Category: artistic process

There’s not a piece of artwork on the planet that was not made without the application of pressure and darkness; neither is there a man who exists or ever existed of good moral character without the same application of pressure and darkness.

I greatly enjoy sitting in my art studio, which is really a mere spare bedroom, I take pleasure in gazing upon the many works of art which surround my humble studio. Pencil Portraits decorate the walls, framed , unframed, men, women, well known, some lesser known, black and white faces, paintings, canvases, brushes, paints and easels; these are my company and I have become familiar and attached. As an artist I know my artwork. I know it intimately, I have to know it well to know what it needs. Every artist understands this. I look at it, and I go back to it, and I turn off the light and leave for perhaps I believe myself finished for the evening, but then I turn the light on again for one more look. Before I leave my house I run upstairs to glance one more time, as I cannot pass by without peeking in from a different angle or distance. Why? I don’t know. perhaps I will catch a little more knowledge of the thing. The faces I have drawn somehow strangely have become my faces, my people. My artwork. I have looked at them so often I feel I know them. it occurred to me one morning as I sat sipping hot cup of coffee in my leather chair staring at all the art surrounding me feeling sort of melancholy, that the painting I was working on was bland it needed something deep and contrasting. I looked around at my favorite pictures and saw yes in fact it is this heavy value that steals my attentions. Artwork is made great with great pressure, pressure from the pencil and with great darkness; darkness that is added again and again, layer after layer, it actually makes the art, it defines it, brings dimension and interest and even the lightest mark on the canvas is still darkness on a light surface. It is this dance of darkness which excites my interest; how it is applied, used and played with on the paper that creates unique and beautiful images. In fact what intoxicates me as an artist is this contrast of light and dark on blank white paper. it is what draws me in to keep looking; the variation in values, the depth which strikes a chord within my soul. In some strange way it is the darkness applied with the greatest pressure which brings life and completion to any portrait I bring forth.

The difficulties in our lives can be understood as dark lines applied with pressure used to define us, make us what we are and who we are to be. It is the darkness and the pressure applied which truly fashions man on the backdrop of God’s kingdom of light. Without it we simply would exist. It brings me comfort to know that.