De Glaceertechniek

(You can read the English version of this article here)

Een artikel over de glaceertechniek in de schilderkunst.

Je hebt waarschijnlijk weleens gehoord van de glaceertechniek in de schilderkunst. Hoewel de term wordt gebruikt om de techniek van het overwegend in transparante lagen schilderen te beschrijven, is er meer dan alleen dat. In dit artikel hoop ik enig inzichten te geven in de techniek, de geschiedenis en het gebruik van glaceren in de schilderkunst.

Een beetje geschiedenis en introductie.

We kunnen zeggen dat sinds het gebruik van olieverf, de glaceertechniek ook gebruikt begon te worden. Van de vroege meesters in de 15e eeuw tot vandaag is glaceren een gevestigde techniek geworden die om verschillende redenen werd gebruikt.
Een belangrijke reden was om het risico op barsten van verf te verminderen. Vanwege de toen slechte kwaliteit van lijnolie en pigment was het risico van barstende verf hoger dan vandaag. Tegenwoordig is de olieverf van zo’n hoge en betrouwbare kwaliteit dat het risico van scheuren of barsten bijna wordt gereduceerd tot alleen het ongeoefende en onervaren gebruik van het materiaal.
Het barsten van verf gebeurt om verschillende redenen. Een van de meest voorkomende is het oud worden van de verf. Wanneer een schilderij ouder wordt, verslapt het canvas omdat het de langdurige trekkracht niet kan verdragen. Desalniettemin, wanneer er voldoende olie op de verf is aangebracht, is het risico van barsten sterk verminderd. Een meer voorkomend, en vaak iets dat elke schilder angst aanjaagt, is het barsten van verf dat ontstaat door het gebrek aan olie of oneigenlijk gebruik van additieven of medium. Over het algemeen (maar wees voorzichtig met mijn generalisatie) kun je zeggen dat het verdunnen van verf met iets anders dan olie het gevaar van scheuren en barsten verhoogt.
Maar waarom schilderen in meerdere dunne lagen (soms meer dan 40 lagen) in plaats van een of twee vette lagen?
Door dunne, wel of niet transparante, lagen in de verf te gebruiken, wordt de verffilm erg sterk en flexibel. Iets dat ook handig is gebleken bij het transport van schilderijen. Nog steeds zijn enkele schilderijen uit de 16e eeuw flexibel genoeg om op te rollen en opnieuw in te lijsten. De flexibiliteit van de film (de feitelijke verzameling van verschillende verflagen) was het resultaat van het gebruik van meer lijnolie bij elke laag die aan het schilderij werd toegevoegd. Met de ontdekking van het ‘vet over mager’-principe, wat betekent dat elke nieuwe laag meer olie bevat dan de vorige laag, werd deze’ film ‘nog sterker en duurzamer.
Bij gebruik van slechts één of twee vetlagen ontstaat er nog een ander probleem, vooral wanneer de laag nogal dik is. Wanneer lijnzaadolie opdroogt, droogt het van buiten naar binnen vanwege het contact met de omringende zuurstof. Hoe meer zuurstof aanwezig is, hoe sneller het uithardingsproces zal verlopen. Bij gebruik van een dikke laag lijnzaadolie, zonder toevoegingen, zal het risico van druipende verf een schadelijk effect hebben. Sommige schilderijen van Vincent van Gogh hebben dit probleem. Vanwege het feit dat er soms zeer dikke verfklodders gebruikte, en de verf verschrompeld aan de buitenkant maar zacht blijft aan de binnenkant, was het resultaat dat deze schilderijen niet lang tentoongesteld kunnen worden vanwege het feit dat de verf begint te ‘hangen’.

Lijnzaadolie of lijnzaadolie (vlasolie) heeft een lange weg afgelegd sinds het als medium werd geïntroduceerd. Naast drager voor pigment is lijnolie ook erg voedzaam, uiterst handig om hout gezond en beschermd te houden en wordt het gebruikt voor vergulding.
Binnen de schilderkunst kennen we nu drie aanvullende toepassingen van lijnolie.
De eerste is de meest gebruikte: koudgeperste lijnolie voor het maken van olieverf.
De tweede is de standolie. Lijnzaad verwarmd bij een temperatuur van 300 °C gedurende enkele dagen in de volledige afwezigheid van lucht. Het geeft een dikke olie die uitstekend is voor glaceren.
De derde is gekookte lijnolie, waarvan het belangrijkste karakter is dat het sneller droogt door het toevoegen van een metaal, wat het droogproces versnelt.

Een andere reden om glaceren te gebruiken, is om een ​​optische diepte in de verflaag te creëren. Door de vele transparante lagen werkt elke laag als een individuele, optische film met een eigen karakter. Samen vormen ze een goed geënsceneerd, door het vooropgestelde plan van de kunstenaar, spectrum van verschillende lagen die resulteren in een ongelooflijk mooi effect van diepe optische diepte. Dit gebruik van glaceren vereist echter een grondige kennis van materialen en het gedrag ervan. Niet alleen moet je een goed planning maken in het volgen van de juiste stappen waarbij het vet over mager principe wordt gebruikt, maar is ook een stevige kennis van pigmenten en het gedrag hiervan nodig om de gevraagde resultaten in glaceren te kunnen waarborgen. Ook, en dit is waar het een lastig en complex proces wordt, wanneer het hoofdbestanddeel voor glaceren, de olie, wordt gecombineerd met andere mediums. Alle medium die aan dit proces van glaceren wordt toegevoegd, hebben binnen elke stap hun eigen karakteristieke effect op het proces.

De techniek van glaceren.

Om het simpel te houden, blijf ik bij de belangrijkste en klassieke benadering van glaceren.

Binnen de geschiedenis van de schilderkunst en glaceren hebben veel kunstenaars bijgedragen aan de ontwikkeling van deze techniek. De meeste kunstenaars hadden echter hun eigen specifieke aanpak en creëerden hun eigen mengsels, die niet werden gedeeld of alleen werden overgedragen aan hun studenten. Er is nauwelijks enige documentatie vastgelegd om te onderzoeken.
Tegenwoordig zijn er diverse moderne mediums die gemaakt worden van ofwel gewijzigde lijnolie of een synthetische basis hebben waarbij het in de meeste gevallen een alkyd als hoofdbestanddeel heeft.
We weten, door studies van schilderijen gemaakt met de glaceertechniek in de 15e en 16e eeuw, dat de klassieke glaceertechniek in basis een vast plan heeft van stappen waarin vele (persoonlijke) aanpassingen mogelijk zijn.

DE KLASSIEKE GLACEERTECHNIEK.

De basis van deze techniek ligt in het vet over mager principe. Maar wat is dit principe nu? Het vet over het mager principe betekent dat elke nieuwe laag verf meer olie moet bevatten dan de vorige. Om dit goed te doen, moet je ervoor zorgen dat je grondlagen inderdaad zo mager mogelijk moet zijn. Het is met dit in gedachten dat de werkelijke grondlaag, die in de meeste gevallen een verf is die een al zeer mager pigment bevat, zoals gebrande omber. Om het nog magerder te maken, kun je er wat natuurlijke terpentijn aan toevoegen. In een klassieke benadering zou je dit opvolgen met nog twee grondlagen om een ​​goede basis te creëren voor alle volgende lagen. Je moet in gedachten houden dat elke laag die je erop legt een deel van de olie van de volgende laag zal absorberen. Dit proces zorgt ervoor dat elke laag een stevige hechting geeft. Nu je dit weet kun je jezelf wellicht voorstellen wat er zou gebeuren als een vorige laag vetter is dan de volgende laag. De eerste laag zou al verzadigd genoeg zijn van olie, dat het geen olie van de volgende laag kan absorberen, wat resulteert in een onveilige en slechte hechting. Een manier om dit te testen (hoewel ik dit niet aanraad om te proberen met dat mooie schilderij dat je van plan was om aan te schaffen om te zien of de kunstenaar zijn vak al dan niet begreep) is om een ​​stukje tape te nemen en het op het schilderij te plakken. Wanneer je de tape eraf haalt en je er schilfertjes van verf loskomen, weet je dat het vet over mager-principe niet correct is gebruikt.

Om dit principe correct toe te passen, is het van groot belang dat je een idee hebt van wat het schilderij uiteindelijk moet worden. Je zou niet de eerste zijn die dit principe probeert te volgen en verstrikt raakt in de enthousiaste benadering om ofwel te weinig of te veel olie te gebruiken en uiteindelijk een te droge of veel te vette verflaag te krijgen. Het is daarom belangrijk dat je weet wat je wilt doen, wat je doel in resultaat is en hoe je dit principe moet toepassen.

Maar laten teruggaan naar de klassieke glaceertechniek.

Nu we weten hoe belangrijk het vet over mager principe is, kunnen we beter begrijpen hoe en waarom dit wordt toegepast binnen de glaceertechniek. Zoals eerder gezegd, biedt de glaceertechniek een prachtig diep en warm kleurenpalet wanneer toegepast. Maar er is meer aan de hand. Wanneer we schilderen maken we keuzes over hoe we bepaalde kleuren tot stand laten komen. We kunnen deze kleuren krijgen door deze te mengen op het palet. Als we paars willen, kunnen we rood toevoegen aan blauw. Dit soort kleuren hebben echter een nadeel: het verliest aan helderheid en intensiteit. Dit wordt zelfs nog versneld wanneer er titanium wit aan wordt toegevoegd. Je zult zien dat de kleur zijn glans verliest. Wanneer we echter de glazuurtechniek gaan gebruiken om paars te krijgen, beginnen de dingen er heel anders uit te zien. Allemaal vanwege het feit dat elke kleur, omdat deze gevangen zit in zijn eigen oliefilm, zijn eigen helderheid behoudt. Een kleur, meestal de niet primaire kleuren, die op het doek wordt geconstrueerd door het toepassen van de glaceertechniek, is zoveel dieper, warmer en helderder in kleur dan een vooraf gemengde kleur.

