Do Your Paintings Have "Heart"?

10/22/2013

What does it mean for a painting to have heart?

For me, my own paintings have heart when I manage to blend truth, spontaneity and skill.

1. Truth

"Paint yourself on the canvas" is what I tell my students again and again.

Many of us can copy a painting at the front of a classroom. But where is the fun in that? (Don't get me wrong here - I know that students have been copying the works of their masters way before my time so there has got to be something to that.) Instead, I encourage my students to pick up a tube of red paint when I talk about blue or draw squares when I draw circles. Painting what feels good to you results in a much more personal painting.

Your truth surfaces when you give yourself the permission to indulge your own creative urges.

2. Spontaneity

Spontaneity occurs when I allow the painting to chart it’s own course without forcing it to adhere to my own set of preconceived ideas. Becoming a passenger as opposed to a driver in the creative process feels more like a colaboration between the creative process and myself.

If I were to plan my every move, there wouldn't be much room for surprises now would there?

3. Skill

All heart and no skill do not necessarily result in a good abstract panting. A work can have plenty of heart but lack essential qualities (such as composition for example) that make up a good painting.

Heart happens when truth, spontaneity and skill merge in a beautiful dance.

Now it’s your turn: What does it mean to you for a painting to have heart?

2 Comments

Michelle Pawson link

10/22/2013 04:22:06 pm

A painting has heart when it makes the person looking at it feel something. It has even more heart when the something they feel can be unique to them and does not solely have to be what the artist was feeling at the time the piece was created. When a painting is created from the heart, the essence of the piece is full of pure intention so much so that it becomes like a mirror. Each time you look at the piece, you understand more about yourself and see new things in it.

Jacqueline link

10/25/2013 04:11:54 am

Michelle I love your answer. Beautiful. Both of these explanations make sense to me.

I think our personal art can only have heart when were authentically us in the studio and on that canvas. When we hide nothing and give everything it's forever on the canvas. No matter whether someone feels exactly as we did, they're bound to feel something when looking at it if it's done in this way.

I can't speak to the skill side. Surely, there's a correlation between the right composition/colour/technique and creating feelings for those looking at it.

But I do believe even a well done painting of an apple can provoke feelings and thoughts in the viewer when it's done with the heart, when the artist has a connection to that apple and painted it authentically true to the meaning that apple holds for them, rather than just as a practice of light and shadow.

I feel as though I could do another blog post on this lol

Do Your Paintings Have "Heart"?

Leave a Reply.

Blog Categories

Archives