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?
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
You can follow this Impulsive Artistry by subscribing to this blog via Email Notifications and RSS Feed (top right sidebar), also via my Google+ Page, Impulsive Artistry Facebook Page, on YouTube, and on Twitter @ArtImpulsive.
New blog content posted here Monday, Wednesday and Friday!
You can follow this Impulsive Artistry by subscribing to this blog via Email Notifications and RSS Feed (top right sidebar), also via my Google+ Page, Impulsive Artistry Facebook Page, on YouTube, and on Twitter @ArtImpulsive.
New blog content posted here Monday, Wednesday and Friday!
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