Creative Process - Sabbaticals

Raven in the Star by J. Binford-Bell

As a painter I have been on sabbatical. Other than a few small pieces like the one above I have not painted since last fall. I got bored. Bored with subjects, bored with producing, bored with techniques. Bored! So the little painting I did explored new subjects like the raven above. Or the horse skulls in Stampede below.

Stampede by J. Binford-Bell

That it was also a very slow art market this winter did not help inspire me to new output. But artists must create so I dove into photography in a big way and won prizes and sold photographs and secured a two month local exhibit for my sister and myself. I toyed with giving up painting entirely. Especially as I got more and more into post processing of my photographs.

Ice Fan by J. Binford-Bell

And at some point this spring it seemed that my photographic art was coming closer and closer to my painting. A collector of one of my old junker car photographs asked why I didn't paint a car. Fodder for the muse inside.

Get Your Kicks Too by J. Binford-Bell

I have this one set aside to paint. Even have the correct size stretcher bars. The green grass goes away. Yes, I could do that in my digital manipulation program but I feel myself doing it with paint easier. And with more enjoyment. I have taken a long enough sabbatical from painting that I have come to miss it. But I am also getting textures in photography I will miss. I could switch to oils if I had a thousand extra dollars hanging around for paints and brushes and easel. I don't.

But I think I may have found a solution to that with oil sticks. I ordered a set yesterday. And I have the limo and another subject I want to do on canvas with water media and oil sticks. Back into the studio with lab time. But lab time is another blog post entirely. This one is about taking a break.

I know friends of mine worried - still worry - I won't paint again. I frankly considered that an option at one point this winter. Then I began to think about painting. If it is something integral to who you are you will not abandon it entirely. But leaving it alone for a while allows you time to break ruts and explore new possibilities. In this case it allowed me to develop my photography which eventually fed on my artistic vision in my paintings and now it is feeding back into my painting.

New Platform/New Results?

Tucked Away
14 x 11 on Gallery Mount ClayBoard

When I was mass producing masks for stores across the country I had what I called my Lab Time. It was a period when orders were few and I could play with new designs and new painting schemes for existing designs. Lab times were critical to product growth. They are also key for creative growth.

I am currently going through a mini lab time. My inventory is good for the remaining show of the year at Thanksgiving, but my thought was to produce some smaller paintings that could be sold more in line with people's budget restraints. One of the ways to accomplish a lower price is to not frame a piece. The Gallery Mount ClayBoard by Ampersand is one platform currently being used by artists in my area and sold unframed. It comes in a texture for watercolor and a smoother one for other media.

In a discussion with one of the clerks at my favorite art store in the area - Artisan's - I decided to try the smoother one. They were running a sale which was beneficial. And they had some smaller sizes which fit my goal for the Holiday Market. An artist's work is a combination of his chosen medium and the platform - or what he/she paints upon. So to change a platform does produce different results.

Shepherd's Mission
10 x 8 on Gallery Mount Clayboard

My first problem was trying to get my liquid watercolors to behave the same way they do on watercolor canvas. I struggled with that doing Shepherd's Mission. It was a different surface and the paint was not going to behave in the same way. I finally gave that up in tucked away and adapted my style to the new platform.

I have two more pieces of this new platform to play with. Now that I know the rules I am hoping for better results. Will I replace my beloved watercolor canvas totally. I doubt it. What I am looking for is a subject that totally fits with the new treatment. And I am not sure I will not frame them. But through this process of play with a new platform I have remembered some old techniques and also gotten myself kicked out of a rut. Lap time is never wasted.