Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Category: Artistic Process

  • That’s Not What I Was Taught

    That’s Not What I Was Taught

    We all learned our craft somehow. And if we develop as artists there comes a point where we have to stop relying on what we were taught and make our own way, maybe in a different direction. At that point we are going beyond what we were taught.

    Instruction

    Unless you were raised by wolves and picked up the concept of making art through a mystical infusion, you were taught somehow. For many that means formal art school or classes and workshops with leading artists.

    Even though I consider myself self-taught, I had thousands of hours of instruction in the form of books, videos, self-evaluation, looking at art, visiting museums, etc.

    Somehow, we got trained. The “muscle memory” was built. We learned the basic techniques and technology. The history and design and composition and color theory and the dozens of other layers of information we need to create art are introduced to us. We build on what has come before.

    It’s like shooting thousands of baskets until you are completely comfortable with the feel and weight of the ball, until you start the have the “touch” to put it where you want from all different angles and distances. This isn’t playing basketball, it’s just getting prepared to play basketball.

    Apprentice

    When the basics are laid down, most of us go through a long “apprenticeship”. It may not be formal and we may not call it that, but that is what it is.

    By apprenticeship I mean we are practicing the basics until they are smooth and natural. At this point we are probably listening to or watching a mentor and trying to create work like theirs. Nothing wrong with this. It is part of the learning process. But we are still creating someone else’s art. This is practice, training.

    To continue the basketball analogy, now we start to practice with the team. We become comfortable passing and catching and playing positions and working smoothly with the others. The coach is yelling at us and making us do drills and repetitive work that seems boring and useless. Maybe we mostly sit on the bench in games and only rotate in occasionally. The reality is that we are probably not as good yet as we think. The coach knows that. That is why we aren’t playing much right now.

    As artists, maybe we go out shooting or painting a lot with our mentor. They direct us to locations and talk through how they see the image. It is helping us learn to create a decent image. It may not be how we see it, but at this point we are trying to produce results that match theirs.

    Independence

    Ah… someday. The longer we go through our training and apprenticeship, the more we begin to chafe under the restrictions. As we develop our own style and vision some of us yearn to break away and do what we think we need to do.

    One of the things Jesus said to his disciples was interesting (well, a lot were): “Students are not greater than their teacher.” That’s true, as long as there is a teacher/student relationship. As long as the teacher has something to teach you. But he goes on to say “But the student who is fully trained will become like the teacher.”

    There comes a point where there are diminishing returns from studying from a teacher. If the student comes to a parity level with the teacher, they become the teacher.

    That is the thing. At some point, we become our own teachers. Not that we know everything, but that no one else does either, so we have to guide our self.

    Where do you go then?

    What I observe, unscientifically, is 3 paths at this point:

    • Continue doing what you were taught
    • Enhance it a little and go slightly beyond
    • Figure out that there is something different

    It seems to me that most artists proudly continue doing work like they were taught. They go on to get better and better at the same things. I’m not criticizing them. This seems to be the best path for many people. I can’t understand it myself, but that doesn’t make it wrong.

    Another group pushes a little beyond what they were taught. They enhance the techniques, maybe modernize them with new materials or processes. Maybe introduce a little fusion from another school. The result is a natural evolution of what they learned. Again, no criticism. But again, I can’t understand staying so close to home.

    It would seem obvious that I must be in the last group, since I don’t fit anywhere else. 🙂 We sincerely thank our instructors for the training they gave us. But we realize we have a different vision and will be creating a completely different form of art. This is not a rejection of our instructors, just a growth stage.

    Our own body of work

    My view is that at some point, we have to let our own vision and style emerge and take the lead in our work. This is not something that happens automatically as soon as we leave the umbrella of our instructor. It happens over some period of time. The time is completely personal and dependent only on ourselves.

    Hopefully at this point we can trust our judgment to recognize and follow the path we are being drawn to. We are creating our own body of work, in our own style, following our own vision. Now we are really an independent artist. We have no more need for a teacher. Confidants, advisors, mentors, critics even, but not teachers.

    What we are doing is not what we were taught. It is what we have transformed that teaching to that works for us.

  • Lucky, or Good?

    Lucky, or Good?

    You’ve heard the phrase “it’s better to be lucky than good”. Some people will claim this is terrible advice. But I think there is enough truth in the phrase to merit some thought. Strive to be as good as possible, but welcome and embrace luck when it happens.

    Not the way to plan

    We can’t schedule or control luck. It is an external thing that happens, or it doesn’t. Since we can’t control luck, we better work on the things we can control. This is just pragmatic.

    The context here is art, but it really applies to most areas of our life. Work hard. Develop all the skill you are capable of. It is a life-long quest of continual improvement.

    When we are good at what we do we have more control of the outcomes. Another old saying you’ve heard is “the race doesn’t always go to the swiftest, but that’s the way to bet.” In this case, bet on skill. Our skill is a huge determinant of what we will achieve,

    Art, though, like many important things, is not completely predictable and deterministic. Unexpected or unforeseen things can happen and that can be good.

    Luck happens

    When the unforeseen happens we tend to call it luck. No matter how great our skill or how much we plan, sometimes something happens that just makes us say “wow.”

    If this event takes us away from our desired goal we tend to call it unfortunate – bad luck. If it sparks a new idea or gives a new insight or makes some problems go away we call it good luck.

    In either case this event was unplanned, unexpected, unanticipated. That is part of the beauty of it. Or it can be, depending on what we do with it.

    Be open and receptive

    Luck can be received as a gift. We should be flexible enough to re-evaluate our plans and goals in the moment to consider what we have seen or learned. Psychologically healthy people tend to have an attitude of gratitude. This luck could be pure gold. We should consider ourselves fortunate.