Tijdens de 15e tot de 17e eeuw was het niet ongebruikelijk dat een heel schilderij bestond uit kleuren die werden geconstrueerd door deze techniek toe te passen. Hoewel het tijdrovend was, gaf het twee belangrijke voordelen aan het schilderij; het feit dat de kleuren zeer helder en warm waren en, hoewel de kunstenaar er zelf niet van kon genieten, het behoud van het schilderij zoveel veiliger werd met de rijke hoeveelheid olie in het schilderij.
Zoals je je nu wellicht kunt voorstellen, vereiste deze techniek een goed samengesteld plan, een gedegen kennis met betrekking tot het vet over mager principe, maar ook een goed gefundeerde kennis van elk pigment, olie en andere additieven, om met deze techniek te werken.
Om een bepaald ​​resultaat te voorspellen, dat vooraf bepaald werd, moest men beginnen met een basiskleur. Daarna kan het tot meer dan twintig lagen bevatten om tot het uiteindelijke gewenste resultaat te komen. Elke toegevoegde laag moest in percentage aan olie en in transparantie worden verhoogd om alle invloeden, van alle voorgaande kleuren die aan dit proces werden toegevoegd, te behouden. Je kunt je voorstellen dat, als je een doorsnede van zo’n verffilm zou maken, je een laag over laag transparante kleuren zou zien die uiteindelijk samen de kleur produceren.
In sommige gevallen, en ik spreek hier uit ervaring, kan de glaceertechniek op zo’n manier worden gebruikt dat er een diepe en heldere kleurschakering ontstaat dat op een soort opaal- of parelmoerkleurige mix lijkt. Dit kan worden verkregen door veel verschillende kleurenlagen toe te voegen aan een basis van lichte kleuren. De lichte basiskleur gaat dienen als een reflector voor het invallende licht, dat vervolgens, wanneer het wordt gereflecteerd, teruggaat door de verschillende kleurenlagen. Het resultaat is een enorm kleurenbereik, dat verschillend is van elke invalshoek.
De schoonheid van deze techniek is het feit dat je de mooiste en meest indrukwekkende kleuren kunt maken die inderdaad een prachtige ervaring zullen geven wanneer je een beetje met licht speelt.

Nu kan ik begrijpen dat je nu, terwijl je dit leest, de boel als behoorlijk abstract ervaart en je nog steeds met de vraag zit hoe het glaceren in zijn werk gaat. Het wil zo zijn dat, zelfs wanneer je de basis van het vet over mager principe begrijpt, deze techniek complex blijft. Zoals gezegd heeft elk pigment zijn eigen karakter, reageert anders op elk ander pigment en heeft zijn eigen karakter wanneer toegevoegd aan olie. Dan is er het feit dat je in veel gevallen een ander medium zoals papaverolie of saffloerolie wilt toevoegen om de substantie dunner te maken. Bij het werken met verschillende lagen standolie, zal een onvermijdelijk effect zijn dat elke volgende laag moeilijker toe te voegen is. Lijnzaadolie heeft een lange tijd nodig om uit te harden. In sommige gevallen meer dan een jaar. Het is daarom dat wanneer je je schilderij wilt vernisten, je altijd een jaar moet wachten om dit te doen. Tijdens het glaceren kun je echter niet zo lang wachten. In feite zou het hele proces worden vernietigd omdat de verffilm te veel gehard zou zijn om olie van de volgende laag te kunnen absorberen.
Om je echter niet geheel in het ongewisse te laten na het lezen van dit artikel geef ik je een eenvoudig programma waarmee u kunt experimenteren. Het vertelt je alle stappen van start tot finish, maar zonder specifieke details van metingen. Dit programma vertelt je niet de klassieke, en meer complexe methode, maar het geeft een eenvoudige insteek die ook het basisprincipe van vet over mager leert te begrijpen.

Als je vragen hebt, stuur me dan een mail. Ik help je graag verder.

BASIS BEGLAZINGSPROGRAMMA:

Stap 01. grondlagen.

Maak de eerste laag van alleen gebrande omber met net voldoende terpentijn om de verf een beetje dunner te maken. Voorkom dat er structuur in de verf ontstaat. Maak er een vloeiende laag van.
De volgende dag kun je de tweede laag plaatsen. Gebruik gebrande omber, ultramarijn blauw en wat titaniumwit. (Ongeveer 1: 1: 1) Voeg er niets aan toe.
De derde grondlaag is dezelfde als de tweede, maar misschien voegt je er iets meer titaniumwit aan toe. Aan deze laag voeg je twee druppels standolie toe.

Stap 02. Maak je opzet.

 

Om er zeker van te zijn dat alle verf die u hier gebruikt dezelfde hoeveelheid toegevoegde standolie heeft, is het verstandig om de verf vooraf te mengen. De hoeveelheid standolie die aan deze verf wordt toegevoegd, moet iets meer zijn dan in de derde laag van stap 1, maar nog steeds erg weinig.

Stap 03. Je opzet uitwerken.

Voordat u de eigenlijke glaceringsprocedure start, wilt je misschien eerst de opzet wat meer uitwerken. Als je merkt dat je dit wil doen, voeg dan opnieuw een paar druppels standolie toe aan je verf.

Stap 04. Beginnen met de beglazing.

Nu je een goede basis hebt, kun je beginnen met glaceren. Bepaal met welk deel van het schilderij je wilt werken. Welke kleur moet het worden en zorg ervoor dat u weet welke kleuren u moet gebruiken. Aan de andere kant is het maken van enkele fouten niet zo erg. Het zal je een goede ervaring geven. Zorg ervoor dat je bij elke nieuwe laag wat standolie toevoegt. Wanneer je transparant wilt werken, kunt je een beetje terpentijn aan het mengsel toevoegen. Het beste is om hierachter te komen is door te proberen de juiste verhoudingen te krijgen tijdens het mixen.
Als je transparant wilt blijven werken, zorg dan dat elke volgende laag meer standolie en mindere terpentine bevat.

Stap 05. Het beglazingsproces voltooien.

Uiteindelijk, wanneer je op het punt komt dat je een serieus aantal transparante lagen hebt gemaakt, kom je op het punt dat je niet meer terpentine meer kunt toevoegen. Het gebruik van alleen standaardolie maakt de verf echter behoorlijk dik in gebruik. In dit geval kunt u standolie gebruiken met nog een beetje terpentijn en een paar druppels papaverolie of saffloerolie toevoegen. Dit maakt de verf mooi dun en gemakkelijker om mee te werken. Een waarschuwing echter. De papaverolie of saffloerolie heeft een iets andere samenstelling, waardoor het in sommige gevallen lijkt alsof het niet wil binden met de vorige laag. Om dit te voorkomen, kunt u het mengsel van standolie, terpentijn en papaverolie vooraf mengen voordat u het aan de verf toevoegt.

Dat is het! Een heel, heel eenvoudig programma om je glaceerproces te starten.

Wees extra voorzichtig in het toevoegen van olie! Het is heel gebruikelijk om te snel te gaan met het gebruik van te veel olie. Voor de rest, veel plezier! Experimenteer, doe het met vreugde en zonder verwachtingen. Zie het als een leerproces. Maakt het allemaal zoveel leuker.

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Buiten Schilderen

(This article is also in English. Click here)

En Plein Air.

Je schildert, of misschien ook niet, en je wilt buiten gaan schilderen. Nooit eerder gedaan, maar op de een of andere manier voel je de roeping. Dus verzamel je je nieuw gekochte veldezel, je penselen en kleinere verftubes omdat je je goed hebt voorbereid en geen extra lading wilt dragen, en ga je naar een mooi, lokaal plekje om te schilderen. Het weer is geweldig, de vogels zingen, vlinders fladderen rond en je voelt je goed. Je bereidt je minipallet voor, drinkt snel een beetje water en bent klaar om te starten. Maar ojee, je hebt dit nog nooit eerder gedaan. Hoe begin je? Je hebt zoveel jaren ervaring, je kent je spullen, maar op de een of andere manier kom je vast te zitten met de warme bries rond je nek.

Herken je dit? Vertrouw me, je bent niet de eerste, of de enige, of de laatste die ontdekt dat het schilderen buiten heel anders is dan schilderen in je atelier.

In dit artikel hoop ik een beetje uit te leggen waarom dit gebeurt (je zult zien dat het best te verwachten is) maar meer over hoe je het beste uit het buiten schilderen kunt halen.

Een beetje geschiedenis.

Buiten schilderen, of En Plein-Air zoals de Fransen het noemden, is niet zo oud als je zou verwachten. Het was allemaal te danken aan twee dingen. Allereerst de uitvinding van olieverf. Hoewel de 15^de eeuw als de periode wordt gezien waar het gebruik van olieverf zou zijn begonnen was het veel vroeger dat de olie werd gebruikt om een ​​verf te maken. Verschillende grotschilderingen zijn gevonden met pigmenten verborgen in notenolie. Ook tijdens de middeleeuwse periode gebruikten monniken lijnolie voor hun boekschilderijen. De tweede was de uitvinding van een drager voor de olieverf, die in 1841 werd gedaan door de Amerikaanse schilder John Goffe Rand. Hij gebruikte een varkensblaas gecombineerd met glazen injectiespuiten om olieverf te vervoeren. Door zijn uitvinding ontstond er een heel nieuw gebied van schilderkunst.

