Scott
Burdick
2002
"Wedding Feast" charcoal 40" by
30"
Here's my description of the process I used in coming up with this painting,
which was published in "The Artist's Sketchbook" magazine, January,
2003
Are there any exercises or tricks you rely on to get your creativity flowing?
Actually, just yesterday I was having a difficult time deciding what to paint next. I nearly started several things, either ideas I'd previously put down in my sketchbook or photos from some of our trips, but each time I just didn't feel very inspired and abandoned the idea before putting down the first brush stroke. Finally, I simply set up a large, 30" by 40" museum board on my easel, grabbed a photo nearly at random out of a stack of them next to my easel and just decided to draw it in charcoal somewhere on the board. The photo I'd chosen was of a man on a horse and I had nothing more in my mind than rendering it accurately. I had lots of room on the board to let my imagination add to the composition if I choose, or I could stop when I'd finished the man and horse and crop it down.
Drawing is one of my favorite things – the closest I come to meditation. I've had so much life-drawing that it is like breathing and no longer takes much effort so I soon was relaxed and having a great time sketching out the horse and rider. (Often when I'm feeling stale and uninspired I fall back on the simple joy of drawing for drawings sake.) Little by little I began to deviate from the photo – making the horse a bit more regal and adding a long mustache to the rider. Then I thought it would be fun if he were holding a banner. The rider was from a photo I'd taken in Eastern Europe and it made me remember one of the towns we'd visited there. I looked through my photo files and found a photo from Morovsky Krumlov and thought it would be fun to draw some of the town's buildings up at the top. I began adding smoke and flames, as if the town were on fire...
No, I didn't like the direction the drawing was going. Too grim for my feeling about the town. I erased the flames (isn't charcoal great!) and let my imagination drift a bit, wondering what this rider was here for. His formal dress and the banner made me think of a the ancient weddings where the groom would ceremonially capture the bride and ride off on his horse with her to the church. I found a photo I'd taken of Susan in a costume we bought in Prague and drew her into the foreground as the bride. Then, one by one, the story grew and I found more photos and even simply made up some elements that I could later have a model pose for if I decided to paint the idea in oil. Several of our local models became singers and handmaids; dancers that I'd photographed on a cruise-ship became revelers in the background, and an old gypsy woman that I'd come across while visiting a MacDonald in Hungary became the bride's mother. The upper half of the painting needed something so I went over to my next-door neighbor's who has a coop full of doves and did some sketches of them. I started drawing another horseman into the background, but it was too much so I took it out. Surprised, I realized I was done.
Well! Doing this drawing certainly was fun and it felt more like pushing a snowball down a hill and watching it grow organically than actually building it myself. Now that the drawing is done, I'll probably set it aside for a while and take a look at it in a few days and see if I think it merits a painting when I have a fresh eye. Even if it never makes it onto a canvas, though, it certainly got me out of my creative rut!
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