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| Painting What I Saw... |
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| ...Painting What I FELT I Saw (both 5x8 gouache) |
Do you paint what you see? Or what you feel you see?
I learned recently the distinction. I was in Taos at my painting retreat, sketching in gouache. I was seated on my three-legged stool before the Rio Grande Gorge, observing the scene, adjusting color mixtures to match what I saw before me. Now, the Gorge is awesome enough on its own—an 800-foot-deep ragged slash through an endless plate of black lava, with the river a mere spider-silk thread far below—but on this day, dramatic storm clouds flew, and brooms of grey rain and yellow sun-rays swept the land. I wanted to capture the drama.
But when I stepped back from my 5x8 sketch, it wasn't there. The colors and shapes were right and, yes, I'd painted what I saw, but I hadn't painted what I felt.
I sat back down on my stool and tried again. This time, I didn't worry about accuracy of fact. Instead, I tried to pay attention to feeling as I mixed color and placed shape next to shape. I can't quite put this into words, but here it goes: I felt like an untrained singer trying to hit the right notes in a choir by listening to the other singers around me, and then by modulating my voice until it slid into perfect harmony. If you've ever sung with a group, you know when you hit the right note. For me, this is painting what you feel you see versus simply painting what you see.