Er wordt aangenomen dat het Pierre-Auguste Renoir was die zei: “Zonder verf in tubes zou er geen impressionisme zijn geweest.”
Klinkt logisch. Impressionistische schilders werden bekend om hun kleurrijke, wilde en, zoals de beweging kreeg zijn naam, zeer impressionistisch in benadering. Veel impressionisten worden nu aangehaald voor de uitspraken dat het belangrijkste doel van het, op deze manier schilderen, was om een ​​echte indruk te geven van dat specifieke moment van de dag. De poging wagen om dat ene moment van de dag waarin je de pracht van wat je ziet probeert te vangen met verf op je doek.

Eenieder van jullie, die de vreugde van buiten zitten heeft ervaren en de uitdaging voelt om dat specifieke licht te vangen, de steeds veranderende kleuren, de temperatuur, en probeert om dit binnen een bepaalde tijd op je doek te zetten, zal dit herkennen.
Maar wat maakt het zo anders dan in een atelier werken? Het meest voor de hand liggende is natuurlijk dat je niet binnen bent maar buiten werkt. Hoewel verwacht, kunnen de invloeden van buiten, de wind, de zon, de geluiden en natuurlijk de regen een groot effect hebben op hoe je zit te schilderen. In je atelier is heel anders. Je kunt vrijwel alles aanpassen om je werkruimte zo aangenaam en constructief mogelijk te maken voor je werk. Probeer dit met die moeilijk te bereiken rotsachtige plek achter een grote boom naast een rivieroever. En toch raken steeds meer schilders, wanneer ze de magie van het buiten schilderen ontdekken, serieus verslaafd.

Om buiten te werken, kun je het beste elke verwachting over wat je kunt verwachten, wat het zal zijn of wat je wilt gaan schilderen, thuis laten liggen. Waarom? Omdat het altijd anders zal zijn.
Zodra je een mooi plekje hebt gevonden, alle rondvliegende insecten die in je verf terecht komen hebt geaccepteerd, geleerd om te beslissen wat je wilt schilderen, ontdek je al snel de ondraaglijke pijn van het veranderende licht. Vertrouw me, zelfs op een mooie zonnige dag met een heldere blauwe lucht zonder een briesje, zul je een steeds veranderend lichtlandschap aan je voorbij zien trekken. Het schilderij dat je start zal nooit meer hetzelfde zijn als het werk dat zich aan het eind van je zit aan je presenteert.

Enkele praktische tips.

De huidige handelaren in kunstenaarsbenodigheden lijken tegenwoordig precies te weten wat je nodig hebt om je doel als artiest te bereiken. Waas het maar zo eenvoudig. Sommige gadgets die er zijn, kunnen je buiten-schilder-ervaring inderdaad een stuk aangenamer maken. Maar maak niet de fout, en de kans is groot dat je dit toch doet of al gedaan hebt, om te denken dat een dure, ultramoderne uitrusting een garantie is voor geweldige schilderkunst. Excuus voor mijn vooringenomenheid. Het is veel waarschijnlijker zijn om te weten dat het jouw ervaring, je doorzettingsvermogen en uithoudingsvermogen zal zijn die voor mooie resultaten zal zorgen. Niettemin zijn sommige apparaten onvermijdelijk om buiten te werken.

Om te beginnen heb je een ezel nodig. En zelfs de noodzaak ervan is te betwisten. Tegenwoordig kun je een lichtgewicht aluminium ezel kopen die gemakkelijk te dragen is. Ook kleine ezels van hout zijn prima in gebruik en je hebt de beroemde schilderdoos-ezels die je ezel combineert met je verfdoos. Handig maar een beetje zwaarder.
Dan is er de beslissing of je wilt staan ​​of zitten. Voor mij is staan ​​geweldig, maar zitten is fijner. Ik word snel moe in mijn benen wat het schilderproces niet ten goede komt. Daarom is een opvouwbare stoel handig en prima mee te nemen.
Neem voldoende vodden of doeken mee. Het viel me op, gezien het feit dat je je penselen thuis moet schoonmaken, dat het zo handig is om veel van die lappen bij je te hebben. Handig om te bedekken, schoon te maken en uiteindelijk je kwasten in op te bergen wanneer je klaar bent met buiten schilderen in het veld.
Een ander ding om rekening mee te houden, is waar je gaat schilderen en hoe je het wilt transporteren. In mijn omgeving is er een groep plein-air schilders (ze gaan er elke week op uit, ongeacht het weer) die op ingenieuze wijze een systeem gebruiken waarmee ze meerdere panelen in een doos schuiven. Hoe handig is dat. Ik raad je echter aan om een ​​systeem te maken dat geschikt is voor jou om je werk te vervoeren. Zelf bedacht ik een soort deksel voor het schilderij. Ik werk altijd op linnen. Ik plak het canvas op een bord met een vaste maat en heb van een dunne plaat met verhoogde zijkanten een deksel gemaakt. Dat brengt ons meteen bij een andere praktische tip: de grootte van je schilderij. Als je van plan bent om met de auto te gaan en weet dat je dicht bij je auto blijft, is de grootte van je schilderij ongeveer zo groot als je auto aankan. Als je echter overweegt om een ​​mooie wandeling te maken voordat je een goede plek vindt die elke vezel van je zijn zal omhelzen en je te verteld dat je dit moet schilderen, zou je misschien twee keer moeten nadenken voordat je een doek van 1 bij 1 meter gaat gebruiken. Over het algemeen zijn panelen of canvas van kleine afmetingen gemakkelijk te dragen, gemakkelijk om mee te werken en gemakkelijker te hanteren. Omdat, en laten we dit niet vergeten, het idee van ‘en plein-air’ is om een ​​schilderij ter plekke te maken en te voltooien.

Tot zover praktische tips.

Nu enkele technische tips en suggesties.

Als je ooit de tijd hebt genomen om de impressionistische werken te onderzoeken, zul je snel merken dat er een specifiek gebruik van kleuren is. In feite worden bepaalde kleuren in veel gevallen niet gebruikt.

Als je door het landschap loopt en over de bomen, de nabijgelegen struiken, de heuvels in de verte en de verafgelegen dorpshorizon glundert, zul je als ervaren plein-air schilder meteen het verschillende palet van kleuren onderscheiden. Echter, als een typische studiokunstenaar vraag je je misschien af ​​hoe die impressionisten tot die, soms extreme, kleurenkeuze kwamen. Om dit te begrijpen is het goed het volgende te weten. Vóór de 19e eeuw, tijdens de klassieke benadering van de schilderkunst, was het algemene aangenomen om de exacte, of zo we dachten, kleur van het object te schilderen om een ​​meest overtuigende gelijkenis met de werkelijkheid uit te drukken. Omdat bijna elke kunstenaar in een atelier werkte en natuurlijk daglicht niet vanzelfsprekend was, is het niet verrassend om bijna alleen een kleurgebruik te zien die we direct herkennen als meest voor de hand liggende kleurenspectrum. Dit werd echter radicaal omgegooid door de kunstenaars die wij nu kennen als de impressionisten. Deze wisten, juist door naar buiten te gaan, te ontdekken dat door de verandering van het licht, de invloeden van atmosfeer, afstanden en vochtigheid, kleuren totaal kunnen veranderen en zich in een veel complexer spectrum aan ons oog gaven dan voorheen aangenomen. Bovendien zul je zien, wanneer je wat tijd neemt om buiten te zitten en een landschap in je opneemt, de kleuren inderdaad vibrerend en, belangrijker, niet zo conform zijn als je zou denken. De impressionist begreep dit door kleuren (opnieuw) te verdelen in warme en koude kleuren. Door deze kennis praktisch te gebruiken, begrijp je meteen waarom ze zoveel blauw en groen gebruikten voor schaduwen (koud) en felgeel, oranje en rood voor de meer zonnige en heldere delen (warm) in het schilderij.

Wanneer je jezelf de volgende keer op avontuur begeeft om buiten te gaan schilderen, moedig ik je aan om hierin eens te experimenteren en ik moedig je nog meer aan om, voordat je met je schilderproces begint, enige tijd te nemen om gewoon te zitten en te absorberen wat je ziet. Probeer voorbij het verwachte kleurenpalet te gaan, buiten dat wat je weet dat je ziet en verder dan wat je denkt dat je ziet. Neem gewoon waar en neem het in.

Buiten schilderen, ‘en plein-air’ is inderdaad een avontuur. Een ontmoeting tussen jou en wat je observeert, jij en wat jij denkt dat buiten jou is. Maar als je deze voorgeprogrammeerde overtuigingen loslaat en onschuldig observeert, zul je zien dat kleuren inderdaad meer zijn dan je op het eerste gezicht ziet.

Geïnspireerd? Ik hoop dat je naar buiten gaat en begint met het schilderen van wat je ziet. Laat het me weten.

Mocht je in de buurt zijn, Er zijn deze zomer weer diverse plein-air workshops.
Meer informatie is te vinden op www.schidercursusarnhem.nl

Glazing

(Dit artikel is ook te lezen in het Nederlands. Klik hier)

An article about the glazing technique in painting.

You probably have heard of the technique glazing in painting. Although the term is used to describe the technique of painting in mostly transparent layers, there is much more to it than just that. In this article, I hope to give you some insight on the technique, the history and the use of glazing in painting.

A little history and introduction.

