Bela Fidel
One needs a different mindset when scaling up the size of one’s canvases. First comes the trepidation: “how am I going to fill up this space”? “how does the size affect the dynamics of the composition”? “do I use many smaller shapes with a couple of larger ones or will most of them be large”? I can go on and on with the “behind the scenes” considerations. What I learned is that one just starts. Jump into it.
In the Play phase one introduces shapes, colors, lines without much thought. This is the intuitive phase of the work, the (almost) easy one. It’s the Childhood time.
The Second phase is the Editing or Exploration Phase: what do I keep, what do I remove, what do I add. There’s still a whiff of Play in this phase but as in a Juvenile phase, one starts preparing for adulthood – “the real thing”.
Which is the third phase, when the editing gets more ruthless and the intellect is more in charge.That’s the Adulthood phase of the painting. This is when one removes parts that one loves (“kill your darlings”) but that are not working, when one simplifies as much as possible without betraying the soul of the painting. And there are many more technical and emotional considerations at play in this phase. I have spent almost a whole week working on a 5 inch area of a painting until I was satisfied.
Learning about this process has greatly simplified my work but it did not make it any easier. When I did not have “process”, painting was much more difficult: there was no map to follow, the end point was not clear, and I always got stuck in the middle of the painting (usually the middle of the canvas). Now I have a map and although I still grapple with some of the elements of art (composition, design, etc.), I have something that holds my hand while I strive to finish the work. I teach this process in my art classes and it makes learning and understanding process so much easier!