Blog

Hello!

I thought it might be interesting to share some thoughts about my life as a commercial artist vs. my fledgling career as a fine artist. I've only taken up oil painting in the past year, but I've worked as an illustrator most of my adult life.

For me, it's been very interesting to see how my art style translates–or maybe morphs is a better word–from all-digital...to actual paint on canvas. When I first started working with oils, I felt so out of my element, unable to get my hand to make the paint do what I envisioned in my mind. I felt like a hack, pushing sticky globs around with no idea of what I was doing.

And there was no Undo button!!!

I read books, magazine articles, googled till I was cross-eyed about painting techniques/materials/theory etc. I tried water-miscible oils. I tried different types of panels/canvas/paper. I started making more progress when I switched to Gamblin oils and better brushes - currently my favorites are Bristlon and Rosemary's evergreen line. But... I realized that the only thing that would really help me get more comfortable was: just go paint! So that's what I'm doing.

For a long time I felt everything I did was crap. Now, I feel like I'm having more successes than failures– but of course I'm still looking ahead to how much better I think I can be. I believe as artists we're all way more critical of our work than anyone else, but I do try to reserve some kindness for myself on occasion! Hopefully you do too.

As I'm getting more comfortable with the medium I find I'm worrying less about the technical stuff and as a result my natural style is beginning to come out in the final result. If you spend any time looking at my website you can see that my oils have a distinct 'blocky' look to them. At first this really confused me. "Where the heck is that coming from?" But as I looked back through my commercial work–all of which is digital–I see remnants of this blocky style was there even before I realized it. 

Here's an example. This is a plein air piece I did last weekend in a delightful area of Northern Michigan, commonly known as Fishtown. See the distinctive flat brush strokes? 

No look at a digital piece I did 2 years ago:

I actually laughed out loud when I really started looking through my older work. It's a style I've had all along and never really was even conscious of! 

So I guess one of the many lessons I'm learning these days is that who we are as an artist remains evident no matter what the medium. Just like the phrase 'cream rises', so too does our own unique style.

I welcome any comments or questions!

Pat

www.pattheartist.com