We can say that ever since the use of oil paint, the glazing technique started to be used. From the early masters during the 15^th century till today glazing has been a well-established technique that has been used for several different reasons.
One important reason was to diminish the risk of cracking paint. Due to inferior quality of linseed oil or pigment the risk of cracking paint was higher than today. Today, the oil paint is of such high and reliable quality that the risk of cracking is almost brought down to only the unpracticed and unexperienced use.
The cracking of paint occurs out of several main reasons. One of the most common is aging. When a painting ages the canvas slackens as it ages as it cannot endure the long-term stress of stretching. Nevertheless, when enough oil has been applied to the paint, the risk of cracking is highly diminished. A more common, and often something that scares each painter, is the cracking that occurs by the lack of oil or improper use of additives or medium. In general (but be careful with my generalization) you can say that making paint thinner with anything other than oil will increase the danger of cracking.
However, why using several (sometimes more than 40 layers) thin layers instead of one or two fat layers?
By using thin transparent layers in painting, the film of paint becomes very strong and flexible. Something that has been proven very handy in transporting painting as well. Still, some paintings of the 16^th century are flexible enough to be rolled up and reframed.
The flexibility of the film (the actual collection of different layers of paint) was a result of using more linseed oil with every layer that was added to the painting. With the discovery of the ‘fat over lean’ principle, which means that every new layer contains more oil than the previous layer, this ‘film’ became even stronger and more sustainable.
When using only one or two fat layers another problem, arise especially when the layer is rather thick. When linseed oil dries, it dries from the outside to the inside because of the contact with the surrounding oxygen. The more oxygen present, the faster the hardening process will proceed. When using a thick film of linseed oil, without any additives, the risk of shriveling paint will be a nasty effect. Some of the painting from the hands of Vincent van Goch encountered this problem. Due to the fact that Vincent was sometimes using very thick globs of paint, these globes dried, shriveled on the outside but stayed soft on the inside. (The result is that these paintings can’t be exhibited long due to the fact that the paint will start to ‘hang down’.)
Linseed oil, or flaxseed oil (flax oil), has gone a long way since it was introduced as a medium. So is linseed oil also very nutritious, extremely handy to keep wood healthy and protected, is it used for gilding and many other uses.
Within the art of painting, we know now three additional uses of linseed oil.
The first is the most used: cold pressed linseed oil for making oil paint.
The second is the stand oil. Linseed heated near 300 °C for a few days in the complete absence of air. It gives a thick oil that is excellent for glazing.
The third is boiled linseed oil which main character is faster drying due to the additive of a metallic dryer, which accelerates the drying process.

Another reason to use glazing is to create an optical depth within the paint layer. Due to the many transparent layers, each layer works as a single optical film with its own character. Together they will form a well-organized, due to the programming of the artist, spectrum of different layers resulting in an incredible beautiful effect of deep optical depth. However, this use of glazing needs a deep knowledge of materials and its behavior. Not only you need to be well organized in following the right steps with the fat over lean principle, as well a firm knowledge on pigments and it’s behavior is needed to get the requested results in glazing.  Also, and this is when it becomes a more tricky and complex process, when combining the main ingredient for glazing, which is stand oil, with other mediums. All mediums added to this process of glazing will have its own characteristic effect on each component. When just mixing things together creates a big risk of paint doing exactly what you, do not want it to do.

The technique of glazing.

To keep it simple I will stay with the main and classical approach of glazing.
Throughout the history of painting, and glazing in particular, many artist contributed to the development of this technique. However, most artist had their own specific approach and created their own mixtures, which were kept to themselves or only transferred to their students. Hardly any documentation has been left for the future to examine or study.
Now days, the modern mediums are made from either altered linseed oil or synthetic based in which, in most cases, an alkyd is the main ingredient.
We know, through studies of paintings made with the glazing technique during the 15^th and 16^th century, that the classical glazing technique has in its base a strict follow up of steps in which than many (personal) alterations are possible.

THE CLASSIC GLAZING TECHNIQUE.

The base of this technique lies in the fat over lean principle. Now, what is this principle?
The fat over lean principle tells that each new layer of paint has to contain more oil than the previous one. In order to do this correctly you need to make sure that you ground layers are indeed as lean as possible. It is with this in mind that the actual ground layer, which in most cases is a paint that contains an already very lean pigment such as burn umber. To make it even leaner you can add some natural turpentine to it. In a classic approach you would than start with two more ground layers to create a good base for all the following layers. You have to keep in mind that each layer you put on there will absorb a part of the oil from the next layer. This actual process secures that each layer has a firm adhesion. With this in mind you can imagine what would happen if a previous layer were fatter than the next layer. The first layer would already be saturated from oil that it would not be able to absorb any oil from the next layer resulting an insecure and bad adhesion.
A good way to test this, Although I don’t recommend you start trying this with that beautiful painting you intend to purchase just to see whether the artist understood his craft or not, is to take a piece of painterly tape (the paper one) and tape it on the painting. If you than take the tape of and you horrifically take flakes of paint with it, you know that the fat over lean principle hasn’t been used correctly.
Therefore, to actual use this principle is more important than you would think.
However, unfortunately, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. If it even did sound easy…
To be able to correctly apply this principle it is of great importance that you have a basic idea of where you want to go with this painting. You wouldn’t be the first trying to follow this principle and get caught in the enthusiastic approach of using either to less or too much oil and end up with either a too dry or way to fat painting. It is therefore rather significant that you know what it is that you want to do, what your goal in result is and how to apply this principle.

But let’s continue with the classical glazing technique.
Now that we know how important the fat over lean principle is, we can understand better how this is applied within the glazing technique. As mentioned before, the glazing technique provides a marvelous deep and warm colour pallet when applied. But there is more to it. We know as to get certain colors we can get these colors by mixing them together. If we want purple, we can add red to blue and there we go. However, this sort of colour has always a little downside: it kind of loses a bit of brightness. This is even more accelerated when some titanium white is added. You will see the colour lose it’s shine.
When we, on the other hand, start using the glazing technique to reach a purple, things start to look very different. All due to the fact that each colour, because it is trapped within its own film of oil, will maintain its own brightness.
A colour, mostly nun primary colors, which is constructed by applying the glazing technique, is so much deeper, warmer and brighter than a pre mixed colour.
During the 15^th till the 17^th century, when glazing was becoming an established technique, it was not unusual that a whole painting consisted of colors that where constructed by applying this technique. Although time consuming it gave two major benefits to the painting; the fact that the colors where very bright and warm and, although the artist itself could not enjoy this, the preservation of the painting become so much more secure with the rich amount of oil in the painting.
However, as you now probably can imagine, this technique required a well-constructed plan of preparing and knowing your stuff. Not only concerning the fat over lean principle but as well, a good founded knowledge on each pigment, oil and other additives was required to work with this technique.
To require a result, which was determined ahead, one needed to start with a base colour. It than can take up to more than ten layers to get to the required result. Each layer added needed to be increased in oil and in transparency as to maintain all influences of all the previous colors added to this process. You can imagine that, if you would make a section of a paint film, you could see layer over layer of transparent colors that eventually, combined, produce a beautiful colour.

In some cases, and I can speak from experience here, the glazing technique can be used in such a way that you can create such deep and bright colour scales that it appears to be a kind of opal or pearl colour mix. This can be obtained by adding many different colour layers to a light colour base. The light base colour will serve as a reflector for the incoming light, which then when reflected, go back through the different layers of colors. The result is in tremendous colour range, which will be different from each angle.
The beauty of this technique is the pure fact that you can create the most beautiful and impressive colors that will, indeed, give a wonderful experience when you play a bit with light.

Now, I can understand that, while reading this article, I must confess that it still is a bit abstract; you might find that you’re still with the wonder of how you might start the glazing technique. The thing is that, although when you understand the basic fat over lean principle it becomes easier, this technique is rather complex. Each pigment has its own character, response differently to each other pigment and even to adding oil. Then there is the fact that in a lot of cases you want to add another medium such as poppy oil or safflower oil to make the substance thinner. When working with several layers of stand oil, an unavoidable effect will be that each following layer will be harder to add. Linseed oil needs a very long time to harden. In some cases more than a year. It is because of this that when you want to varnish your painting you should always wait for one year to do so.
However, during the process of glazing you cannot wait that long. In fact, it would destroy the whole process because the paint film would have been hardened too much to make it able to absorb any oil from the next layer.

However, as to not leave you empty handed after reading this article, I want to give you a very basic program, which you can use to experiment. It tells you all the steps from start to finish but without any specifics of measurements. This program does not tell you the classic, and more complex method, approach but will keep it simpler as to understand the basic principle of fat over lean.
If you have any questions just send me a mail. I’ll be happy to help.
You are also most welcome to join my classes in case you’re living in the neighborhood.

BASIC GLAZING PROGRAM:

Step 01.         Grounding layers.

Make the first layer from only burnt umber with just enough turpentine to make the paint a bit thinner. Don’t drawn your canvas. Make it a smooth layer.
The next day you can put the second layer. Use burnt umber, ultramarine blue and some titanium white. (approximately 1:1:1) Do not add anything to it.
The third ground layer is the same as the second one but you might add a bit more titanium white to it. To this layer you add two drops of stand oil.

Step 02.         Setting up you painting.

To make sure that all the paint you use here has the same ratio of added stand oil is might be wise to pre-mix your paint. The amount of stand oil added to this paint must be slightly more than in the third layer of step 1 but still very little.

Step 03.         Working out your set up.

Before you start the actual glazing procedure you might want to work out you set up first.
If you feel you need to do this, again add a few drops of stand oil to you paint.

Step 04.         Starting the glazing.

