Why the yellow? Why the pink?

People ask me this question every day.

Why do you bother painting the whole canvas one colour If you’re going to cover the whole thing up anyways?

There are many reasons to start with a base layer.

• It gets rid of the big white space in front of you.

• It is a nice warm-up for your arms and your hands before you get started on the subject of the  painting.

• It creates a beautiful under layer , which sets the tone for your entire painting, which then gives your entire painting unity.

• Because I paint wet and wet, And I don’t wait for that layer to dry, my knife and brushes drag that under layer into the next layer, giving tones of purple or yellow into the next layer of paint. It is a nice way to tone in your paint that might not be there if you did not paint, wet wet.

• Even if you were painting the next layer, after that first layer dries, you are creating a base to build your painting off of which gives it an under glow.

People can tell me a lot of reasons why this is a bad idea and they question why I would bother to do this under layer when you don’t actually see it in the final painting.

The truth is you do see it in the final painting. If you look close enough, and see the art in person.  you can see that I have left a whole bunch of sections untouched by the second layer revealing that first underpainting colour.

Giselle Denis painting the yellow base layer.

You can ask anyone why they would do this first step and anything they are doing. Just because you cannot see the evidence at first of that first step, that doesn’t mean it’s not important.

Take for example, preheating your oven in cooking. That is an important step that should not be overlooked. Because we all know that heat and temperature are an important element in cooking. There are as important as the ingredients.

Or you can look at it from another angle and take a doctor for example. A doctor sits down with you and consults and ask you lots of questions in order to find out what the problem is. The doctor takes the time with the step to get to know his patient and figure out what the problem is. The step is essential in the patient’s care. This comes before prescribing any drugs, or resetting a broken arm. That first step might seem like a waste of time to some people, but his years of experience in asking the right questions makes him a great doctor.

It’s the same with painting. You are sitting down with that painting. You are getting to know it by spending time with it brushing your Paint across The canvas. Contemplating what you’re going to do next. Just sitting with the canvas thinking about what you’re going to do is just as important as painting the subject.

You can also look at it from a builders perspective. Just because you don’t see all of the wiring and framing behind the wall doesn’t mean that it’s not important. The homeowner comes in and sees the final home with the beautiful walls painted white. If they complained about the work they had to pay for that is behind the wall that they don’t see and tell the builder it’s not important because I don’t see it ,that doesn’t make any sense . Of course, the wiring and the plumbing and the framing behind the wall is ultra important for the house to have its full functionality. Those are the things that make the house work and the builder knows how important they are and he makes sure there is integrity behind those walls.

Just because it’s artwork, people feel like they can say whatever they want about each step as if they know from their own knowledge , Of why certain steps may not seem important to them.

Sure you can certainly build a painting without putting down that first underlayer. But it is the artist’s experience and years of practice to know that that first layer can add so much more visual interest to a painting. It is the ritual of layering paint that helps the artist discover little secrets along the way of what makes the painting interesting. To the naked eye, you might not be able to understand all of the layers, but you know that you love the painting. It is all those extra little details that the artist knows to do that makes a painting, beautiful and unique.

Giselle Denis painting a pink base layer.

So essentially, each step that the artist chooses to take, is important in their painting process. Whether it has an undertone, underpainting, or not, each step is important and makes that painting unique to that artists process.

Next time you’re looking at artwork, study it, look at a little bit longer, and noticed the little things that the artist did. There is a reason for every decision they made in creating that piece of artwork.

Perfectionism is a hindrance to creating art

Perfectionism is a hindrance in creating art. Just make something and finish something. Don’t obsess over making a masterpiece. Just make more art. You can produce many things that are imperfect and have thousands of creations. Or you can spend your whole lifetime working on a masterpiece and have only one thing to show for it or even one that may never be created at all. Maybe , even, all of the imperfections truly do create masterpieces in their own right. 

People assume I’m a perfectionist because I’m an artist. i’m a perfectionist because I’m an artist. But the opposite is true. I am very messy. I work hard on cleaning up my messes. But when I’m in my creative zone, I am very messy. Whether it is cooking, choosing outfits, and, of course, painting, it gets very messy. And I don’t think anything has to be perfect. Sure I want the food to taste good and I want my outfit to look nice and I want my painting to be great, but I don’t obsess over details. I don’t follow recipes very well.

I never seem to have all of the ingredients on hand that I need to make the meal so I substitute things all the time. My family laughs at me because I wasn’t organized enough to make sure I got to the grocery store to buy all the ingredients I needed to make the recipe. But I am too spontaneous to worry about stuff like that. I just trust that things will work out. Even if my substitutions in a meal are ridiculous. I realize very quickly that not all flours are created equal. So the biscuits were a little harder than I wanted them to be. So what? They were OK and my family was fed so the job is done. Ha ha.!

My outfits can be a little Zen. I love to match and mix colours that may not necessarily be worn together. but the end of my outfit makes me happy. That’s all that matters. My hair is wavy and pretty out of control. But I’ve learned to live with the messy look. Yes, I do my hair, but my hair is my hair and I like it on the messier side I call it my beach Wave look or fresh from the studio look . I don’t always leave the house looking in the mirror at what I’m wearing or how my face looks or my hair.

I’ve been known to have a dab of paint on my forehead or in my hair that I didn’t notice before walking into the grocery store. But, people remember me, I was a little weird. And my husband says you’re an artist, so you can get away with a lot of things.

I am married to someone who is more of a perfectionist. And that is good. Because we balance 

each other out. If I was married to someone like myself, I would drive myself crazy. If I wanted to marry myself, I would’ve stayed single my entire life. But we found each other and we are pretty much complete opposites. But we like a lot of the same things so it works.

So back to art and perfectionism. I don’t really struggle with obsessing over a single painting for months at a time. I love the feeling of accomplishing a work in a shorter amount of time. I became quicker at painting when my son was little. When he was a baby and still taking naps, they say that you should nap when your baby does, but I felt the urgency to create when he was sleeping. Yes, I was exhausted. And yes, I was probably grumpy a lot, but I loved the feeling I had that I accomplished something that day as a young mom. I was adding to my collection slowly, especially when my son was young. But it also helped me with discipline in that, even though I was tired, I could push through and create art. It was very fulfilling.

So my UNdesire to be perfect, has given me the freedom to be quite prolific, and produce hundreds and thousands of paintings over the last 20 years. As I said earlier, you can obsess over a single piece for a long period of time and have one piece of art to show for it. Or, you could paint something as best you can, and then move on and paint another and another and another. In my Opinion, painting, more paintings, makes you a better painter. Not obsessing over one single painting for months or even years.

Painting more paintings also allows you to see your progression. You can see how you’ve improved. And if every single painting you painted was a masterpiece, then are any of them really that special? Sure, I paint to accomplish a great painting at the end of the painting session, but I never start out thinking that I’m going to create a masterpiece. One out of every one  or two or 300 paintings is exceptional. And I like it that way. If a few stand out over the course of my career, then I am satisfied. I feel the greatest satisfaction out of seeing the amount of paintings I’ve created over a lifetime, and also the satisfaction of seeing that many being sold. And out of my studio And in someone’s home to enjoy . After all, all of these paintings that I make are not just for me. They are meant to go out into the world. So I’m going to use my life to create every day. I’m going to use it to build, create and scatter. I will scatter them like seeds. Hoping they will continue to grow long after they’ve been planted.

Create art for the enjoyment of it. Remove the perfection element,  and then you have a free artist.