Fail again, even better

15 April 2020

Fail again, even better

Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 26 September 2020, oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

This picture came out of a very frustrated painter who could not decide how to treat the vast mess of clouds in the sky. From the start, as I set up,  I decided to grab a small idea and run with it but as usual, I couldn’t keep up with all the movement going on as the light changed.

Unless one is Bonington, (Richard Parkes , 1802 - 1828) or one of those magnificent Flemish painters of the 18th century, a sky full of clouds can be a hairy operation for an amateur like me. There are just too many problems with them.It’s not normally a difficult motif to work from, it’s actually quite the opposite, which is why I like it. But when clouds act up which they do on occasion, it can be hell to organise. It’s a lot like the difficulty of drawing hands. Unless one can render them with the grace of Van Dyck or with the rustic truth of Van Gogh, one must be prepared to fail. Or maybe, one could try to think like Picasso employing his graphic audacity which spins the attention of the viewer away from his mangled hands like a magician distracting his audience.

Clouds can overrun the sky, distorting the distances, and making it hard to push the horizon back into the painting. When floating above us, untethered clouds will run amuck like children at recess, oblivious to discipline. Overhead, they roam casually at random confusing the poor painter below.  When I found myself lost in this study I changed tactics, my goal was not only to fail in this picture but to fail successfully, as Samual Beckett advised us, “Fail, and fail again better”.  It helps from time to time to remember our elders.

And so the other night, just when I let go of all expectations, something wonderful happened. Skating on thin ice I suddenly felt weightless and finished this small study with a certain joy that surprised me. It’s a very simple thing, like many of these small studies, and it might appear boring if one looks only with a surplus of expectation. Yet everything works in it. There is distance in it, and the pink cloud bank on the horizon, reposes upon the heavy dark sea like its a wall. There is a faint hint of foreground at the base of the picture that represents the closest thing to the viewer like a doormat outside the home, and it’s the first stepping stone into a new place. 

I sometimes find many pictures uninteresting (everyone’s work, not just my own)  but if they are unified within their own chosen parameters of abstraction, they will get better and better with time like the cliche of the ageing bottle of wine. When a picture doesn’t come together, no matter how dazzling or sexy it may first appear, it will turn to vinegar within a very short while.

Though it might not dazzle, I’ve come to like it anyway in these two days. It’s a billboard, perhaps for myself only, one that reminds me that it’s just a another study, another failure that succeeds.