Now that you have a good basic set up you can start with some glazing. Determine which part of the painting you want to work with. Which colour do you want and make sure to know which colors you need to use. On the other hand, making some mistakes isn’t so bad. It will give you a good experience.
Make sure that with each new layer, you add some stand oil to the new layer. When you want to work transparent, you can add a bit of turpentine to the mixture. Best is to find out by trying to get the right measurements in mixing.
If you want to keep working transparent, make sure that each following layer contains more stand oil and lesser turpentine.

Step 05.         Finishing the glazing process.

Eventually, when you come to the point that you made a serious amount of transparent layers, you might come to the point that you can’t add more turpentine anymore. Just because the rule of fat over lean made you get there. However, using only stand oil will make the paint rather thick to use. In this case you can use stand oil with still a little bit of turpentine and add a few drops of poppy oil or safflower oil. This will make the paint nice and thin and easier to work with. A warning though. The poppy oil or safflower oil has a slightly different composition, which in some cases makes it appear as if it doesn’t want to bind with the previous layer. To prevent this from happening you can pre-mix the mixture of stand oil, turpentine and poppy oil, before adding it to the paint.

That’s it! A very, very basic program to start your glazing process.
Be extra gentle and careful in adding oil. It is very common to go to fast with using too much oil.  For the rest, have fun! Experiment, do it with joy and without expectations. See it as a learning process. Makes it so much more enjoyable.

DOES THE ‘SILENT’ STILL LIFE DESERVE MORE CREDIT?

AN INTRODUCTION.
Within the history of art, still life has a long line covered. Although still life, as we know it now, mostly has its origin in the 16th and 17th century, already during Roman times we see still lives used as decoration in roman villas. Due to the fact that until the 16th century oil paint was not used, hardly any painting, such as still life, survived the test of time. Only through the discovery of a paint with an oil base we can now still enjoy paintings of that period.
The display of products or attributes was rather unusual during the 16th and 17th century. Painting in general had either a decorative or a religious purpose and was, until the oil paint started to be used, done with fresco on a wall or on wood. It was an expensive and time-consuming work.

In the 16th and 17th century, still life started its introduction with paintings that where known as kitchen scenes. Rich paintings of elaborate and lively kitchens with tables filled with exotic foods and spices. However, in most of these scenes there were still people involved. The main connection with still life was the fact that all the food, which was laid out on the table, was neatly composed. These kitchen scenes were the start of a variety of newly found subjects to paint. The most known are the show or ostentation pieces, the banquets and the fruit pieces. The interest for these kind of paintings made the start for commissioned work of products that would show the viewer that the owner of that particular painting was living a rather good life. Still life was born.

In the 16th and 17th century, we see the start of a variety of subjects within the genre of still life. Next to the already existing showpieces and banquets, we now see victory pieces, vanitas, flower pieces and science pieces. The 16th and 17th century were to most productive times for this genre. Until the start of the 19th century, it became less popular. Due to the rise of romanticism, still life received a revival with mostly flower pieces. However, with the years to come, still life was in for a total make over with the influences of artists like Cezanne, Picasso and Mondrian. Through their different approach, still life entered a new age. An age in which realism, measurements and symbolism started to have a total different meaning. The attention moved from subject to experience. Mostly the experience of the artist who wanted to share this through his/her work. This reached its peak in the years between 1965 and 2000.

Today, still life reached a new prime. It became a strong and well-represented genre within the art movement. The most significant difference now is that, although the artist still is the director of its work, the subject became more realistic than ever before. In addition, the subject started to be inferior to the craft. Due to the rise of hyperrealism and photorealism, one can hardly distinguish whether it is painted of photographed.

But where does this story lead to…
Nowadays, although still life is well received among a growing public, it still has a large audience that is unable to see the magic in a bunch of objects placed on an old table. Even if it is painted in a hyper realistic manner.
When I am giving the still life workshop, one of the most delightful things happening is that moment when the students starts to realize how intriguing and ingenious still life actual is. Still life isn’t just a bunch of objects on a platform. It is a well-considered, calculated and measured harmony between space and objects.
But, let’s first look at what ‘still life’ actual means. The use of the word still life derives from the Dutch word stilleven. This is because during the 16th century, when still life became a genre on its own, it where the Dutch artist who were setting the trend. The word still is in this case referring to not moving. This ‘not moving’ does not only gets its meaning from the objects that are unable to move but, and perhaps this is even more significant, refers to the fact that within a still life there is, or should not be, any suggestion of movement. What this means is that even the composition, the use of lines that occur by placing objects in a certain way or angle, should be without any suggestion of movement within the frame. With this in mind you could say that the word still is as well referring to silence. Here we see a resemblance with Zen art. The absence of an amount of information makes it able to focus on the silence, the clarity of mind. For this, a nun-moving environment is of great help. Although still life do not have the same purpose as Zen art, the principle is the same.
The word life refers to the fact that with assembling and arranging objects in a certain way an optical life is created. It does not refer in any way to whether the object should or should not be alive. The arranging, putting the objects in to place is where the real magic takes place. Let me give some examples: Objects are hardly ever just randomly placed on the table, the plate or any surface that will be the base of the still life. If you have ever seen an still life artist arrange the objects to start a still life it might appear to you as if he or she is just putting them there, looking for good matches and then goes for it. However, there is more too this than meets the eye.

Artist in the 16th and 17th century, who started to specialize in still life, created certain well-studied tools to help them in arranging a still life. If you take a good look at still lifes from that time, you will see that there are several similarities in approach. So is the use of a single or plural triangle composition much used. Another composition that was often used for a fruit or banquet piece is the oval composition. The triangle composition gives an easy to access and harmonic composition that lets the viewer unconsciously browse through the picture while using a fixed focus point. The oval composition lets the viewer eyes go in circles until it reaches the middle of the painting. These guidelines for composing a still life where doing its best work when the viewer had no clue about it. You could say that the artist used these tools to force a specific way of viewing on the reluctant viewer.
Other substantiating tools for composing a still life are rhythm, repetition and the angle of the table-line or horizon-line, which is in this case in front of the objects instead of behind as it is with a landscape. Rhythm means the re-appearing of a shape within the cluster of object. For instance, the use of several rounded objects that are placed in the Still life. Repetition means the use of several of the same objects within the cluster. Both will help the unconscious eye to wonder around in the composition. In addition, the angle of viewer to the table-line is of great importance. When we look at a table with objects from above, the appearance is so much different from when we look at it from a lower, more direct point of view. From above the objects will appear more scattered around while from a lower point of view the objects will overlap each other. Although the from above angle is sometimes used with the oval composition we see that the frontal (lower) angle is far more used within this genre. The reason is with using the overlap from objects you create depth and a more harmonic view for the eyes of the beholder.

I hope you enjoyed this article. Feel free to leave your comment below.
If you interested to know more about still life or would like to experience for yourself how it is to make a still life?
I welcome you to visit one of the several opportunities of taking classes.

For more information: www.schildercursusarnhem.nl

En Plein Air

(Dit artikel is ook beschikbaar in het Nederlands. Klik hier)

En Plein air.

You paint, or perhaps not, and you would want to paint outside. Never done it before but somehow you feel the calling. So you gather your newly bought field easel, your paint brushes and smaller tubes of paint because you prepared yourself well and don’t want to carry extra load, and head of to a local spot of beauty to paint. The weather is awesome, the birds are singing, butterflies are playing around and you feel good. You prepare your mini pallet, have a quick drink of water and are ready to start. Then it hits you, you never done this before. How do you start? You have so many years of experience, you know your stuff, but somehow, sitting here with the warm breeze around your neck, you get stuck.
Recognize this? Trust me, you are not the first, or the only one, or the last one to discover that painting outside is quite different from painting in your studio.

In this article I hope to explain a bit of why this is happening (you will see that it is rather expected) but more on how you can get the best out of painting outside.

A bit of history.
Painting outside, or En Plein Air as the French started calling it, is not as old as you might expect. It was all thanks to two things. First of all the invention of oil paint. Although the use of oil paint was generally considered to start during the 15^th century by the Dutch painters, it was much earlier that oil was used to make a paint. Several cave paintings have been found with pigments concealed in walnut oil. Also during the medieval period, monks were using linseed oil for their book paintings.
Second was the invention of a carrier for oil paint, which was done by the American painter John Goffe Rand in 1841. He used pig bladder combined with glass syringes to transport oil paint. Due to his invention, a whole new area of painting arose. It is believed that Pierre-Auguste Renoir who said, “Without tubes of paint, there would have been no Impressionism.”

Makes sense. Impressionist painters became known for their colorful, wild and, as the movement got its name, very impressionistic in approach. Many impressionist are recalled for saying that the main goal of painting this way was to set a true impression of that specific moment of the day. Using only that time that you could witness the splendor of what you were seeing and trying to catch this with paint on canvas.

Any of you, who have experienced the joy of sitting outside and feel the challenge of catching that specific light, the ever-changing colors, the temperature, and trying to put this within a given time on your canvas, will recognize this.

But what makes it so different from working in a studio? The most obvious is, of course, the fact that you’re not inside but outside working. Although expected, the influences of being outside, the wind, the sun, the noises and naturally the occasional rain, can have a major effect on how you sit there trying to paint. Being in your studio is very different. You are able to adjust pretty much everything to make your working space as pleasant and as constructive to your work, as possible. Try this with that hard to reach rocky spot behind a big tree next to a riverbank.
And yet, more and more painters, when discovering the magic of painting outside, get seriously hooked to it.
To work outside, it is best to leave any expectations you have on what to expect, what it will be or what you plan to paint, at home. Why? Because it always will be different.
Once you found a nice spot, accepted all the bugs flying around and ending up in your paint, and mastered to decide what you want to paint, you soon discover the agony of changing light. Trust me, even on a beautiful sunny day with a clear blue sky without a breeze, you will found yourself in an ever changing light-scape. The painting you start will never be the same as the scenery appears to you at the end of your capturing moment.

