The Art of Whimsy & the Whimsy of Art

On a Wednesday where I reveal the discovery of self through trial and error

Sometimes I get to Wednesday and I think, bloody hell, I’ve nothing whimsical to talk about. Maybe this should be ‘whimsy on a quarter’ or something. Week to week is a bit, ya know, challenging and yet it’s not that things don’t happen to me of a whimsical nature, because they do.

A lot.

However, I can’t always talk about them. It wouldn’t be prudent to divulge what happened at the pub last Friday, why there was a video, and how even though face coverings have been banned in my town I really feel like wearing one. I can’t always talk about the things that amuse me and the village details I get given like pub A boards, or flowers in planters for the blooming glory, because I want to keep some friends and hold a reasonable level of respect, despite that vanishing rapidly.

And it’s not that I don’t like a challenge - I love them. I believe I produce my best stuff when tested.

Maybe I should get you lot to challenge me but then, when I recall the minds of my readers I think I’m better off leaving that well alone.

However, I can talk about what I have been up to which is a lot of arty stuff. And maybe that’s a thing I should write about because art, in all its forms, has been a real exploration into self.

Art, like writing, has been a salvation to me. A deliverance from my own frustration. If I go a few days without doing something creative I feel like I might go mad. Or perhaps I should say madder.

Whenever I’ve exhausted myself on a creative level I can honestly say it’s like I’ve taken some medication. I’m calmer, serene. I speak pleasantly to people. I let traffic out at junctions and don’t yell at them when they go slow. I don’t want to knock the 25 cyclists spilling across the country roads off their bikes. I applaud their dedication. I’m amenable and convivial. I might even get to the point where I’d buy you a drink.

Creativity is basically my therapist and the only one that can cope with me. And I it. Together we work our way through the turmoils of life - painting out the irritation, writing it in a rant book, making all the annoyances turn into pretty things or interesting anecdotes and accounts of life. Sometimes not pretty things; occasionally darkness or sorrow.

When I started drawing and painting I came from a bit of a sketchy start. I have always loved to sketch- fluid lines, interpretive, basic. I still like to keep first marks and lines in paintings because the thing about painting is that it can get a bit tight and a bit small. I started to go down that line, trying to be perfect but that’s not the sort of art I wanted to do. If I want realistic I’ll take a photo. Another thing I like doing. Instant gratification. Painting does not give you that.

A couple of years back I decided to go to a drawing class taught by a fabulous artist. I believed that if you could master drawing well then you could get to grips with all other mediums. I still believe that to be fundamentally true; drawing gives you foundation, value, shape.

This artist would throw things on a table and tell you to draw them. He would insist on a big page, A3 minimum, and tell you to just start. He wouldn’t show you how to do it, just tell you what to consider. It was like a technical challenge in the Bake Off - no recipe but make this.

Initially I found this very irritating. I felt lost at sea. Why am I paying to not be taught? But after a few lessons I got what he was up to. Sneaky. He wanted you to be you; to be confident and bold. Make the moves and then he’d show you how or where you could improve. I learnt a lot from him and I am confident enough to draw well or in a sketchy fashion because I know I can do it well if I want to.

Take this dog that came into my art club last week.

I don’t do dogs, not really. I used one piece of charcoal and a couple of crayons. I liked the comical sketch of it. I don’t want to create a perfect dog portrait because I wouldn’t like it. And that’s a big turning point for me. If I don’t like it, I’m not doing it and I’m certainly not doing it in detail.

I found with paintings I was still getting too focused, too tense. Especially when I moved from the fluidity of watercolour to acrylic and oils. Then recently I did my first large canvas. I started and stopped. I left it for a while. I kinda liked it and then I hated it until one day I thought, well this is ridiculous. This big arsed thing is stopping me from moving to my next creation. I got a load of paint and started to wipe out great sections and soften other areas with a big brush. I changed the colours, I altered the values. The journey was stressful, messy, and then it was at some point enlightening. I started to pull what I wanted from the chaos and it was right then that I realised it is the emotion of the whole process that is the answer. At the end I had a painting that was finished.

When I say finished, I mean finished in that moment. In that space I had completed. No painting, or writing for that matter, is ever truly good enough for the creator. But you reach a point where you know it’s time to stop.

I put this one on my wall as a reminder of that breakthrough even though there are a few people who want it. That makes me happy. I feel like I’ve broken the next step in evolving and on the way, possibly healed a little part of me that needed it.

Now I’m concentrating on some smaller, one off pieces. They aren’t all going to plan but that’s OK. I recognise I will travel there eventually, work it out, and that that is the art people connect with; the part you have spilled yourself into.