Choosing a subject

[william f. reese]

I have several friends that are recording artists and I listen to them talk about the importance of song choice to their success. I believe the same to be true in painting and sculpture and yet little is said about it. Yes there are many platitudes about, how anything and everything is great subject matter. Well maybe for the right person, but it can be even more wrong for another.
I see far too much work that looks like homework, too much that looks like the artist lost a bet or was abandoned along side the road and had no choice in the matter. And even more that proves the artist was afraid to take an unmarked road and chose only to paint what had already been proven to be successful by someone else.
So does anyone care to share some thoughts as to what might provoke you to paint something, what is it you are looking for? Are your ideas large enough to be worthy of the size canvas you've chosen?

[Donald Maier]

Because I am this way, I assume everyone is the same, but perhaps not. I go through phases. Ups and downs of being in the zone and not. Of being inspired where everything I look at I can see as a painting, to being in an uninspired mood where nothing I look at turns me on. Maybe this make me a bit bipolar. I do go through dry spells when I do not paint at all. I tend to explain that away to having so many other interests or distractions. This website is the most recent example of a distraction keeping me away from painting, however, in this case, there has been far more inspiration coming from our members than anything else, causing me to want to go out and paint all the more.

I recent years, since I quit teaching, I have been far more selective of my subjects, composition and color palette. Teaching others made me think all the more about what and why I did certain things and made me put into practice many of the design principles I had been teaching but was not conscious of using. Things like color schemes, focal points and the illusion of depth became much more present in my mind. I also realized that adding a figure or horse into the scene would not only add human interest, but would also add scale to the butte or mesa, without which, you really could not tell how big it actually was. Abstracting shapes such as a figure or horse really help you get the subject down quickly enough in a plein air situation, which otherwise would not be there long enough to study and paint in a traditional fashion.

I also find it interesting that certain things that I did not like to paint years ago, are now something I gravitate toward and seek out. For instance, in 2007 I did a whole series, maybe around 100, pastel thumbnail sketches in my backyard beginning in the Autumn with all the colorful foliage. This has always been my favorite time of year to paint and would usually stop when the leaves came off and left the limbs gray and barren. Well, perhaps I was just still turned on and in the zone, but I kept on drawing straight through the Winter into Spring. I began playing around with the positive/negative space of the gray branches, the tangle of detail that was the bare branches against the light sky of winter. You can see the result for yourself in my video posted here, but I am again looking forward to this winter to do so plein air oils out there. Maybe even get a bit of snow!

I think the subject is important, but the way the artist handles it is more important. The three states I have not been to to paint, Nebraska, Iowa and North Dakota, are relatively flat with not much in the way of natural subject matter to attract my attention (no offense). I may still go there to complete the list of states I have painted in and hope I will prove this assumption wrong when I do. Otherwise, it will be grain elevators and hay bails, and I will do my best to make an interesting series of paintings.

[jacki newell]

Hey Doug,
20 out of the 23 paintings on my page are from Nebraska. There's plenty of great subjects to paint and it's really not that flat-eastern Neb. is very hilly and the western part has the sand hills. So I highly recommend you get there so you can cross it off your list. Iowa is great too. North Dakota, I'm not sure about:)

Donald Maier said:

Because I am this way, I assume everyone is the same, but perhaps not. I go through phases. Ups and downs of being in the zone and not. Of being inspired where everything I look at I can see as a painting, to being in an uninspired mood where nothing I look at turns me on. Maybe this make me a bit bipolar. I do go through dry spells when I do not paint at all. I tend to explain that away to having so many other interests or distractions. This website is the most recent example of a distraction keeping me away from painting, however, in this case, there has been far more inspiration coming from our members than anything else, causing me to want to go out and paint all the more.

I recent years, since I quit teaching, I have been far more selective of my subjects, composition and color palette. Teaching others made me think all the more about what and why I did certain things and made me put into practice many of the design principles I had been teaching but was not conscious of using. Things like color schemes, focal points and the illusion of depth became much more present in my mind. I also realized that adding a figure or horse into the scene would not only add human interest, but would also add scale to the butte or mesa, without which, you really could not tell how big it actually was. Abstracting shapes such as a figure or horse really help you get the subject down quickly enough in a plein air situation, which otherwise would not be there long enough to study and paint in a traditional fashion.

