Superluminal
- SUPERLUMINAL - An acrylic painting on a 16 x 20 size canvas board. It appears on the dust jacket of the book, "SUPERLUMINAL," by Vonda McIntyre, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1983.
Somewhere along the way an artist has to decide when his painting is done. At first it is a difficult thing to do because it seems that there is always something about a painting that can be improved. "Detail" is always a problem. Some artists are so caught up in detail that every inch of their artwork is filled with detail, every blade of grass is carefully stroked, every pore in the skin is revealed, like James Bama's "Doc Savage" torn shirt paperback cover art, and in his western portrait paintings of old time weatherworn cowhands and indians. They all feature that kind of incredible detail.
But most art teachers usually frown on too much detail, they suggest you throw your small brushes away. One teacher even suggested (humorously, I hope) that before an artist has a chance to add more detail to finish a painting, he should be shot!
In Norman Rockwell's biography he recalls how his art teacher used to circle around the students in class as they sat at their easels and sketched the figure of a model posed on the dais. He had packed his cheeks with tobacco, and if he was displeased with a drawing he would lean over the student's shoulder and spit a wad of tobacco juice onto the drawing and say something like, "Too tight, too much detail, keep it loose, start over".
So, how much detail is too much detail? Regardless of what the teachers say, there is no finite answer, it's entirely up to the artist to satisfy his own mindset. Too often though, I do tend to go on and on with details and "deserve to be shot". Well, at least my smaller brushes should have been taken away from me!
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