A Painter’s Voice -170

Painting from life, especially for a student, can be thought of as, and of necessity is in fact, a mechanical transference of data. How the painter must always be painting what he sees and yet speak from within is the topic today.

In Response to Roseanne

QUESTION: Years ago when I studied anatomy, the instructor kept saying in critique that I changed my voice. It was a declaration that seemed to imply a negative judgment. I asked for more feedback, but never got a satisfying answer for a better understanding. I think it may have had something to do with mark making/brushstrokes, but this question continues to linger on my mind to this day. Most of those older pieces are no longer available so to go back and study them further to see if I can discern if ‘change in voice’ is obvious to me now isn’t feasible. Your mention of the various kinds of brushstrokes in a given painting stirred this up again, and didn’t seem negative - just whether or not it is true to nature or stylized. So I’m wondering if this might be worth further discussion in a future video, or if it’s even the correct term, or if the instructor was ‘blowing smoke’ since the idea of ‘voice’ in a painting seems far more complex than mark making. I’ll add that as a beginning student back then, it seems unlikely I had an artistic ‘voice’. Thank you.

Roseanne