I also find it interesting that certain things that I did not like to paint years ago, are now something I gravitate toward and seek out. For instance, in 2007 I did a whole series, maybe around 100, pastel thumbnail sketches in my backyard beginning in the Autumn with all the colorful foliage. This has always been my favorite time of year to paint and would usually stop when the leaves came off and left the limbs gray and barren. Well, perhaps I was just still turned on and in the zone, but I kept on drawing straight through the Winter into Spring. I began playing around with the positive/negative space of the gray branches, the tangle of detail that was the bare branches against the light sky of winter. You can see the result for yourself in my video posted here, but I am again looking forward to this winter to do so plein air oils out there. Maybe even get a bit of snow!

I think the subject is important, but the way the artist handles it is more important. The three states I have not been to to paint, Nebraska, Iowa and North Dakota, are relatively flat with not much in the way of natural subject matter to attract my attention (no offense). I may still go there to complete the list of states I have painted in and hope I will prove this assumption wrong when I do. Otherwise, it will be grain elevators and hay bails, and I will do my best to make an interesting series of paintings.

[william f. reese]

Not a lot of response to this question of 'choosing a subject', so maybe it's time to poke the bear.

Sometimes I set out looking for a particular subject usually something that may be giving me trouble like the sunlight as it strikes a bay horse, or the winter coat of buckskin horse. Or maybe I'm looking for a white horse in the snow. For subjects like this I usually have a predetermined place to go.

Normally though I am in search of a composition, I may have an idea stored away that may fit the time of day or time of year and drive in that direction. In the case where I don't have a predetermined idea and its a sunny day I will drive into the sun, this will allow the shadows to mass together into a common abstract shape giving me one of the first things I look for which is a simple division of dark and light, one of which I want to be dominant. I am always looking for the elements of art before I look for subject, as well as the principles of art. Beyond that I am looking for the elements of art to show a dominance, sub-dominance, and subordinance. Just as a play has a leading actor, a supporting roll, and the bit players and extras, a painting needs this same structure. A dominant value, sub-dominant value, and subordinate. The same with color, texture, shape etc.

[Lori McNamara]

I walk around and usually some scene will strike me and I think I want to paint it. I try to find a nice shady spot to paint it from where the light on the subject is right. That is sometimes harder to come up with than a subject. If I can't find a nice spot to sit I'll drag out the umbrella.

[Dianne Gardner]

You know, once a week in the summer we have a group that goes out to a place that someone chooses and we paint. As much fun as it is to get together with other painters, usually these paint outs harbor uninteresting subject matter. The way the sun hits objects is the most important element I think in a plein air painting (although composition and design are major elements too) but unfortunately the normal time of day for us to go is not the best time to capture sunlight. I go because I need practice and to be with friends. But very rarely do these paint outs bring forth my better paintings. In a sense they are at most 'homework' as you put it William. Most of them I don't post and ususally paint over in the end.

The paint outs where we spend several days painting develop much better product because we are at liberty to choose the hours to paint...Early morning, evening...etc or if it's high noon we can actually choose a subject that looks good at high noon. And sometimes we are exposed to different weather conditions too that makes for more interesting paintings.

I think my very best paintings are those that I feel compassionate about-that I have some sort of connection with the subject matter.

[Jennifer Evenhus]

Logging on tonight, I wanted to pose a question to our members . . . being relatively new to this format, I brought up "discussions" and here was your question Bill - close to what I wanted to talk about. My question is "Do you paint what sells or do you paint what you are passionate about?" With any luck they would be one and the same.

My answer to the question of "subject matter" is quite simple because subject matter for me is secondary. My motivation is composition - creating a dynamic painting. Regardless of whether or not you were dropped off by the side of the road and literally had nothing more than weeds to paint - what would you do ?

Find a patch of ground, simplify, and create. We are artists, let's use our artistic license. Move things around on the canvas. Push the paint around. Stand back. Is the composition good?

That weed is just green. What would happen if you made it orange? What would happen if you put snow on the ground and have the weeds protruding out of the snow - twisting, poking, dancing. Oranges, reds, mint green - contrasted against the snow. Painting buildings? There are four windows, exactly the same. What would you do? Get rid of one. Put shutters on another. Paint the trim an exciting turquoise. But they aren't turquoise you say. That's OK, make them turquoise! Hmmm

Now to my question about painting what sells or painting your passion - any takers?

[vivien blackburn]

working plein air I may 'push' colours a little but what really interests me are the subtle changes of the English landscape and catching the colours that are there. The sea can change from Mediterranean/Caribbean colours to subtle pearly ones in a short space of time. It's essential to work fast. Passing clouds cast shadows that I want to catch or a flash of sun on a distant field.

