Digging deeper

In my most recent post, I got into how important details were, and how much more various things in life could be appreciated the more you knew about them. That said, I realized that for the most part, it's really difficult from the photos that I've had posted on this website to get to enjoy all those 'juicy bits' as it were. With that in mind, I spent the past weekend combing through and adding to all of the detail shots that I have for each piece. I took those and created individual pages for each piece and included all those detail shots so you could get a real feel for each individual work.

So where before you might just see this (which is still really nice, I think):

Not Here, 2015

Household on canvas

Now, you get this:

This means that even though you may never get to see this in person, you'll get to appreciate all of the visual nuances that comprise the whole piece. Here's to enjoying the little things! Now head back to the Paintings index and start your tour!

Details, Details...

Meet Subvert! This piece as a whole is about subtlety, about the small, unassuming details that make us who we are. This is like the relationships we have with others. You get a general picture of who someone is from a distance, but it's when you really get close to them that you start to notice the subtle beauty that is really unique and makes them different from everyone else.  

What's great about these images is that they're also a really great study of my work in paint. When you look at the image as a whole, you see what's in the first pic. It looks nice zoomed out, but it's when you really get close that you noticed the details that really make it special (check out these detail shots to see what I'm talking about). And this isn't just happening in this piece, but in all my paintings. So get close and notice those details!

(By the way, this piece is available now. Click below to check it out, as well as others like it.)

www.jamessedgwick.com

The Weight of the World

Lately, I've gone through some choppy emotional waters with various life circumstances. Babies have been born, people have passed away, and the regular grind of life has been, well, grinding.

I certainly can't speak for every artist out there, but I know that for me, art -more specifically, painting- is extremely cathartic. It takes all of the emotional pressures and stress that build up over a period of time and just lifts the weight off my shoulders. It gives me an expressive outlet that doesn't require me to find the right words or the right person to talk to ('groans that words can't express'?). It just allows me to turn my emotional energy into physical expression. It's an emotional release, as it were. In a way, painting is my own private therapy session. But the even better thing about painting as therapy is that I can share my struggles and emotions with others in a unique and visual way.

With those thoughts, I wanted to share "Atlas" with you. It's been several months since I painted it (it's currently up at Local Coffee - go see!), but I was feeling some very similar emotions and have very similar thoughts to those I have been lately. As you probably know, Atlas was the primordial Titan who in Greek mythology who was sentenced to hold up the celestial spheres. When I painted it, I was feeling extremely weighed down, thinking about life and the weight I bore. Even more so, I was thinking about others (and the real Atlas) who in the past, present, and future, have borne and will bear my struggles and problems. It made me extremely thankful, because it reminded me that no matter how heavy life gets, that I have someone to turn to, someone who understands what I've gone through, holding up the weight for and with me. I can move forward through the pain and fear. I can have hope in spite of everything bearing down on me, with the knowledge that I'm cared for. I am utterly known. I am understood.

Life is like a box of chocolates...when you're not detail oriented.

I know, I know. The whole Forrest Gump quote thing is a little bit vintage and just a tad overused. But when it comes to how I paint, it's difficult to find a quote more apropos.

When you think of a painter painting, what do you picture? Do you think of someone standing in front of a canvas on an easel, palette and brush in hand, painting some nice trees or animals? Do you think of someone carefully controlling the colors just so, so that the atmospheric perspective and the composition are just so? Well...that's not how I paint at all.

A typical painting session for me looks about like this. I head over to Home Depot and pick out two or three colors of paint that I like. Depending on the size of the canvas I'm getting ready to paint, I'll buy a gallon and a couple of quarts of paint and head home to my studio (aka my garage). I'll tape a tarp or a drop cloth down, if I haven't already, unwrap the plastic from the canvas, and lay it on a jerry rigged 4 foot square wooden frame I cobbled together on top of the tarp. I get those paint cans open and without further ado start pouring it on to the canvas. When I've got enough poured (in varied colors and patterns that I like), I'll grab one edge of the canvas and start letting that paint go where it may. I'll tilt the canvas back and forth in various directions until its completely covered and "voila!",  a new painting is born.

Now here's where the title quote, "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.", is utterly relevant to my process. The way that the colors mix, the initial pattern that I choose, the thickness of the layers of paint, and the way that I move the canvas are all variables that shape how the final piece will look. And often times, even when I think I have a good final pattern, something as simple as a surface that's not perfectly level or how quickly the paint dries will completely change the end result.

Take the two images above, for example. Guess what? They're before and after shots of the same painting! The first is the one I intended, the second is what happened when I didn't lay it to dry on that level surface I referred to a moment ago. While the second has it's own beauty, it's amazing (especially to a non-detail oriented person like me) to me how much a detail like that can change everything. While that non level surface was responsible for the majority of the lost composition, you can see the effects of the different thicknesses of paint and their drying rates in the thin strips of white in the middle of the piece. In the second of the two images, they almost look broken away from the other two. Admittedly, this is also part of the nature of the way the white (or pigment-less) paint interacts with the other paint, but still, it's been incredibly fun to experiment to see how the paint will react when subjected to different techniques (like how it dries when it's layered at different thicknesses, what happens when I add blown air to the process, and even when I come at it with an open flame! [umm, yeah, no. Paint's a little too flammable for that]).  

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my process and my brain. Hopefully you'll stay with me on my journey to see what comes of all this...thinking....nope, still no open flames! :)