Fluidity

I was giving my annual mentor-day where I sit down in a private room with 24 painters one after the other for a fifteen-minute show and tell. Meeting with a variety of personalities and levels of work in rapid sequence is wildly informative. There are those who seem to naturally "have it," and others who really have to sweat for it. Those whose works have fluidity have an easier time convincing me that they know what they're doing. They're easier to advise, too.

Fluidity is the presence of long, languorous strokes, elegance, panache, dash and curves. To the sensibilities of most, like a long fluid line in a symphony, they give a feeling of completeness, mastery and intrigue. There is, of course, a place for short staccato bursts and all kinds of other notes, but it's the long fluid line that beguiles.

Here are a few fluid ideas to lubricate your creativity:

Treatment of the media: The inherent stiffness of oil paint can be extended by adding more medium--stand oil, copal, or other dedicated extender. So too can acrylics be enhanced with judicious amounts of liquid medium. In acrylics, especially, I've found no limits to the addition of medium. With only the possible hazard of later transparency, more medium is better. Medium makes your stroke last longer. In watercolour, fat, fully-charged brushes triumph over mean little spindly ones.

Handling of the stroke: A confident, arm's-length stroke will produce more fluidity than a tightened-up finger and wrist action. Master painter Harley Brown says that painters need to teach themselves not to bend their wrists. The combination of a well-loaded brush, full-body action and the brush held well above the ferrule does the trick.

Fluidity practice: Frequent drawing goes a long way to extending your painterly stroke. For example, the use of flat-sided, carpenter-type drawing pencils invites an elegant, thick-and-thin calligraphic effect that lives in its own delight. The "stroke length" of dry media such as pencils, chalks and pastels is much longer than your typical brush. Dry work promotes fluid habits.

Best regards,

Robert

PS: "The more we sketch and draw, the more we are able to make those fluid strokes we admire, where the brushwork appears so natural, as if the artist were enjoying each moment of his painting." (Harley Brown)

Esoterica: There's an art to cruising both your subject matter and your work-in-progress for possibilities of fluidity. Often, just finding one or two elegant areas--the bend of an arm, the crux of a tree--will beget others in echo. Further, fluid elements can be teased from your imagination and inserted into otherwise non-fluid subjects to good effect. Fluidity is often the giveaway of professionalism--and work so developed is more likely to become a fluid whole. FYI, we've put some of the elegant, fluid work of Harley Brown at the top of thecurrent clickback.