Wednesday, February 17, 2016

"Luminous."Acrylic Abstracted Landscape Painting and Hyper Time-lapse Video!

Greetings!

Hello everyone! Happy Wednesday, and I hope that you all are having a great week. As usual, I am enthusiastic about sharing with you all my newest painting today, and also a brand new painting video format/style to showcase my artwork.


“Luminous” – The Act of Discovery

This piece is titled “Luminous,” and it depicts the last gleam of light through the billowing storm clouds, rolling above a mirror of water. As seen in the title of this article, this work, to me, is an abstracted landscape for several reasons. When I began to paint this piece, I intended to create and pure abstract and not a landscape at all, but as it progressed, I slowly transformed it towards the latter. My initial approach to the piece was concerned with contrasting light and dark colors—a subtle shifting of tones from a deep cool of the black/blue, through the Alizarin Crimson as a modulating medium, into the warmer mid-tones of Yellow Ochre, the pop of brighter Alizarin and the brilliance of the Cadmium Yellow. This process can be observed in the sky, moving your eyes across the canvas from right to left.

When I began this painting, this upper right portion of the canvas was vividly perceived in my mind’s eye, and using that area as a starting point for this entire composition, I was able to expand outwards to create the whole piece of art. This often happens when I commence a painting, I start with a small, kernel of an idea and then in continuous loop of creation/reaction, intuitively bring the work to completion. In fact, it is the process itself—granted there is a good deal of satisfaction when a successful piece comes together at the end—but it is the act of painting that gives me the most pleasure, joy and fulfillment in life.



This painting is available for purchase on the Official Impulsive Artistry Studio Etsy Shop here: 


 I spent a great deal of time thinking about what it is exactly that enthuses me the most about the “act of painting,” but in the end, I would have to say it is the unknown nature and quality inherent to many activities in the creative arts—such as writing, composing music, acting, filmmaking, and of course the visual and textile arts as well. To be more specific to painting: a blank canvas can depict anything. It can hold and contain any image imaginable, and that is an electrifying thought. Some might argue that the canvas itself is already the art, but that is a little too self-conscious/grandiose/indulgent for my taste.

In a nutshell, the act of painting is an act of discovery for me, while I understand basic principles of color interaction, how light and shadows work (from study and practie), when it comes to painting, and I should add that I have tried/participated in many different creative art-forms, there is a lack of specific control, a freedom and looseness to the activity that is unlike any other creative project in which I have participated. I can’t control precisely how the palette knife leaves its mark, or each individual bristle on my brushes, and I wouldn’t want too. While some would argue that you should plan everything out before you start painting, and this is a valid methodology, but to me, it kills the joy of discovery, experimentation, and the thrill of the unknown.




"Luminous." Artist Charles Wolf. Acrylic on Canvas, 16 x 20 in. Charles Wolf Studio © 2016. All Rights Reserved.


An Example from Music Composition




I ran into this problem on an increasing basis the further I studied music composition in college. I approach the writing of a new musical composition, much in the same way I approach most things, beginning with a small idea and then launching outward from there, allowing my musical ear to guide me along the creative process. At the undergraduate level, this methodology to the “act of composition” was perfectly acceptable, and even encouraged, but as I progressed, I became increasingly encouraged to plan more and more of the composition ahead of time—“figure it all out first,” then write it down, filling in where needed—what I consider to be a sort of connect the dots approach to creating a new piece.

A composer who used this method to an extreme degree taught my last semester of music composition that I took at the Master’s degree level. Needless to say, while I was able to adapt my usual approach to his strict method, I had no fun while doing so, and sadly, music composition turned from being an exciting creative outlet, to a drudgery of mediocrity and labor. To be fair, I greatly respect this composer and was very excited to work with him at the time—Did I learn something? Yes. About music composition? Not really, I learned about myself and how I like to work on creative projects. In the end, you don’t know what works and what does not until you try, so I am glad that I had this experience, finding the right approach that works for you is very important in creative projects.



Looking back on it, I am not surprised that this alternative way of creating did not work with my ENFP personality, which you can read more about in my article on being an ENFP (one if the sixteen distinct personality types according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Method [MBTI]), link below. ENFP’s like me use their intuition a lot, as the primary way we interact with the world. Planning out a painting or music composition totally, takes away much of my ability to use my primary function.

[Please remember when considering the topic of personalities and MBTI, this method only informs you about your preferences in how you approach the world, both internally and externally. Factors like genetics, location, relationships and your environment growing up can have a profound impact on the nuances of who you are today.]        


The New Hyper Time-lapse Painting Video Format

Well that was quite a tangent, of well! Back to course here. I am so excited to share this new painting format with you all. This is a “hyper-speed” painting video, much shorter (6 min. or less) then my usual time-lapse painting videos. I came up with this idea when I decided to try and reduce the length of my painting videos, along with the inclusion of updated, cutting-edge Electronic Dance Music [EDM] in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience. I am planning to still release the usual speed time-lapse videos of my paintings, along with real time videos with commentary for instructional purposes, and retain this newer format for my larger abstract paintings. Let me know in the comments if you like this newer, faster video format, or if not—what do you like best?



"Luminous." Hyper Time-lapse Painting Video (only 6 min!).
Charles Wolf Studio © 2016. All Rights Reserved. 


Thank you so much reading this article, and viewing my latest abstracted landscape: “Luminous!” Impulsive Artistry will be back again on Friday, like normal, with another blog post. If you enjoyed reading this article, viewing the painting or the painting video, please share this article on social media! I am very grateful for every like, share, retweet, and +1 that you give my work, articles and videos. Each one helps this blog to grow, and inspires me to continue to produce new content each and every week!

Have a fantastic creative day!!!

—Charles


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