The Performance of Art

Embrace imperfection, exist in the moment and deal with the general public.

Ben Tallon (UK artist)

Creating art is difficult enough without an audience. Imagining a scene, trying to spin it out of your head and onto paper without losing too many of the details, not to mention the mistakes! Every piece has them, but when you’re alone in your studio, who’s going to notice later once you’ve painted over it?

But there’s an allure to it, I’ve found. Something bright and shining about sharing your art with others in the moment. A painting goes through several stages between when I start and when I finish, but a person in a gallery is only going to see the end result. And while it feels good to hang that polished end piece on a wall for others to see, I really love the changes a piece goes through while it’s on the easel.

And it’s why I find speed paint videos so fascinating, and why people love to watch Bob Ross paint on The Joy of Painting. When you press play, you don’t just see a man at an easel with hair like a Chia Pet, you get to watch an artist grow a canvas into a painting.

But there’s two caveats that make live painting a distinct challenge: moving models and the time crunch.

There’s going to be an end to the event, and demos included built in deadlines. People want to see how you paint or draw and then move on, so speed is a good tool to have in your bag. How do you practice? Well, you can try a few different things. The basic practice only requires your materials and a timer so you can practice meeting that deadline. You can do this in your studio, but for a more realistic idea of how painting with an audience feels, you’re going to have to leave the safety of your studio. You’ll still need that stopwatch, but take it and your supplies someplace where there’s a crowd. It doesn’t have to be a big one, but try your neighborhood park or duck pond. Someplace with foot traffic and scenes to paint. I like the duck pond myself, because then you can also practice painting moving subjects.

Ah yes, the moving subjects. They put the ‘live’ in live painting, but that does make it difficult to paint them, especially with the speedy brush strokes you’ve been practicing. You (and I) are definitely going to have to practice living with mistakes with all those people moving around and changing position and talking and walking around the park. Ugh! So discourteous…

Knowing your proportions is really going to help you here. Proportions do not change across human beings, so the six foot man is going to have the same ratios to his body as his four foot wife. It also means once you have the position of part of his body, you know where to put his arms and how long they should go on for, so you don’t need him to be in one position to get him on canvas.

Also rely on the idea of impression. Not Impressionism, the art style, but the idea of getting an impression of what’s happening down. People aren’t going to remember if they really stood like that right there next to the pond where you put them. They’re going to say “Hey look there I am!” and tell their friends they’re in a painting. You’re trying to capture the impression of what you see, the idea of it, and that gives you a lot of lee way when you’re painting people’s movements or how they’re clothes swing or the light shines on them.

All the same, those “Hold still!” jokes in movies make a lot more sense now. And here I thought the artists were just surly ‘creative types’.

 What do you think? Do you feel the draw of painting with an audience or is it just me? Tell me below. Until next time!