Hangar Gallery in Kamo, the reviewer mentioned in his review (after talking with me) that he felt I had almost a production line approach to my work, I had told him that I would do all my drawings for a series, then my first color stage and finally my last color stage, moving through each painting in the series until all the paintings were completed. In that article he compared me to a Damian Hirst. An artist I feel I am miles from in attitude and approach. However I can see where he was coming from, in that I do have a manufacturing influence in my history and it does inform how I do art now.
After many years as a commercial illustrator creating art with digital media that was then printed on T-shirts, mugs or other merchandise, I was very inclined to start working on actual physical paintings. I've written about this on this blog and elsewhere.
A physical painting is an object. It is an art object and though there are many philosophical, emotional and spiritual qualities invested in a painting, at the end of the day it is still an object. This object status in art is a bit more evident with sculpture, however, painting certainly qualifies as well even though paintings depict a two-dimensional scene they are a three-dimensional object existing in time and space.
In my view, no reproduction can capture the actual quality of a real painting that has been invested with time, effort and concentration. Everything that goes into a painting leaves a trace on the surface of the work. The resulting effect is a sort of glow. It's a bit hard to describe this attribute because it's a subtle quality that the original work has, that is lacking in reproductions.
There is a strong aspect of craft in what I do, although it is not craft alone that makes it art. This is where the term fine art comes into play. Something cannot be fine unless it evidences a high level of craft and yet some things can have a great deal craft in them and not be fine art.
My particular method of doing 14 or more paintings in a series at a time might seem like it is a production line approach ,but the reality is that I am only working on one painting at any given time. All of my concentration and energy are going into that particular piece of art.
Approaching paintings in a serial manner is valuable is that it keeps me from belaboring or overworking the paintings that I am creating. I have taken what is most productive and creative from my years in manufacturing and applied it to what I do now,which is create fine art landscape paintings.
BTW I'm currently reading a book about Ernest Hemingway called Hemingway's Boat by Paul Hendrickson. This is a really excellent book that I highly recommend. In it, Ernest Hemingway has some great things to say about the creative process. One of the cool nuggets of information that he's imparted, is that an artist should always leave a bit undone at the end of a working session so that they have a thread that they can easily pick up next time they go to work. It occurred to me that this is one of the reasons why I take the approach to painting that I do with multiple paintings going on, there's always something in the works.
Another point that Hemingway made in this book, is that you want to work only when you are fresh and never overdo it. Pushing too hard will eliminate a lot of the "fine"from fine art and tends to yield work that is forced and pedestrian in nature, which is 100% the opposite of what I am trying to do.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Arcadian Road' (5x7 Study): I've painted this motif before back in 2011. I was pretty happy with that painting but I wanted to go after it again. This is my favorite type of motif and I'm pretty happy with the way this study turned out.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
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| Arcadian Road by M Francis McCarthy, 5x7 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Today study is of 'Arcadian Road' (5x7 Study).
In today's video narration I ramble, sometimes interestingly, so please check the video out.
I woke up last night to go to the bathroom and a thought occurred to me that a good subject to talk about on this blog, would be my history in manufacturing and how it has influenced my approach to landscape painting. In my 20s and early 30s, I had a job as a manager for a company that manufactured decorative art for the hospitality industry. Basically, this was a framing job but on a more extensive scale than most retail mom and pop frame shops.
We would have to ship hundreds or sometimes thousands of framed pictures every month. Some of this art was created in-house but most of it was framed posters that had mats, glass and molding. I was quite adept at all of the ins and outs of the manufacturing process. Being of a philosophical bent, I was inclined to apply some creativity to what I was doing every day. One important thing about the place I was working, was that we had a strong emphasis on quality and creating a quality product. This instilled in me at a young age an ability to achieve productivity with quality.
This leads us to the question of how this manufacturing job influenced what I do now with my landscape painting. In a recent review of a show of my work at the Hangar Gallery in Kamo, the reviewer mentioned in his review (after talking with me) that he felt I had almost a production line approach to my work, I had told him that I would do all my drawings for a series, then my first color stage and finally my last color stage, moving through each painting in the series until all the paintings were completed. In that article he compared me to a Damian Hirst. An artist I feel I am miles from in attitude and approach. However I can see where he was coming from, in that I do have a manufacturing influence in my history and it does inform how I do art now.
After many years as a commercial illustrator creating art with digital media that was then printed on T-shirts, mugs or other merchandise, I was very inclined to start working on actual physical paintings. I've written about this on this blog and elsewhere.
A physical painting is an object. It is an art object and though there are many philosophical, emotional and spiritual qualities invested in a painting, at the end of the day it is still an object. This object status in art is a bit more evident with sculpture, however, painting certainly qualifies as well even though paintings depict a two-dimensional scene they are a three-dimensional object existing in time and space.
In my view, no reproduction can capture the actual quality of a real painting that has been invested with time, effort and concentration. Everything that goes into a painting leaves a trace on the surface of the work. The resulting effect is a sort of glow. It's a bit hard to describe this attribute because it's a subtle quality that the original work has, that is lacking in reproductions.
There is a strong aspect of craft in what I do, although it is not craft alone that makes it art. This is where the term fine art comes into play. Something cannot be fine unless it evidences a high level of craft and yet some things can have a great deal craft in them and not be fine art.
My particular method of doing 14 or more paintings in a series at a time might seem like it is a production line approach ,but the reality is that I am only working on one painting at any given time. All of my concentration and energy are going into that particular piece of art.
Approaching paintings in a serial manner is valuable is that it keeps me from belaboring or overworking the paintings that I am creating. I have taken what is most productive and creative from my years in manufacturing and applied it to what I do now,which is create fine art landscape paintings.
BTW I'm currently reading a book about Ernest Hemingway called Hemingway's Boat by Paul Hendrickson. This is a really excellent book that I highly recommend. In it, Ernest Hemingway has some great things to say about the creative process. One of the cool nuggets of information that he's imparted, is that an artist should always leave a bit undone at the end of a working session so that they have a thread that they can easily pick up next time they go to work. It occurred to me that this is one of the reasons why I take the approach to painting that I do with multiple paintings going on, there's always something in the works.
Another point that Hemingway made in this book, is that you want to work only when you are fresh and never overdo it. Pushing too hard will eliminate a lot of the "fine"from fine art and tends to yield work that is forced and pedestrian in nature, which is 100% the opposite of what I am trying to do.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Arcadian Road' (5x7 Study): I've painted this motif before back in 2011. I was pretty happy with that painting but I wanted to go after it again. This is my favorite type of motif and I'm pretty happy with the way this study turned out.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Arcadian Road (detail) |