Process of Bringing Consciousness to A Painting - Alchemy
The Process Of Bringing Consciousness To A Painting - Alchemy
This process is the basic underpinning of a 3 to 4-day workshop I have planned for many years, and never executed. The intent is to assist artists in locating the true inner voice that is unique to them only, and yet radiates with a truly creative underpinning of universal energy. it's about learning how to dance with that external force, how to learn its language. It will require a very open mind and a willingness to accept that the answers to our creative dilemmas are not stuck in our heads or someone else's instruction, nor is it to be trained or pried out. This part of the process is in fact a mystery, to be invited in and interacted with. There are many other exercises to add to the complete process, but this is the raw core of it.
I finally found my way back to my own process. It was like discovering an old friend. I had never actually forgotten this process, I had just given up on it for some strange reason. I had forgotten its power, its magic. It had faded off as a past fad I suppose. I had devalued it.
Step 1
The first step is throwing a canvas on the floor and then just trusting the process of chaos when it comes to the application of the paint. It feels very decadent and childish. I engaged with that creative process at every level. I should say I engaged with the unconscious and I trusted it and didn't try and inform what was to evolve on the Canvas at the first stages. That’s the vital step.
So that was it. That was the big moment in the studio where I recognised it, like an old friend. By throwing a canvas on the floor and then just trusting the rules of chaos in the process. I engaged with that creative process at every level. I should say I engaged with the unconscious and I trusted it and I didn't try and inform what was to evolve on the Canvas at the first stages. That’s the vital step. Another step in the first instance was to agree with myself to ‘waste’ a 2 x 2mt canvas.
I didn't set out to draw something that I had in my mind or sketchbook. The sketchbook is basically just an echo of the mind.
I invented the chaos initially, which involves letting the paint slide everywhere, and then intensifying certain areas so it's absolutely the exact same process as say cloud gazing. We are engaging in what Cliff High calls the Woo energy of the universe. Trust that and leave it alone. Of course, my hand went to it, as I put more paint on (with no image in mind) to create those little areas of intense energy in the mess of paint. But the application is like a flooded river causing gathering flotsam and jetsam to gather in nooks and crannies amoung the roots of trees or rocks. Energy traps. No form is sought. Nature makes good sculpture herself without our help.
Step 2
Then to staple that raw work up on the wall – not to stretch it, as then you have made it more civilised. It will intimidate the Enkido wild man in your heart if you do. You will make the raw image shy, and all the wild creatures will run away and hide.
Step 3
Now stand back and see what the thing, the blob, has to offer you. This is where you can't avoid images presenting themselves from your civilised mind. What’s in your in your consciousness and subconscious will now start to try to wrestle the blobs into identifiable forms. This is not new, as it’s the same as any exercise of imagination, but there is a particular nuance that has to be pointed out that will make all the difference between your intellect taking over and ‘making it all right’ and trusting the baroque chaotic genius of nature. This is the fine line. This is where all of your will power is challenged. The fight will start now. If you do what the rational says, the thing will become ‘a thing’, and you will make it so. The thing that appears will be a man who will resemble a cripple perhaps or a bird in a strange position you could not imagine but which rings true. Strange creatures might peer back at you for no logical reason. Don’t think you know better. Do you have the courage to accept them, or even more so to see them?
You will have images and intentions already built into your brain. You are thinking about something all the time whether or not you recognise it. This process of being an observer only is very much like lucid dreaming. It’s the best description. You do not try to control that, if you experience it, even though you can control it to some degree. You are intrigued and curious. Do the same now. Be intrigued and surprised! Let this process bring you great surprises. At least to start. Odds on you will be able to stand back with a stick of charcoal (a big black texta or black paint) and pluck out these strange manifestations as they emerge. That is best, even if you ignore them later. This is the golden moment. Do not miss it. It has to be a surprise. If you don’t see anything turn it upside down or look at it in a mirror. You are seeking ghosts. This can be an incredible satisfying process for its own sake, however I will use it to work on a theme I have in mind in order to avoid becoming an illustrator of my own ideas. I also do that but it is never as satisfying.
You might have sketches in your sketchbook, for the theme in mind, but the difference is for this process, I'm not leading with those sketches or ideas, but the ideas are floating around in my subconscious. They will influence my visions (the things I see in the abstract jumble of paint).
