Christopher Stott is a contemporary realist painter.
The truth is, if you’re painting, it will always be a work in progress.
This is a closer look at the red lantern I’ve been working on. I shared a larger photo of the entire composition a few weeks ago. My technique for painting is several layers of glazes, applied slowly, closely looking at the subjects. But I do try to find a balance by keeping the brushwork delicately painterly. Daubs of paint, visible brush work — something that obviously does not translate to tiny jpeg images viewed on the screen on your phone.
It’s not purely a cerulean blue, I’ve muddied it up, added some more blues, a dash of some greens, earthy tones, to get the colour more accurate to the objects. But there’s enough cerulean blue in it to call it so.
This painting has several objects, all from an antique shop near my home. The only thing the objects have in common is their colour. I’ve arranged them in a way that makes the painting pretty much immediately recognisable as one of mine.
So I spend a great deal of time focussing on the tiny little details of the painting. I look at the painting inch by inch. By the end of the day, after I’ve worked my way across the entire surface, I leave the studio and come back and glimpse the paintings with fresh eyes. And the boldness of these colourful paintings is striking. I like the direction.
I post these in-progress images to Instagram. If you have an account, check out my work. I think a well-curated Instagram account is a great way to get inspiration.
Perhaps my paintings are more about the composition rather than the subject. Perhaps the paintings are about the simple satisfaction of organised thoughts and ideas — straight forward, made easy to understand. Represented as well as I possibly can.
I use these old objects because these things have character built-in. Maybe the object doesn’t matter at all. Maybe the subject is the colour, the shapes, the design of the painting, the coupling of objects, the lines – all these other elements. Perhaps these are more about design principles than painting principles.
I painted a toy truck eight years ago. I sold the painting on eBay to a collector in Spain.
Austin Kleon‘s follow-up book to Steal Like an Artist is Show Your Work!.
Where Steal Like an Artist is essentially a book about creative inspirations, Show Your Work! is about inspiring others. The two books are similar in format — brief with simple illustrations, but well researched and clever approaches to the subjects and ideas.
It’s about navigating the world of social media, creating a strategy and understanding for sharing your work to build a tribe, or join a tribe, of like-minded people. When done right, managing your online life can have meaningful pay-offs, instead of being part of the dreaded noise and deluge of garbage.
There’s great advice for people overwhelmed by the world of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, blogs, and whatever other passing or grasping media shows up and is forced upon us. If you’re curious and confused about how to balance an online presence as you build your career without committing to a huge tome on the subject, Show Your Work! is the kind of book you need.
I’m working a series of paintings based on color, not necessarily the subject being the focus. Initially, as I get the paintings started, I get little pangs of doubt, but one thing I’ve learned over the years is to persevere and see the paintings through. Finish what you start. It’s the only way you learn and grow.
It’s been several months since my family started living on Vancouver Island. If I were to describe the island in a word — photogenic. It’s a place bursting with scenery and atmosphere. I often have to remind myself to just experience the views, to resist pulling the iPhone out to take a photo. To just absorb everything and enjoy it, then come back next week with the camera.
My studio is in my home, and I spend a great deal of time working, alone. Life on the prairies, where I lived my entire life, in the deep winters, meant cabin fever was long and intense — unending hours at the easel can start to drive you a bit mad. Life on the island means I can punctuate my day with incredible walks, hikes, mini-adventures so I don’t end up eating paint and howling at the moon.
It’s a good place to be.
Moving 1,000 miles away from the home you knew all your life, your family and friends is tough. I cannot begin to imagine how my great-grandparents did it in the 1930s. Immigrating from Europe, parting from their families, never to see them again, that’s major displacement. We are constantly connecting with our family — FaceTime/Skype, messaging, social media. Our displacement, hopefully, will be short-lived.
While painting today, on the radio I listened to people talking and debating the world of social media, kids playing online games — the entirety of the modern connected world. One woman had strong opinions that too much (or any) reliance on computers and gadgets to do all your socialising is detrimental. A curious thought came to me — my great-grandmother, whom I knew and loved, immigrated from a peasant farm in Poland in the early 1930s to the harsh and isolating prairies of Canada. She was the only one of her family who came. Everyone else went to Argentina. I can guarantee that my great-grandmother’s quality of life and happiness would have been far, far greater if she was able to send iMessages or Skype calls to her sister who was thousands and thousands of miles away. Instead these incredibly poor, barely literate women drifted apart.
I’m glad I have my social media and iPhone in my pocket. I talk to my family and friends all through the day. I work by myself and live a couple time zones away. I’m never alone.
If you want to see more of my Vancouver Island photos, check out my Tumblr On We Go, Young Explorers.
An iPhone snap of a work in progress — a triplet set of antique oil lanterns.
I love the built-in symbolism of the lanterns. One has “beacon” written right on it. They’re sources of light. I was chatting with my brother as I was painting this and talked about them being a set of three. I told him how when I was in art school I’d pin down the significance of the set of three. I’d find examples of threes in history, cultural references to threes. These are the parts I now like to leave out. I prefer people who might buy the paintings to be the ones to fill in the blanks, to attach their own interpretations, their own versions and stories.
Here’s a quick iPhone snap of what I’ve been working on today — antique and vintage bottles in a variety of shapes — for my upcoming July 2015 show at the Elliott Fouts Gallery.
The shapes, refractions, reflections, highlights on the glass surface are all abstract shapes. When you focus on 1″x 1″ areas on a painting, it really does start to feel abstract. Of course, with my work, a glance at the entirety shows that it’s straight-up realism.