The playing with colour that you describe Jennifer is what I then may do in the studio from the references. abstracting and changing. I don't work that way plein air - for me it's not just about the paintings and sketches that I do while I'm there, but how it fixes the scene in my memory to develop later.

So - what interests me? LIGHT - and colour. I'm interested in the weather, in movement, in the particular season and time of day and the colour and light that this has. Morning light is so different from afternoon or evening. Windy days where I'm trying to catch the sense of the wind in the work. It's a sense of place.

I tend to work in series. At the moment I've done lots of sketches whilst in Cornwall and these are being developed onto bigger canvasses. These won't be copies of any one sketch but a mix of references and memories.

Another series is local waterways (I like water!) which includes canals, rivers, ponds, reservoirs, flooded quarries and more.

I try not to waste too much time searching for 'the spot' but have places in mind that I want to go back to when the light is right.

I like wild places - lonely stretches of coast or quiet areas of countryside

I realise I like the edges of things - where sea meets the land or the edge of woods, where one thing becomes another - not the claustrophobic depths of the woods but looking out to the light.

[william f. reese]

Jennifer Evenhus said:

Logging on tonight, I wanted to pose a question to our members . . . being relatively new to this format, I brought up "discussions" and here was your question Bill - close to what I wanted to talk about. My question is "Do you paint what sells or do you paint what you are passionate about?" With any luck they would be one and the same.

My answer to the question of "subject matter" is quite simple because subject matter for me is secondary. My motivation is composition - creating a dynamic painting. Regardless of whether or not you were dropped off by the side of the road and literally had nothing more than weeds to paint - what would you do ?

Find a patch of ground, simplify, and create. We are artists, let's use our artistic license. Move things around on the canvas. Push the paint around. Stand back. Is the composition good?

That weed is just green. What would happen if you made it orange? What would happen if you put snow on the ground and have the weeds protruding out of the snow - twisting, poking, dancing. Oranges, reds, mint green - contrasted against the snow. Painting buildings? There are four windows, exactly the same. What would you do? Get rid of one. Put shutters on another. Paint the trim an exciting turquoise. But they aren't turquoise you say. That's OK, make them turquoise! Hmmm

Now to my question about painting what sells or painting your passion - any takers?

Jennifer The first thirteen years of my career I painted signs by day and pictures by night. Thirteen years of painting the signs the public wanted and they way they wanted them only made me hate sign painting so I vowed that when I quit sign painting and painted pictures full time I would never consider the publics likes and dislikes when I was painting. Now looking back to 1971 I realize that I have pretty much stuck to that. I have only painted that which I feel passionate about. It became obvious to me that following my heart led to better paintings. So by satisfying myself it was not that difficult to find one more person that might feel the same. When you are writing a novel you need hundreds of thousands of readers for monetary success, but for each painting you only need one. As far as your choice of subject and the publics choice being one and the same. Probably not. Not when you consider the number of plastic hamburger restaurants for every fine steak house. The public is looking for the Big Mac. Wm. F. Reese

[Michael McGuire]

I tend to paint in places I am fairly familiar with, so sometimes I head out to paint at a particular time of day to a particular place, knowing exactly what I am going to paint when I get there. But I also frequently check out new places and usually find something to paint fairly quickly. The only thing to be absolutely sure about is why you are painting a particularl scene, i,e, what inspires you to paint it. For me it is usually someting to do with the light quality. If a scene doesn't inspire you at first, look beyond the "clutter". If you still don't think it's worth painting, walk on.

But it's always worth remembering that artists like Trevor Chamberlain can make beautiful paintings out of the most mundane scenes in all sorts of weather, including rain.

Michael

[Donald Maier]

Bill,I hope there is painting in Heaven...we miss you down here, but thanks for the inspiration.

I usually drive around looking for a focal point in a context that will make a good painting. I try not to have a pre-conceived idea of what to paint before I begin the search. Since I have given up painting in the high elevations and have switched to the commercial/industrial scenes near home, the diversity of subjects has increased and as I do more work in this vein, new subject are presented to me. Old trucks, for instance, suddenly holds a fascination for me. I like the fact that as we mature, our tastes change, and we expand our view of what is right for us and what is wrong.

I think painting the same thing all your life would be boring ... except of course if you painted nudes.