    It can trigger the creation of a great image or even bring us to a new place in our art. Even what we at first consider to be bad luck can have good outcomes. There have been times when I had been working on an image or even a project and a piece of bad luck causes me to reevaluate what I am planning on doing. Sometimes I conclude I was going down a dead end. The bad luck sent me to a different and better place.

    This cannot happen unless we are open. I could not possibly list all the times some lucky accident caused me to change my plan. Or the number of times I have learned something new to eagerly apply in my work.

    This image

    Let me talk a little more about this image than I usually do in these articles. I try to get out all year in all weather. In the winter I try be aware of good ice patterns, because I sometimes like the patterns and textures. Usually, here, there is enough snow to make the ice cloudy and less interesting. Nice, but kind of all the same.

    This day, though, I hit a brief window where the lakes had partially thawed. Then a hard freeze, with no snow, and calm conditions, had led to the formation of beautiful ice crystals. In addition, the edges of the lakes I was at had good rock just under the surface to give more pattern and color.

    I abandoned everything else I was planning to do and nearly froze to death shooting this ice. It was very cold.

    I love this image. It has not been altered substantially. Just some color boost and correction. I haven’t seen these conditions before or since. It was a happy accident – good luck.

    Lucky or good?

    So, is it better to be lucky or good? I will let you answer that for yourself. For me, I believe we need to work very hard on our skill and our vision. We have to be able to produce the work we want to create at the quality level we want. But I also believe we should be receptive to the happy accidents that bring joy and freshness to our life and vision. They seem to go together.

    Maybe Samuel Goldwin was right when he said “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

  • It’s Messy

    It’s Messy

    Despite the image some artists try to present, the artistic process is messy. At least, for me. It is not a clear, linear path from inspiration to end result. Sometimes things don’t work. We hit dead ends. We change our minds. Even after arriving at what I thought was the end product, I may decide I don’t like it. When people look at the result, they cannot see the messy way we got there.

    Vague goals

    I can’t speak for other artists, only myself. Most of the time I only have a vague notion of what I intend to achieve when I start an image. Sure, I may have a general idea, or a theme, or I may be thinking of a project I am working on. But that is a kind of an idea, not a plan. It is definitely not precise.

    I hear artists describe having a definite plan from the beginning, with everything sketched out in detail. I sometimes envy them. But most of the time I think that sounds like a boring process. There is no room for inspiration on the spot. When I start pulling a final image together I often let what I see on the screen guide and inspire me to the end. I am glad I work in a medium that is very malleable.

    So I guess I’m a bad artist because I don’t know for sure where I am going when I start a work. Or maybe this is the process that works for me. I like to be flexible and adaptive.

    Evolving ideas

    Another side of my adaptive process is that I am open to exploring new ideas as I go. Ideas tend to build on each other, spawning new ones or modifying what I was thinking. I often end up seeing an image in a completely different way from where I started.

    For this to happen, I have to be open and receptive. Being locked into a rigid plan blocks this exploration and learning. I seldom hesitate to change my vision part way through the process. Even to discard an image because it no longer is shaping up the way I now see it.

    You could argue that I would be more efficient to do my experimenting and work out my vision before starting to refine an image. Perhaps you are right, but that is what I had to do when I was designing major software projects as an Engineer. The reality is that I am too visual to do that now as an artist. I have to see it, then make modifications.

    Mistakes

    I freely admit I make mistakes. I don’t plan them, but I don’t necessarily see them as failures.

    An “oops” is often followed by a “huh, that’s interesting; I wonder if I could use that?” Sometimes a mistake will open up a new view or thought process. It can make me see new possibilities.

    These are often happy accidents. They can lead to a creative new end and maybe even a modification of my “style”. The result of a mistake is often a realization of something I could do but I’ve never thought of it before. It is unlikely the mistake creates a finished work that I love, but it informs a new direction I could explore. It is a growth opportunity.

    Seeing new opportunities

    Opportunity is a key word in this process. My background is a long history of realism. So it can be hard for me to “loosen up” and take an image in an unexpected direction.

    To counter that, I often force myself to spend some time considering unusual processing or unlikely seeming combinations of images. Most of these experiments are failures, in the sense that they seldom make it to the final image. However, they can inform my vision. There may be some aspect of the processing that I like and work in to future images. Or it may encourage me to try something else along the same line that I do end up liking.

    We live in great times for exploration. Our image processing tools are the best anyone has ever had. Our high quality digital images have the most detail and potential for post processing that has ever existed. The barriers to our vision are mostly internal. We just can’t see it or give our self permission to go there.

    Failure to recognize

    Have you ever viewed an image in your editing software and been really undecided about it? It is not what you wanted. Your instinct is to delete it. But something way in the back of your mind says to keep it for a while.

    That happens to me. I have said before there is something cathartic about deleting images I don’t want to have around. But sometimes I need to keep them. To let them age a while. Or maybe to let my subconscious work on them a while.

    Now realistically, most of the time, when I look at them later, I know there wasn’t really anything of interest there. But sometimes… That is the joy of this. Sometimes there is an undiscovered gem. Very rarely I look at one of these saved images and realize my subconscious was trying to show me something I did not perceive at the time. This particular image may not be great, but there is a realization there that can inform my work going forward.

    That is an a-ha moment. A growth opportunity. After I get over beating myself up for not realizing the potential at the time I can add it to my repertoire of situations and patterns to look for. I have grown as an artist. Maybe it can even help me be more receptive while I am shooting.

    The image with this article is one of those slow to recognize ones. Look it over and see how many pairs of things you can find. It amazes me. I did not consciously recognize that when I shot it, but I think that is what was drawing me to it.