The Most Common Mistake of Artists

When we see the work of the great masters of painting: Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Sargent, etc. there is a desire to be able to paint like them, to match their technique or to have their quality under our brush. And many times we believe that we cannot achieve that quality because we lack the right material. You begin to investigate which colors they used, which mediums, on which surfaces they painted, with which brushes, etc. And we find that many of the materials that they used no longer exist and we conclude that we will never be able to match the luminosity that Rembrandt's paintings have because we do not have the white that Rembrandt used. But I want to tell you about something that I recently understood. In one of my painting classes, my student Xalí was painting a peach. We were then working with reduced color palettes. We chose the Zorn palette, you know: white, black, ocher, and light red. I explained how this palette works and that by not having blue we would be limited in that area, so as part of this lesson we would also work with a colored base. We decided to work on a blue base to recover those tones that were missing from our palette. Say, use the base color to let certain greens and blues show through the top layers. The model we were going to paint didn't have a lot of blues, so it wasn't a problem, but it was part of the lesson. She started painting and in half an hour or forty minutes she finished her peach. I really liked the result. The loose brushstroke, the natural tones that she had achieved, the texture of the peach, etc. It was a great painting. So I decided to paint a similar one for myself. That day I was sitting behind her while she worked. She used my materials. The colors she used were the ones I use to paint, I lent them to her. Ocher, red, etc. She worked on a panel that I had prepared with the blue paint. I was telling her the steps to take. As part of the lesson I told her to first dilute a little ocher with solvent and with that to define the figure with a mass of color. And then put the mixed colors on top. I thought: I have the same materials, I know exactly the steps she took to build the painting. I will make my painting exactly like hers. I started painting my peach, which is the one you are looking at now. And the result couldn't be more different. This peach has nothing to do with the one Xali painted. If having exactly the same materials and seeing the process and how she was putting the layers of paint. Even copying all that, my result is completely different from hers. Now imagine trying to copy Rembrandt or Zorn or Sargent or whoever you want. It is an almost impossible thing. But mainly it is not in the materials and perhaps not even in the process or the method that the painter followed. Each one has a unique way of painting that has more to do with what you think, how you see the world, and maybe even how you move your hand or how you handle the brush. Sure, it is important to copy the work of other painters because we learn a lot from them. I don't pretend that you stop doing it, but keep in mind that achieving the results they achieved is a bit of a useless task because it is almost impossible. You can dedicate your entire life to imitating the work of another painter and you may get close enough, but for what? And what I learned from copying this peach is that it has nothing to do with the materials that another painter uses. Because sometimes students ask me: "What red pigment did Caravaggio use?" If we use the red that Caravaggio used, we will not paint like Caravaggio. Definitely not. It's about something else. Caravaggio painted as he painted because of the context in which he lived and mainly because of what he thought, how he saw the world or how he moved his hand. I do not know. There are many things but they are things that we cannot imitate. Finding an ocher yellow that is exactly the same as that used by another painter we admire is not going to make us paint like that painter. I know it sounds obvious. But we still believe that if we had other materials or the materials that they had, we could paint like them. Or the brushes. We tend to think: "With the brush I have, I can't do it, I need this other brush that was used in the 19th century." We have better quality materials than those of these Old Masters. We have more saturated colors, with better consistency, extraordinary brushes, etc. Do not despair. Don't be discouraged if someone else's work is unattainable. Paint as you paint. Trust the way you work. Maybe there will be another painter out there who says, "I would like to paint like this. How did you paint that?" And you will say "I don't know, this is how I paint, this is how it comes out." I just wanted to tell you this anecdote and that would be it. See you in the next video.

Channel: César Córdova

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Keywords: painting, art, oil painting, how to, painter, real time, maler, Dipingere, Peindre, curso de pintura, clase de pintura, pintura al óleo, acrílico, aprender a pintar, pintura, óleo, clases, curso, gratuito, como, como hacer, tutorial, cesar cordova, arte, manualidades, dibujo, dibujar, malen, Anstreichen, Verven, للصبغ, Mengecat, 作畫, pintar, 塗る, Peinturer, Рисовать, पेंट करने के लिए

Id: J1Xl-n7nXjI

Length: 7min 56sec (476 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 12 2020