Some practical advices.
Now a day the art supply business seem to know exactly what you need to reach your goal as an artist. If it was only that simple. Absolutely, some wonderful gadgets out there can make your painting-outside-experience much more do-able and pleasant. But don’t make the mistake, and I’m sure you will or already did, to think that expensive, state of the art equipment will ensure great painting. Sorry. It will be much more likely to know that it will be your experience, your persistence and endurance that will ensure some beautiful results.
Nevertheless, some equipment are inevitable to work outside.
To start you will need an easel. And even the need for it is debatable. These days you can buy a lightweight aluminum easel that is easy to carry. Also small easels from wood are nice and you have the famous box-easels that combines an easel with your paint box. Handy but a bit heavier.
Then the decision is whether you want to stand or sit. For me, standing is great but sitting is greater. I get easy tired in my legs, which makes it uncomfortable to paint. Therefore, a foldable chair is handy.
Take enough rags or pieces of cloth. I noticed, considering you will have to clean your brushes at home, that it’s so handy to have lots or rags to clean, cover and clean some more while you out in the fields.
Another thing to take in consideration is where you going to paint on and how you’re planning to transport it. Near my hometown, there is a group plein air painters (they go every week no matter the weather) whom ingeniously use a system with which they slide several panels in a box. How nifty is that. However, I really advice you to make a system that will work for you to transport you work. I myself came up with a sort of cover for the painting. I always work on linen. I tape the canvas on a fixed size board and have another board, from which the sides are made higher, that is than used as a cover on the painting. That immediately brings us to another practical tip: the size of your painting.
If you’re planning to go by car and know that you’re going to stay close to your car, the size of your painting is pretty much the size your car can handle. However, if you consider to have a nice stroll before finding a good spot that will embrace every fiber of your being to yell at you that you have to paint this, you might want to think twice before taking up a 1 by 1 meter canvas. So, in general, small sized panels or canvas are easy to carry, easy to work with and easier to handle. Because, let’s not forget, the idea of ‘en plein air’ is to make and finish a painting on the spot.
So much for practical tips.

Now some technical tips and suggestions.
If you ever took the time to examine the impressionist works, you soon will notice that there is a specific use of colors. In fact, certain colors are in a lot of cases not used.
If you walk through the countryside and glans over the trees, the nearby bushes, the hills in the distance and the far away village skyline, as an experienced plein air painter, you will immediately distinguish the different pallet of colors. However, as a typical studio painter you might find yourself wondering how those impressionists came to those, sometimes extreme, choice of colors. To understand this, you have to understand the following. Before the 19^th century, during the classical approach in painting, it was general knowledge to paint the exact, or so we thought, color of the object as to emphasize a most convincing resemblance to reality as possible. Due to the fact that till than almost every artist was working in a studio, and natural outdoor daylight was not much available, it is not surprising to see, indeed, almost only colors that we can recognize within our marge of acknowledgeable colors. However, and this was very well understood by the impressionists, when outside, colors seem to change in any given circumstances. Not only by the change of light but also by the influences of atmosphere, distances and humidity. In addition, you will see if you take some time to sit outdoor looking at a fast landscape, that colors are, indeed, vibrating, and, more important, not as conform as one might think. The impressionist understood this by dividing colors again in warm and cold colors. By using this knowledge in a practical use you immediately understand why they used so much blue and green for shadows (cold) and bright yellow, orange and red for the more sunny and bright parts (warm) in the painting.

If you take this knowledge with you the next time you embark yourself on an adventure to go out and paint outside, and I encourage you to do so and I encourage you even more to, before you start your painting process, to take some time to just sit and absorb what you see. Go beyond the expected colors, beyond what you know you see and beyond what you think, you see. Just observe and take it in.

Painting outside, ‘en plein air’ is indeed an adventure. A meeting between you and what you observe, you and what you think is outside you. However, if you let go of these pre-programmed believes and just observe as a child, you will see that colors are indeed more than meets the eye.

Feeling inspired? I hope you go out there and start painting what you see. Let me know.
Also, if in the neighborhood, you can join with one of the plein air workshops I will be given this summer.
More information (in Dutch though) can be found here: www.schidercursusarnhem.nl

The Love for Ourselves

Our sense, believes on self-acceptance, our ability to have a certain degree in experiencing love for ourselves, is greatly depending on the ability to become aware and eventually free ourselves from earlier created mind-games, beliefs and convictions.
For example, we all have a certain idea about beauty. And I don’t mean the commercial kind of beauty that is torpedoed at us. I’m talking about the beauty that we try to aim for as individuals and the one in which we compare ourselves with our direct surrounding. We admire or dislike others by the mere capacity of liking ourselves. How many of us can honestly say that they found themselves totally and absolutely beautiful? Not many would be my guess. But did you know that when you are scanning around the people around you, unconsciously you are scanning from your own pre-programmed mind-set to seek out and categorise every person that is around you? Did you know that every time you look at another person, all kind of systems are set in motion to figger out where this person is fitting in? Most of the time we use three different categories: worse, same, better.
Here is an example:
For me, my teeth, next to the fact that I thought I was excessively skinny, had always been that part of my body that I didn’t like. When I was young, I hated my teeth. It was ratter late, in my thirties that I, with the encouragement of my wife, had my teeth straighten out. It was after doing so that I kind of had peace with them but still, not in love with them. However, I realized that I was scanning, with a strong comparing program, other people and judging them by their teeth. If someone had better teeth than mine, I felt insecure, if someone had similar teeth as mine, I felt equal. If they had worse teeth than I did, I felt superior. At that time, I wasn’t conscious of my self-created mind-game at that time. I did however, notice the unpleasant and uncomfortable feelings I got while running this ‘program’ on other person and putting them in a labelled box. In addition, the unpleasant stupid side effect of this programming was that, once this person was put in a particular box, I couldn’t get them out anymore. The only option was to ignore the whole scanning process or to take any means to help me avoid having contact with these people. Well, you know that is a task doomed to fail.

Over the years, while listening to others talking about their faults, their dislikes or admiration to others, I learned that this was a program everyone was using to put themselves and others in a category by placing a well-designed and proven scanning system upon people which followed by putting them in a pre-determined box. Always using the same determination: worse, same, better. Whether it was hair, teeth, face, lips, boobs, butts, feet or toy, cloth, shoes and even behaviour…whatever, it was always judged in the same manner. And, I’m sure that we all had this same uncomfortable sense while it was happening, while we were running our well-designed scanning device, but were to unconscious and afraid of making the right decision. We didn’t understand what was really happening, not conscious of the mind-games we were creating, just accepting, no…taking it as something normal. Everybody does it, so why start asking questions and doubt ourselves even more. Yep, I’m sure this sounds familiar to you.
But why? Why did we start this in the first place? How come we took this as normal and not the fact that we are able to make conscious choices that will make us more involved in our own life?
Because we didn’t learn this. We didn’t learn about these qualities in the first place. We learned to follow the crowd. But what if, we did teach ourselves to become conscious of our own mind-games? What if we are able to consciously choose our thoughts, our beliefs and most important our direction of focus? It would mean that, for one, we wouldn’t be slave to our mind-game habits. It would mean that we can and are able to make conscious choices that would involve us (more) fully in our own lives. That’s a grand thing now, isn’t it?
But how do we do this?
It is as simple as it is complex and it definitely isn’t coming overnight. It take commitment, perseverance and courage.
Really? Why does it have to be so hard? Isn’t there an easy way for this? Like an app or so? Yes, it is expected that we want it to be easy and pre-made for us. That has always been the way before. All our life we took things pre-chewed, pre-existing, pre-known and pre-done. We were oblivious about the whole concept of consciousness. We didn’t learn to really feel and think consciously for ourselves. And now, because we didn’t learn this from day one, it makes it a bit harder to do this when we have packed ourselves with all kinds of handy habits, mind-games and well programmed settings. They are now well settled and deep in our system. The moment you start to steer them up they will rebel and try to dig themselves even deeper.
Then why would I even try?
Because you know, you want to! You know, while reading this, that you feel this little but strong voice yelling at you from deep down that tells you that it wants to get out. This little voice is you!

Okay…so, how do we do this?
Good, now we can get started. As I said before, it is a fail-fall-down-and-get-up-and-start-again procedure. The deeper you start digging, the harder the resistance will be. That’s okay. Don’t let this distract or discourage you. It merrily means you are doing damn well. Trust that.
The best thing is to do this together with others. Why? Because doing this with others will enable you to really put things into practise. You can do this alone, of course, but doing it together with people of whom you know are in the same process will fasten the cycle and each individual process. Also, and this is just as wonderful and important, doing this together with others might give the circumstances that you or the other encounter an issue that is really hard to handle. At a certain point, you might feel or think that you really dislike that person for hitting you so hard on that sensitive spot. And yet, this is one of those beautiful moments that comes to you as a gift to really let go of what was always keeping you from being free. We often see those moments as irritating and annoying but in reality; these are the little diamonds that were placed there for you to find on your path of life.
The True Nature Seminar gives that opportunity. A one-day intensive seminar, which takes place in the Netherlands several times a year. In this seminar, you will get in touch with your true nature, your qualities and will start to explore your own mind-games. You will be given the tools to change the old mind-sets to a free and non-conform state of being. I invite you to join this seminar. Not only will it be a great opportunity to give yourself a meaningful gift, it also is a beautiful gathering of loving people who all want the same thing: feel and experience love and joy again in their lives.
More information about this seminar you can find here:
http://inspire-encouraged.com/seminar.html

In this seminar you will have the opportunity to get familiar with the use of the following five powerful tools. With these tools you can change, alter and even get rid of old patterns, believes and mind-sets. However, and more important, it gives you the ability to train your consciousness and help you in choosing your choices more deliberately. In each case, it is to help you to find and practice a more and focussed self-love:

– FOCUSED THOUGHTS. Focused thoughts is a method in which you learn to channel your flow of thoughts. This will help you to create a higher focus and ability to deliberately choose your thoughts. By detaching ourselves from the never-ending flow of thoughts, we create an inner space to work from. With the right focus, a powerful chemistry will take place that gives us the ability to create a different reality and awareness.

