Painting with a big brush and lots of paint

Last night I was driving to our home along a stretch of desolate road near dusk when I called out that I saw an animal, as is our tradition so that the whole group may enjoy the wildlife. My son asked how I saw that in the near dark, driving down the road?  As we pulled into our driveway I was recapping the experience in my mind and the title for one of my new paintings came to me.

I saw the animal off in the field about 80 yards away because when Im outdoors I practice "soft vision".  Our wonderfully designed eyes provide us an incredible field of view; however, many people stare ahead utilizing only a small portion of his or her peripheral vision. Soft vision is the purposeful use of as much of our peripheral as possible. Yes, you may miss some details but what you really become aware of is movement when observing with soft eyes. The coyote sized animal caught my attention because it was moving in a way contrary to what my mind anticipated. Contrast. We seek the opposite of what we are experiencing and a calm, still field with no wind is too boring for our brain. The stark contrast of movement out in that field stood out and I took notice, but what does any of this have to do with the painters journey?

A long time ago a very accomplished landscape painter critiqued one of my paintings and he told me, "J.R. the human eyes can only really focus on one thing at a time." He went on to explain that a paining with too much contrast will fail to capture the viewers attention, and that I must be mindful that a person can only really focus on one thing at a time. Therefore, the painter must help the viewer see with soft eyes, sort of out of focus on purpose. An intentional act where the painter manipulates the elements of art to avoid contrast and maximize contrast where you want the viewer to really look.

My journey as an artist is like looking with soft eyes, often I find I am not really ready for the lessons presented to me, but my gaze notices and as I become ready the pieces become obvious and things fall into place-which bring up another thought for another day. Stillness.

As I prepared to drift off to sleep and processed the wildlife sighting my mind drifted to the importance of the plains people being keenly aware of their surroundings and how what I call soft eyes was actually a technique they used. Then I put the randomness of the night in order and arrived at a title for my new watercolor, "Distant Movement".

Until next time enjoy the watercolor titled, "Distant Movement" and hop over to jrmonks.com and drop me a note of your favorite piece that would look great on your wall for some soft eyes practice.

Thank you for taking the ride along with me.

JR Monks