Having an Idea

This past Monday I was talking to Zhaoming about a painting I'm working on. It's a composition with 4 female nudes in the same canvas, with an abstract background and a mix of traditional and expressive treatment to the figures.

We had already been talking about composition and the importance of unifying the image somehow, since in the drawing stage there was no overlapping, so I had worked in creating shapes in the background and overlaps that would make it feel like a single piece. It is a tricky part of designing the painting, it's easy to get "spotty" on it, specially on a big canvas.

Aside from that problem, the next topic of the conversation was my idea. "Do you have a main idea for this painting? I know that you're worried about composition and other painting techniques, but is there an idea that will hold this piece together?". Turned out I didn't really have a good idea for it.

Idea is an important fuel that can exist in different intensities and have more or less effectiveness in adding value to something. But in the end, if it's a good idea, it will always be worth applying it.

Up to that stage, the painting had me thinking about developing my skills, my style, create beauty through abstraction, but even if those can be considered ideas, they can be true for most of the paintings I've done lately. Zhaoming was talking about an idea to make this one painting unique. The ideas I had are good and important to make this painting belong to a group of paintings, probably all of my thesis paintings will have those ideas in them. With that in mind, what I needed to do was be more specific, in order to give this painting the gift of exclusiveness through idea.

Having a more clear idea for the painting was such a good move that it actually boosted my enthusiasm for working on it and it gave me more ideas on how to technically approach the painting.

I decided that movement would play an essential part in the reading of this painting. The variation of very expressive and busy background areas relating to the more sculpted, solid and slow treatment on the figures would represent each of the women's relationship to the same environment. Wherever I emphasize stillness, it could mean that the subject is trying to stay out of the chaos of the environment, and the opposite would be true. If the strokes start to get messy and expressive within the figure, it may mean that she's being affected or going into the chaos that's around.

So that one idea of contrast of movement in brushstrokes really led me to more successful thinking about how to continue working. It gave me new objectives to accomplish and not only the desire to make it look good and beautiful, but the ambition of making my idea show through in the end.

Regardless of it being a greatly elaborated idea or a simple and maybe obvious one, it is always better to have an idea and to use it as a guide. Ideas, just like the painting, will stay along with you, helping you work. They will also probably morph with the painting, developing into something better.

Ultimately, if there are no good ideas to start with, then start with working, and the ideas will appear. Painting will give you good ideas, and ideas will give you good paintings.