– MIND SETTING. Mind setting is a way of resetting your mind. For this, we can use auto-suggestion. For the most part, we let ourselves be dwelt by everyday happenings. Because we ‘listen’ to all these different information’s that are thrown at us, we create a reality based on that information. However, when we realise that it is us who are the creators of our experiences, we can start shaping a new mindset. This can occur spontaneously. Most of the time this is a profound moment of awareness. It literally can cause an enlightenment sensation in which you suddenly realise you don’t have to fight anymore or a deep sense of oneness is felt. This, we might be able to call an altered mindset.

– AUTO SUGGESTION. Auto suggestion is a method where we learn to repeat on daily basis deliberately chosen thoughts, words and generate matching feelings to create a new pattern of thinking. Repetition will make the new thoughts sink in our ‘system’. However, it is very important to involve a matching emotion to secure the new chosen thoughts in our system.

– FAITH AND CONFIDENCE. Faith and Confidence is perhaps one of the more important ingredients for successfully altering a mindset. An altered mindset requires a strong confidence in ones own capability and a immovable faith that whatever is wanted will happen. Faith isn’t the same as trust. Faith is stronger, has much deeper roots. You can trust something without having faith in it. Faith and Confidence are both accessible through the use of auto-suggestion.

– DIRECT TOUCH. Direct touch is a beautiful exercise to get in touch with one’s own voice of the heart. It also is a great tool to discover your life purpose. When we are able to hear our hearts voice, it is as if we suddenly hear our own truth. It really can be an emotional encounter to suddenly get the information about you from you.

 

Are you interested in Inspire & Encouraged?
Feel free to contact me about the True Nature Seminar or any other topic.

With love, light and courage,

Alexander.

 

The Flower with four leaves

…a little story about being, choice, and awareness…
Once, there was a big tree. This tree had many flowers. They were beautiful white and all of them had four leaves. All but one. This one flower had five leaves.
The fact that this single flower had five leaves instead of four made it very special. It made this flower different from all the other flowers. At least, that’s what she made herself believe in the end. At first she didn’t know that she was different. She was just there, together with all the other flowers, being a flower and not aware of any sort of difference. But this big tree had an amazing ability. It was giving each flower the ability to think.
So, these flowers were all thinking the same thing: they thought they were beautiful. They all thought that their leaves were the most beautiful. That the yellow buds where complimenting the ivory white leaves and that having four leaves was the best amount a flower could have.

And this one flower with five leaves? She was looking just the same. She as well had a beautiful yellow bud and her leaves were beautiful ivory white as well. She had even five of them. But for all the other flowers this was strange. Why did she have five leaves? Why not four? And why was she different? They didn’t understand. So, they started to talk about her. They were telling each other that she was strange and awkward looking. And sometimes, after a period of hurtful silence, they laughed out loud and made jokes about her. Only because this flower had five leaves instead of three.

You can imagine what happens next. This flower started to feel sad and alone. She didn’t understand why all the other flowers didn’t like her. She didn’t do anything wrong.
More and more she started to close her leaves. Why wouldn’t she? Every time she would open her leaves, all she was getting were jokes and laughter from the other flowers.
And so, after some time, this flower became so sad that it started to wish that it was just like all the other flowers. She didn’t want to feel this. She wanted to feel loved. She wanted to be part of the rest. She wanted to be just white with four leaves instead of five.
And after some time she decided to change something about herself. Because she was now convinced that she was not beautiful. She was not like the others and therefor not as beautiful as they where. Now, she would make herself more beautiful. So, one night, she took all her courage and changed the colour of her five leaves from white to pink. It was really beautiful indeed. The flower was hoping that all the other flowers would see it and would find it so beautiful that they would love her and accept her. But instead, when the other flowers woke up the next morning and saw the new, pink leaves from this special flower, they started to laugh even louder. They were saying it was ridiculous. Why would she draw even more attention to herself? She was already weird. This was hurting the flower very much. She didn’t understand. Why would all these flowers be so mean? Why couldn’t they just be nice to her?
She became so sad and felt so alone that she closed her leaves for three days. Even on a beautiful sunny day, she didn’t want to open her leaves. She could hear the flowers around her chat and laugh, but was too afraid to open herself again.
Then, one night, she did something very daring. Something so drastic that all the other flowers would see that she is just like them! At midnight, when all the flowers were closed and asleep, she painfully forced one of her five leaves to fall off. It was hurting a lot. It was, as if she took a piece from herself, and threw it away. Silently, and with great sorrow, she watched how her leaf fell to the ground.

The next morning, when all the flowers woke up and started to open themselves for the first sunlight, she was full of anticipation to see if the flowers would notice what she did. And believe me, they did. They saw it. All the flowers were looking at that one leaf lying on the floor. All the flowers where watching her not knowing whether she did this on purpose or if it was an accident. Now she was the same. Just like them. There was no more difference between them and her. Immediately they became all very, very silent. It was as if they lost their voices. Not one of these flowers dared to see a word.

Then, something very special happened. From one moment to the next all the flowers started to lose their leaves. The floor beneath the tree became all white from all the leaves that were falling down. It was a real spectacle to see. For several minutes it was raining beautiful white leaves. It was a sight to see. But now, all the flowers were leafless. All but one! One flower did not lose her leaves. This flower, whom desired more than anything to be accepted, to be just like the other so she could feel loved, was the only one left with four leafs. She stood out. Again. She became special. Again!

Selfish in Nature

We are in nature selfish.

I wrote an article before on egocentric and selfishness. But as you can see I found it necessary to elaborate on this subject.

One of the first things we learn as we grow up from toddler to adolescence to adult is that we shouldn’t be selfish. We should think of others first before we may think of ourselves. We all know the sweet selfishness of the young toddlers when they take whatever they want, don’t want to share and make a whole commotion when another child is taking away their toy. And then we, the adults, do our utmost best to convince this little child, which has no clue what so ever on what you’re talking about, that it is not nice if you are not sharing. Of course we believe we do this with the best intentions and with the convincement that we are making a better person out of this child. It’s for his/her own good and benefit.
While for some part this is true, the intention can be sincere, most often the true motivation for adjusting this behaviour comes from our own childhood where we were being taught that sharing is a must and not liking that someone is taking away your toy is bad. Throughout our lives we are being believed, taught and convinced that selfishness is a bad thing. People are being praised, idolised because of their evidently selflessness while others are virtually being out casted for their supposing acts of selfishness.
And although, again, the intention for this believe might be sincere and coming from a good and healthy idea, the outcome is rather different from an actual lived attribute that is fully understood.

It is true that selfishness can be shaped in any form you want. It is true that you can use selfishness to practice an egocentric lifestyle. But what about self-love? Is self-love evenly to selfishness? I would like to say no but can imagine there is some clarification needed.
When you do a quick research about the meaning of selfishness, egocentric, self-centred or even narcissism, you will soon find that all these terms are described as a characteristic that most people would like to avoid or at least not to be judged on.
The consequences of this division, this need of classification of characteristic attributes, is that pretty everything is quickly thrown on this stack of interpretations.
From this stack I would like to take this one cart; self-love.

True love comes from loving yourself first.
Does this sound familiar? It’s a phrase you hear often these days. On social media for sure you’ll find that one of your friends has posted a beautiful photo with a similar text in it. Loving your self is a must these days. Gosh, there is a predicament. Love yourself but at the same time you need to avoid being selfish.
honestly, I don’t care much about all the designations. I do care, though, that you might feel obliged to hold back on loving yourself just for the sake of not being labelled selfish.
Self-love is a virtue. A self-given quality! Isn’t that a beautiful phrase? Self-given quality.
It already makes me happy by saying it.
But what does self-love mean? For sure it doesn’t mean that you put your own interest above others. Although sometimes you need to do so. And here we have to go back to the previously mentioned designations.

It is in no way possible to distinguish human behaviour in any sort of classifications. When you choose to live on this planet, you did so with the consciousness of freedom. Free in making choices, free in interpretation and free in how and what things mean to you. Classification, uniformity or designations are tools to make things understandable. They are not, by all means, laws to live by. All the words in the category selfish, egocentric, etc. have a general given explanation. Not to give you an ultimate law of how it is but to generally explain what is meant with using these words. It is so important to discover your own conclusion, your own meaning to certain given qualities. Such as self-love. You have an enormous valuable, rich and elaborate dictionary to your disposal, called ‘your heart’. If from anything you want to know whether feel true about it, whether it is something honest to you or a given truth, ask your heart. Feel what your heart tells you, for trust me it will not come to you in beautiful intelligent phrases that you can understand using your brain. It is that soft tone of heart, that utterly pure but oh so serene sensation that you get when being on the right path. That feeling of joy that you only experience when you speak your truth.
These are all forms of expressing self-love. It can include as many different ways of expressing as there are people. There is no one way. There is only your way!
Self-love can mean that you give yourself the liberty to make mistakes. To fender through life never really knowing who you are or what you want from life. It can include that you willingly and consciously choose to live alone. That you deliberately decide to think of yourself before others just for the sake of learning to love yourself. It honestly is beautiful to explore the love for yourself. Give yourself room, give yourself ability and perhaps for most; give yourself the pleasure of making mistakes. As I mentioned before in previous post, you have nothing to live up to. There is absolutely nothing you have to achieve! Nothing you have to earn or do before you can be what you want to be.
You are already complete!

