The Art of Frank Gallimore

So I've never been much for blogs.  I've never been much for most venues of information and dialogue, sad to say.  It's not that I have anything against them, rather it's that I have so little time to do any grazing around on modern literary pastures.  I spend most of my time either working as a sign language interpreter, hanging out with my fiancé and two troublesome dogs, reading poetry, painting, writing, or editing a magazine (Shameless plug:  www.kiss-fist.com)

However, I've happened upon a few artists' blogs that are just downright fascinating.  Bryan Larsen, a fine artist who posts regularly on his own blog (http://www.bryanlarsenfineart.com/wordpress/), is so generous as to share his process for creating his beautiful paintings from start to finish.  James Jean--an admired and often-imitated talent in the world of illustration, comics, and fine art--has an enormously fun blog to skim through at www.processrecess.com.  (This also happens to be the title of a couple of print collections of his work.) 

It's that idea of process I'm interested in.  I consider myself a developing artist of some moderate talent and never enough practice.  The extent of my training is a couple of courses in head drawing, figure drawing, and quick sketch at the Jeff Watts Atelier.  By the way, this is not to name-drop left and right.  If anything I'm giving props to those I admire and who I'll gladly admit are much better at this racket than I am.  Art is the primary passion of my life, divided between two practices.  One is writing and the other is drawing.  This blog is about the latter, although, I suppose it satisfies an urge from the former.

Here are a few qualities I believe many artists possess.  One is what I might call a coldly compassionate eye.  Cold in that it refuses to allow sentimentality to interfere with craft and technique.  Compassionate in that it is deeply observant and almost worshipful of minutiae.  There has to be something almost electric going off in the body when one reads Derek Walcott's "Schooner Flight," or when one catches even a fuzzy online glimpse of Caravaggio's David With Head of Goliath.  But there must also be that curiosity to find out how it was done and to try to re-create that electricity in one's own way.  In other words, a thirst for an understanding of the processes that lead to great work. 

One process, as I know it, is to begin with constant and repetitive observation.  This includes sketching and copying master drawings.  It's also a matter of sheer immersion in what you love about art, seeking it out and keeping careful eyes on it.  As for me, I have days where I get a bit burnt out on art and need it to leave me alone for a while.  But most of the time it's all I can think of.  When I'm away from it, I'm trying to figure out ways to get back to it  When I'm observing it or creating it, there aren't enough hours in the day. 

Ideally, this immersion is guided by some kind of apprenticeship to a master artist who's been there, done that.  It's unbelievably helpful to have an experienced artist (whose work you respect!) observe, criticize, and correct the technical matter of your drawings as you draw them.  It’s funny and perhaps unfortunate to note that I learned more in those few classes in an Atelier than I did in years of college. 

After a certain point, however, once the structures are learned, enough is memorized, and the hand has learned its ideal routes, one does begin to venture on one’s own, to bend the rules and, eventually, to break them altogether.  I’m not a believer in the notion that originality springs from inexperience.  I’ve found this to be true of the path I’ve taken with my writing, but I’m not at that that point yet as a painter.  At best, I’m an awestruck imitator hoping to better understand what it takes to create something truly compelling. 

From time to time, I’ll be posting some art here that I’m working on and talking a bit about what I’ve learned along the way.  Hopefully some of it will be of interest to you, particularly if you are a beginning artist who, like me, relishes every note on process you can get your hands on.

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