Do you ever notice when you are creating your art how often a small section of your art will look especially better than all the rest? If you could magically crop out this one part it would be possibly the best thing you have ever made? This happens to me all the time. It took me a number of years of observing this phenomenon before I began to understand why this was happening and – more importantly – how I could make the entire artwork, not just a small part of it, strong.
I noticed that this “small parts working thing” happened more to me in the earlier stages of my career, but it was only recently I realized why.
I wish I had understood this earlier. It would have helped my art, especially when I was just starting out. Maybe understanding how to correct this can help you now.
It actually is quite simple. In my teaching, when the art has only parts working and not the whole, I call it “Partitioning.” Many students have this happen in their work. On the one hand, it can be helpful or even reassuring when you finally make something that you absolutely love. It is so nice to be able to say definitively “yes” to something you have created. To achieve this, once in a while, can really invigorate your art practice. Who cares if it is only one small cropping in the lower right? At least we have something that we know we like.
When this keeps happening, however, it can become frustrating. We are, after all, trying to make a singular strong piece of art. Like most challenges in Art, it has to do one’s thinking – not some magical ability that some have and others don’t.
Look at the big picture while you work on the small. - NW Share on XWhen we make our Art we tend to work on different sections, some areas we like and some we do not. If we can fix all areas then possibly we can make something we love. But it is in this preoccupation, this dogged determination to solve a problem area, correct or even worse “paint around what we love” that can cause partitioning.
Overly focusing on singular parts is at the root of the problem. Instead we need to go to those problem areas, but in changing them – actually while changing them – we must look at and consider all the other areas of the art. So in effect we are working on this close up view but simultaneously we are also considering the impact this change is having on the larger, distant view.
It is a little like a dancer being utterly spontaneous from within while dancing but also paying attention to the external expression, how they look from all the different angles while in front of an audience. Thinking of these two views and how they effect each other, looking at the big picture while you work on the small one actually changes the kind of marks, the answers you come up with to resolve the problem area in your art.
When an artist can hold both these views simultaneously, when they can expand their awareness, the work actually feels more expansive. The work becomes uncroppable. It is perfectly strong at the scale it exists. Nothing can be added or taken away to make it stronger.
Expanding our awareness, becoming more alive, more sensitive, is really at the heart of a vibrant art practice. Stopping the habit of focusing on parts instead of the whole will lessen partitioning.
In Life the more we can broaden our awareness, the more sensitive we can become, the more expansive our Art will become, and instead of just liking parts we will fall in love with the whole.
In gratitude, Nicholas
10 Comments
Hi! I’m
Nicholas Wilton
the founder of Art2Life.
With over 20 years experience as a working artist and educator, I’ve developed a systematic approach that brings authenticity, spontaneity and joy back into the creative process.
Join me and artists from all over the world in our Free Art2Life Artists Facebook Group or learn more here about Art2Life.
Beautiful! As you have intimated in your last paragraph, your whole article can also be applied to how we view the life we are living. Thank you for this, and for all the time you put in to helping the rest of us see and understand things better.
Lovely. That larger view helps unify the piece, and the mind, and the world. As always, thank you.
Yes! I totally get it. Thank you for your insight. It’s funny how our work is like a relationship where several emotions can be at play – this part of “him/her” makes me happy, while that part of “him/her” irks me to no end! I really appreciate your analogy of the dancer as well, what a great piece of art that could inspire!
Two thoughts.
The little bits that work are often incidental and not overworked. It is important to love them consciously and appreciate what it is about them that is good. Then you can do that little bit again, on purpose, only bigger. Say yes to that little bit.
The struggle trying to fix the whole is a noble struggle but it really is just a quest to master craftsmanship and design. Learn what didn’t work and why. Start fresh. The hardest thing for me is to remain undaunted by failure. I have to say yes to the whole, and yes to that surprising beauty that just happens. I have to believe that what I learned through that that struggle will come easily in the next one.
So I better go to the studio now and start a fresh version of the overworked one with the great composition.
OH Yeah! this helped me tremendously. Thanks Nick
It is amazing to me how art and life are so interconnected and how helpful it is to look at the big picture and the small picture while dancing in life and art. Thank you once again for your insightful words Nicholas.
Therein lies the challenge!
Yes that’s a good observation Nicholas, to keep the balance ! I recently wrote this and it fits in the same concept you talking here about. I feel like a ballerina on my empty canvas or paper when I start. I got to have the composition as a whole before my mind when putting marks on the empty paper (sketch), like a choreography; all single elements need to be balanced out to each other that the whole composition doesn’t tip over to the one or other side and wouldn’t loose it’s balance, like the ballerina would keep on dancing her pirouettes and other figures without falling from her toes and having a crash landing.. Yes I think balance is the art of taking in all components into one single shot, also to give impressive highlights it’s place in the whole harmony. Taking all the elements as same important, though making some of them more unique, let the other elements swing and humm into the huge orchestrated harmony of each other without missing out on one pat or element of the whole painting. In real life it is alike, we missing out on that, what we haven’t incorporated to live a more balanced life. To find the right elements to swing your life and make it balanced and content to be a blessing also to others, that’s the art.
Yes absolutely true Nicholas! When I paint I look at the whole surface and create balance. But not balance in a “matchy matchy” way, in the way that it needs to connect across the painting in some way creating harmony I suppose it is. But its always towards the finish that I can become stuck and have to work this puzzle out. I know that by touching one area I’m not happy with, can throw the whole thing out so its at that stage I tend to proceed with caution and then THAT has its own set of problems again! The work begins with such freedom and rawness (that i love) but CAN end in contrivance…which I really hate. I can see this difference in my work towards the end at times. I know exactly what the problem is but to solve it I need to sometimes mess up the good parts to get that rawness back at the finale. Basically I can tell where the fear began…And actually, thank you for this blog because I’m going to fix that now. I keep walking past it and it bothers me to no end! And thats another thing I always need to go through, I NEED to procrastinate about that part until I’m ready to dive back in. Like a settling in period where i have to feel comfortable to forge ahead. Can’t do that any other way. Go too early and I make bad decisions. I’ve worked that out over a period of time. That little intuitve muse speaks now and I listen 😉
Ahhh, Help !! This defines my problem . Just dont know how to fix it . Walking away and leaving does help . Taking a picture does also seem to help . However , i find it hard to get past this level of frustration. I recently went to digital art , i felt like it was easier to play that way . I hope thats the way out . I cant seem to get to the next level in my art. Though all this helps, I’m still frustrated .