Ideation and Process, part one

Hey Stranger!

I hope you are good, I am! I’ve been settling myself into new schedules, mentally and physically, while constantly having ideas swirl around my brain that I am known to describe as Idea Soup.

Part of this blog is about answering my ‘why?’. My why’s can range from: anything in terms of decision making (artist and as person), symbolism, motif, memory (why is a specific memory coming to mind recently), artist (why is this artist coming up a lot for me, why do I like their work) and so forth to sift through and find the picture in my mind that I want to paint. And more generally, figure out the direction by which I want the next piece to go.

Ideating is an abstract, rigorous, mental process for me. I do not always start out with a picture in my mind of exactly what I want, and I do not usually settle for the first thing that comes to mind either. In my head, I can think about so many ideas in one day (it’s crazy how many I toss!) but there’s additional factors I must consider before I begin physically making.

Oftentimes it can go like this:

Research:

1 (interchangeable steps): I experience something that reminds me of something else,

2 (interchangeable steps): I see something in a dream, and wake up in the middle of the night just conscious enough to write nonsense in my notes app so I remember the dream in the morning

3 (interchangeable steps): a memory continues to come up at that point in time, what is the connection to me now?

4 (interchangeable steps): a concept continuously comes to mind at that point in time, what experiences does this reflect of my reality?

5 (interchangeable steps): an artist I love explores concepts I think about often

6: I sketch from any of the above, and ask myself what subject matter do I connect with any of the above?

7: I take reference photos and look at TONS of pictures looking for what comes for me the most (is it a word, a concept, a subject, an object)

8: I keep sketching until I feel satisfied with the how the idea looks and can begin a study painting, before moving onto the Big Painting.

Here’s another visual more fully of what my current process looks like:

My ideation process is like starting with one string (the Big Idea) and weaving a gigantic web of connections, however loose they are. It is not a foolproof method, and a problem can be prioritizing, picking and choosing what to keep and what to toss. There’s a process of elimination until I have a web that makes sense, it’s a muscle I am taking my time building. I aid the process with mind maps, which I previously mentioned in my last post. But mind maps have been key for how I build an image. I also ask myself questions. I stay curious about my own feelings. I make my work relevant to what I am feeling internally at the time. When I don’t understand what I feel, this allows me to figure that out. Or maybe I have so many complex feelings at the time about something and I don’t know how else to process them. Making art is where I can sit with my shadow and interact with them, not run or intellectualize my feelings. But feel them, and then make something out of it.

What do I want to say/What am I trying to say? Is one of many question that comes to mind during the ideation period for me. And honestly, stranger, it can be hard to answer at times. Doesn’t visual arts bridges a gap of communication where words can falter? But it’s an important one to be able to answer in this profession; the more time I practice answering it with my own body of work; the better I can get at being able to answer it concisely (hopefully, I have no crystal ball).

An issue coming up right now with my last two pieces really boils down to two things:

I am not saying enough

or

I am saying too much

and both result in being unclear in a piece, resulting in issues further down in the process in the painting.

The studio process also reflects my personal life too haha, I come to that conclusion very often. Somehow, I always manage to find new ways though.

I have been exploring how I can push what I already know how to do further, by introducing new elements to each new painting. That can be exploring surface, technique, subject matter, scale, or color. That is what I will continue to do this summer.

I’m starting with a small scale study of my hands, my last painting for spring, I repainted one hand 12 times and where it currently is, is a mess and SO unfinished, but it’s ok. Even though it was a struggle, I loved painting the hands and the tattoos on my hands so I’d like to not suffer through 12 repaintings during my thesis year so….time to practice.

I finally do have studio access again stranger, I am moving to a new space those just two studios down, where my good friend was working and just graduated. I hope I have breakthroughs like they did! I am going in today to continue moving into the space. While I have not been painting the last few weeks, I have been staying creative through my jobs. It’s been wonderful. I am a studio assistant to a local artist and I work at school.

I hope you make stuff this week stranger!

-Ana