I have enthusiastically adopted many of the methods characteristic to the work of Deb Weiers, but when you take a class from someone there is always the struggle to learn the pertinent details without becoming either a copycat or a clone. So I'm gradually feeling my way into my own style that lives within hers.
I love the odd, sometimes vivid color choices, the exaggerated features, making the shape of one eye totally different from the other and yet they go together. I am less inclined to do the blind contour people she loves, because I am always unconsciously striving for a good likeness. I like some of the ornamentation but am hesitant to use too much of it. I don't know whether that's either cowardly or unimaginative on my part, or whether I instinctively feel that too much of it doesn't meld with my more spare style. I also hesitate to put it to use when doing a portrait of an actual person, although I have seen others pull that off successfully. I am using my own lettering style to distinguish it from hers, and so far I'm happy with it.
One thing that I have taken from this workshop that I hope will stick is the use of serendipity, the idea that there are shapes in the paint waiting to come out and all you have to do is see them and enable them. This painting of Rachel Carson started out to be a simple portrait with an accompanying saying; I had a vague idea of doing a stylized background pattern of leaves or flowers, and then, as I looked at the page, there was the caterpillar, there the moth, and there the snail, in the shapes left by the paint coverage (or lack of same), and I thought, "Of course! There should be bugs, and a bird!" So I looked up songbirds (this is a Wood Thrush), and then I looked up what they ate, and I added a few and then a few more, and suddenly the portrait was well populated by "critters." This doesn't always work perfectly: The places where they showed up were in some cases (the moth and the caterpillar) a little awkward. But committing to imperfection is also a tenet of Deb's. And the spider was so obliging as to give me the perfect way to fill in the extra space by spinning me a web.
I have had this saying stenciled on my wall for 20 years; now, more than ever, we need to think about these and other words of Rachel Carson and caretake our garden before we are too late.
Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, India ink, watercolor, Uniball pen, white gel pen, on 140-lb. Strathmore watercolor paper, approx. 7x10 inches.
Oh I so understand what you are saying Melissa. Today I had someone comment on my recent art work, saying I was copying Deb. I know I have used many, many of her techniques, but felt I was putting my own spin on it and making it mine. Now I doubt myself and wonder what next?
ReplyDeleteI have ALWAYS felt your work to be totally yours, and love all you do. You are original and authentic, and when I grow up I want to be more like you!