the exceeding simplicity of what is to be done

“(E)verything you can see in Nature is seen only so far as it is lighter or darker than the things about it, or of a different colour from them. It is either seen as a patch of one colour on a ground of another; or a pale thing relieved from a dark thing, or a dark thing from a pale thing. And if you can put on patches of colour or shade of exactly the same size, shape, and gradations as those on the object and its ground, you will produce the appearance of the object and its ground. The best draughtsmen - Titian and Paul Veronese themselves - could do no more than this; and you will soon be able to get some power of doing it in an inferior way, if you once understand the exceeding simplicity of what is to be done.... If you will not look at what you see, if you try to put on brighter or duller colours than are there, if you try to put them on with a dash or a blot, or to cover your paper with ‘vigorous’ lines, or to produce anything, in fact, but the plain, unaffected, and finished tranquility of the thing before you, you need not hope to get on. Nature will show you nothing if you set yourself up for her master. But forget yourself, and try to obey her, and you will find obedience easier and happier than you think.”
- John Ruskin, The Elements of Drawing (1857), ch. I / 1.(44)

(Well, yes and no on that one, Mr. Ruskin.) One of my favorite passages from Ruskin, it is entirely truthful and, yet, almost misleading. Anyone who paints and draws with any seriousness knows it doesn’t always fall neatly into place. Experience might suggest that Mr. Ruskin is oversimplifying just a bit, but how, really? He’s right. This is all we do. We “put on patches of colour”. That’s all it is, really. But he leaves out that strange alchemy which comes into play with the great painters, that certain element which cannot be measured or described. But he is absolutely correct in making clear the critical and direct connection between painting and seeing.

No one reading these quotes on my blog, quotes from Ruskin, Vasari, and others, should think I believe my work measures up to these standards. These mark the level I aspire to, not the level I have already achieved. But I keep at it, painting and drawing. Like prayers to God which are small and imperfect, I make them nonetheless.

Here are three recent, small works of mine. The watercolor of the onion measures 4 x 6”, as does the watercolor of the blood oranges, which I did after the graphite drawing, which measures 6.5 x 10.5”, of the same arrangement. While drawings and watercolors are a natural way for me explore ideas prior to starting a painting in oil or egg tempera, they often end up being the culmination of my efforts.