Once this abstract painting thing is stapled to the wall – I do not do what many abstract artists do. They seek to not make the blobs take form or become a visual story. A very distinctive decision is often made by them to obliterate all hits or clues as to recognisable forms. This is fine if that’s your thing, but for me this puts their work into the home decoration category. They are creating imagery that must have a pleasant or appealing ascetic arrangement if they want to sell it. They manipulate the blob using a sensibility of the craft – composition, colour, contrast and form/energy. I love some of this work if the craftsman can use these skills like music to cause me to feel emotions. Bad abstract art makes you feel bad, instantly. While art is subjective, I beg to differ. I think its that some buyers are more tuned into energy than others, as many buyers in the middle range buy art to keep up with the status of their friends. Generally they all have the same ‘brand’ rockstars on their walls as each other.
I can paint like that but I don’t want to. We live in a world of stories and recognisable forms. We live in a world where most of us also have a sense of imagination, therefore it’s a realistic aspect to humanity. These are the things I like to work with. So what image is emerging from that mess? What do you see? Trust it.
This is the absolute key thing that will trigger you and what is in your subconscious, unconscious and consciousness. This is a mix of all three. It is a great union. It is pure alchemy on that canvas. If you trust the way those images are presented to you, trust yourself, your vision, you will be rewarded. It sounds like a contradiction as you are trying to find the sweet spot here, the x factor. We don't just manipulate everything to match exactly what’s in our sketchbook, even though you do might be grasping at something, that seems that, this is a question about whats coming first. The images come into that field of paint, out of the energy of the paint. Grab them as if they are grains of gold and trust them as they're being presented to you.
Step 4
Later you may well call something known in to make sense of it all, as I do, but generally speaking for example on the painting “The Puppet Master’ the composition was there (in the rough raw flow work) and all I did was amplify what I could see. I amplified the shapes as they looked like something.
For example the first thing that presented to me when I looked at it was this great big man who filled the entire left side of the canvas; sitting on a chair exactly the same way I've painted it. I would never have painted a figure that large on such a large canvas. I know that. I would have judged it too much and yet that puppet master as he turned out to be, needed to be that large and that is what gives the sense of him controlling everything in the world. The only thought I had been hovering over prior was the irony of the Punch and Judy show. How I felt the clown world we lived in, felt like a great big puppet show, which we were all watching go on around us, stunned with jaws agape.
One I established or picked out the large character, I started to see other echoes. I suppose by giving some perspective to this huge figure, my brain allows me to see other things around it in perspective, not that I am shooting for correct perspective at all, only emotional effect. But his pose led me to the window, suddenly I could see that I was inside the little theatre box the Punch and Judy show was performed in. I had not thought of this, and yet deep in my sketch book there is a sketch of something slightly similar but not the same. All that did was confirm it made sense. The whole point is that the lead character was created through this process of interaction in a fresh way. To make yourself new again, to give yourself a fresh set of eyes.
You are not forcing the imagery onto the canvas you're in a more receiving mode. I can't even emphasise that enough. To be receptive, to be open. Once you receive them that's when you can start interacting as I have described. This is the alchemy aspect. Where you bring your skills and your understanding of colour and form and whatnot to build a unique painting. This work will of course will be influenced by your sensibility about your preferred subjects, colour and composition. But all that is the secondary process. That is another matter which is very important but will come down to your preferred finish of the work. I believe that we should retain some of the power and raw energy of the underpainting if we can. It can be very difficult to do, as its what you do not do as much as what you do. If you ‘go down that road’ of refinement, get yourself a comfy back brace is all I can say. You will be making a rod for your own back and very possibly for no benefit to anyone.
I have not included here the very important process of ‘actual creativity’ which does not mean ‘making stuff’. It is to do with the very perception of imagery based on what we experience in our lives both through external experiences and perceptions as well as internal reactions to the same. It is not about ‘being a camera or a cartoonist’. Simply replaying them in mimicry is not a creative process. Transforming them into something new, a metaphoric transformation, is however a further step of using the fullest capacity of the creative imagination. We should not be trying to be copy machines with clever colourists or graphics tricks, but instead to work to bring something new, to the viewer, so that they can realise there is more than the bounds of their instant perceptions. I can pad that out in a further exercise. I just wanted to mention it as it’s a vital step, and one that can take a few years to manifest as a result of an experience. For example, someone might not write a memoir for 40 years after it happened. One might not paint some sort of response to an event, until enough time has passed in order for them to really see it beyond its immediate impressions. Some might oppose this and say - we must live in the now and only wrestle with the reality in front of us, and not indulge in delusional concepts after the event. However I will challenge them and say, we often only see the patterns - once they are mere abstract specks in our review mirrors and we have enough life experience to recognise them as such. That is then a more accurate observation.
So that pretty much explains the best process on earth.