Latest posts by michael wilson (see all)
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Strength and weaknesses in your art….
As we have talked about before, children accept their work wonderfully. They are easily delighted seeing the various swaths of color and wild lines. It is all good fun. Art and life are not separated but are together a complete experience for a child.
But we grow up and we mature as artists. Some of us go to art school to determine our paths and solidify our ‘style’, while others hammer away at their skills with little training. In either case, as adults we eventually must come to realize that there are some things we do so much better than other things. You inevitably 
come face to face with the strengths and weaknesses in your art. One might instinctively understand the nuances of color but feels quite handicapped in drawing accurately. Another draws very well but feels lost when mixing colors. We discover that there is a limit to what we can truly master, like the tradesman who is an excellent plumber but correctly realizes that he is only an average carpenter so he sticks with plumbing.
There becomes the question of one’s strengths and weaknesses. The choice to stress and improve on ones strengths instead of bolstering up the apparent weaknesses becomes ineluctable. Some feel that is the wrong approach to painting. We have a choice to make of either trying to eradicate the glaring weakness or the more radical approach which Braque took of ignoring them altogether. He is quoted as saying that ‘progress in art does not consist in expanding one’s limitations but in knowing them better…or I don’t do as I want , I do as I’m able.
If for example, we finally admit to our inability to drawing the figure correctly we turn to landscape or abstraction. If after many attempts at color contrast and harmony we realize our utter limitation, we turn to back to black and white where perhaps our great strength might lie in printmaking. Escher comes to mind. In any case our efforts at creating beauty should be one of joy, or at least a certain enjoyment. It is pointless to keep striving at what does not come naturally when, probably there are a host of mediums and techniques that is perfectly suited to our ability, talent and proclivity. I remember the famous quote, ‘ if all we have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.’ I know of one artist friend whose oil paintings seem overworked, muddy and contrived whereas his watercolors are alive with expression and a delight to view. Rembrandt discovered early on that he had an immense talent for oil portraits, though in comparison his full figures seem considerably less compelling. A more heightened awareness of our limitations…a certain acceptance will do much to advance our artistic expression.