FINDING YOURSELF, LETTING GO AND TAKING CONTROL.

Finding one’s self has become one of the most recalled things to do over the years.
A number on your bucket list. A thing you have to do.

Whether you took that conclusion yourself or you were inspired to do this by a spiritual movement or teacher, maybe even by the circumstances at work. It seems that where ever you go this topic is spoken of one way or another.

But at the same time we want to have security and are often confronted with the difficulties of letting go of all that we love and is giving us a sense of security. We want to have a life according to certain standards in which we feel safe, secure and have enjoyable and pleasant experiences. Can these two things be combined in harmony?

It is true that there is something compelling in the quest of finding the truth about who and what you are. By knowing who you are and even by knowing what you are, you most likely will know your purpose for this chosen life. And having a sense of purpose is seen as an enormous gift. Another number on your bucket list.
But what is your motivation for wanting to know who or what you are? Is it the need for security? Or is it unexplainable inner call that is telling you to go and find yourself? And is purpose in life a fixed thing or does it change while being practised? Does it all even matter?

An important, let’s call it ingredient, that will come your way on this road of exploring who you are, is the necessity for letting go and to go with the flow.
Why is this so relevant?
Something I noticed over the years when being in contact with people who seem to be in peace, to a certain level, with whom they are and seem to have a clear vision of their purpose in life, is that these people are most of the time open to change. They don’t hold on to a certain idea of how things should be but more flow and act on what is relevant for that moment. This can be interpreted in little moments but as well in relatively longer periods of time. For example, with jobs and undertakings.
It shows us that nothing is fixed. Nothing is written out, secure or certain. We crave for safety, security and certainty and are often in total loss when we are confronted with anything out of our control.
Let’s look at this for a moment: control. We use this word easy enough to imply that whatever went out of control is out of our control.
But are we supposed to be in control? Control over what?
This is a very important question. And the answer might be seen as a contradiction but it isn’t.
Ask yourself why you think you need to control. what would be the answer?
Is it because you feel that certain events happen ‘to’ you instead of ‘by’ you? Or because we are conditioned with the idea that bad or unpleasant things are always out of our intention because nobody wants things to happen that make them unhappy?
Or is it the idea that if you create control as much as possible over situations that you might at least have a bit of influence on how thing go as to give yourself the idea that you protect you and your surrounding from bad things to happen.
These questions aren’t easy to answer and will differ from one person to another. But to create some sort of desired change in this we need to accept one important thing:

Focussing on things that we do not want to happen will empower those things in happening.
What does this mean in short? It means that we are responsible for all that happens within our personal experience. All attention we give to events we want to avoid will eventually take us to an experience in which that what is being avoided will be expressed according to an appropriate need. Just as the attention we give to events we do want to happen will take us to a matching experience.

And this is where you do need to take control!
Not to protect yourself from what you don’t want but to create what you desire. That is basically the only control you will need to take. And you will soon discover that this kind of control isn’t as stressful, tiresome or demanding as the previous kind of control.
The flipside of this coin is to just go with the flow. This is deliberately choosing to live your life unconsciously. Going with the flow is a recommended thing to do but it is sometimes misplaced by putting yourself in the role of a victim of circumstances. Going with the flow is definitely not that. Going with the flow means that you consciously take full responsibility for your thoughts and actions and accept all consequences coming from your thoughts and actions.
We can call this consciously and deliberately taking control over your life in which you consciously and deliberately create your own reality.

How is this related to finding yourself?
Something more pressing here is to try to answer this question:
Who is it that you’re trying to find? Probably you will answer by saying that you hope to find yourself. Of course. But who or what is that? Really, try to focus on this question, who is it that you are trying to find?
Don’t get me wrong, I do encourage you to start this quest in finding yourself. But I would like to start by rephrasing the intention; start being who you are.
Finding yourself implies that you either lost yourself or never where yourself. Gosh, do you feel the anxiety and desperateness in this statement? Please read this article I wrote some time ago about acceptance.

Just as going with the flow is an important ‘ingredient’ for giving yourself the space to be who you want to be, so is acceptance. Don’t start your quest by first listing all the things in yourself that you are not cool with and then find an equivalent to replace it. Just skip this step and jump immediately to the process of taking yourself, seeing yourself and accepting yourself just and fully as you are! Now at this very moment.
Finding yourself is illusive! It will be a start of a never ending quest in which you eventually will discover that you really already are who you have been trying to find.
Being who you are, on the other hand, is an absolute must to fulfil this life that you chose to live.
The common mistake made, or better to say confusion, is to think that you first have to know who you are (by finding yourself) before you can be who you are. Wrong!
You do not even have to know who you are to actually be! In some cases, especially taken from a Buddhist perspective, it is considered as a great obstacle to wanting to know who you are. Being is not knowing! Knowing is not being! Understanding who or what you are, on the other hand, is coming from the heart and is dipped in loving intentions. This understanding comes from intellect and heart working together. Knowledge and love hand in hand. Love for yourself in all its imperfect perfection and insecure security!
‘to be or not to be’ van William Shakespeare, although coming from a different perspective does says it all. To be fully alive, to accept, to love and to fully give yourself the liberty to be who you want to be. Or, not to be and live your life according to assumptions, expectations and unconscious circumstances in which you feel you are the ball that is played by something else then yourself. In other words, not alive but dead.

We, as energetic nun-corporal beings, are complete. Directly connected to the source, which for some is god or the universe, we are indeed complete. But as corporal human beings we chose for a life of great contradictions and sometimes almost diabolic circumstances in which we develop an immense strong craving for security. We must learn to develop and master the harmonic use of our heart with our intellect. Both are still and often divided and seen as two opposites. But nothing could be further from the truth, they are both yours and neither one of them is to be denied in its existence. Use them naturally and intuitively.

WHY JOY (IN PAINTING) IS SO IMPORTANT

Over the years, besides teaching about painting I try to make the students aware of everything that is involved in the process of painting, how ones ability to become one with the moment has a strong influence on the success. One particular thing though, always seem to a main obstacle: the struggle to reach a certain aim. And in most cases times I tell my students how important it is to have fun in what they’re doing. I thought I could elaborate on this a bit.

Often, and this doesn’t only occurs with those who start painting, during a painting process you can find yourself coming to a point where you feel that you are stuck. This can have several different causes. For example not understanding certain technique, blocked by trying to much to understand what it is that you are painting, being convinced that you just can’t do it or any other circumstrances that implies that things are not going the way you want it. It is true, and I would be the last one to say it’s not, that getting a decent sense of technique, knowledge on material and to know at least the basics on what paint and medium does while working with it, is inevitable for learning the art of painting. With everything you wish to achieve there comes a time you will have to be on the learning side of the table to fill yourself with any given and available knowledge on what it is that you want to achive. And overcoming that feeling of being stuck or being blocked is, just as learning a specific technique, a attribute that can be mastered.

Painting should be a joy. The whole process should fill you with happiness, joy! Isn’t that a strong statement that implies that without it…well, you might as well give up. No. it is quite the opposite. But, to be clear, it is not the hilarious and excited kind of joy. More a inner happiness and sense of peace.
How many times did you experienced this feeling that you completely lost track of time, forgot where you are or who you are and was absorbed by the process of painting? And how many times did you experience that you where blocked? Couldn’t get what you wanted, seemingly having totally lost that long desired and appreciated ‘touch’. How many times did you experience that anger, that uncontrolable feeling of throwing that painting across the room? Both are magical moments which, with a paradoxale twist, are entwined together.
But how do you get yourself (back) in that zone of enjoying the whole process? How do you get yourself from outraged to serene calm and enjoying the process?

Well, if you’re indeed as angry that even the fires of hell don’t seem to upset you anymore, I think you indeed better take some distance from your process and have a good cup of relaxing tea. The idea is to not let yourself enter a state of frenzy. How? By cultivating one important espacts in the painting process: JOY. How do we do this? For one thing by focussing on the process only. Not on what it has to become. Not on how detailed it has to be and not on how many more layers, time and effort it needs before it’s perfect. No. Stop bothering yourself. You will get there anyway. Don’t rush yourself by focussing on the irrelevant stuff. Focus on what gives the most pleasure, the most joy: In this case Painting!! And I’m sure that this isn’t so hard for you. Because you choose to paint, to learn about painting, techniques and stuff, because it gives you so much joy.

It is the same with all the other stuff in life. I know, that when you are learning it might feel that this natural state of being in the flow and enjoying the fact that you don’t have to think about what the best approach is for this particular subject you want to paint, is hard to reach. But it isn’t. It isn’t your knowledge that will give you joy. It isn’t the experience that will give you joy. It is your own mindset that makes you choose. So choose to focus only on the process of painting. And this doesn’t mean that you don’t have to study hard to gain the appropiate know how, this means that this process includes the studies you make to learn, to make something your own or to understand matter. All those things should be done with the joy of the process. It is the same with drawing an object. Once you try to interpretate the object as something you can understand logically you will start to make weird mistakes. You disconnect yourself from the object by trying to understand what it is. But once you let this interpretation go and just look, you will amaze yourself by drawing exactly what you see.

So go out there and have fun! Enjoy whatever it is you’re doing! Really…!!! Do it!!