Artist Hans Hoffmann with blank canvas / http://www.pbs.org/hanshofmann/
“The important thing is somehow to begin.” — Henry Moore
Facing the white blank field of a fresh canvas can be a sticking point of starting a painting. For a few artists it is their “bête noir,” their black beast veiled in white. Some artists can become flustered and suddenly need to sweep their studios. Others find that something important must be attended to immediately and without further delay and the beginning of this work will just have to wait.
One might imagine that the obvious advice would be to just start with something – some color or line or gesture, something to sully the pristine surface. But I have an alternate philosophy on the preparation of surfaces as the courtship phase of the work.
If you stretch your canvases or make your own paper perhaps this approach would not be necessary and even redundant.. With the thinness of commercial canvases in this modern era, it is even more important to apply your own coats of gesso. I like at least three additional layers. With commercial grade canvases on which the gesso is sprayed – you never know if your canvas might have the watery portion. You do not want the paint to seep through to the back (this consideration is even more important for oil painters.) Adding layers of gesso increases the weight of the canvas and help it last years longer. This step even helps protect the eventual painting from accidental tears. With commercial paper, you may wish to rinse the sizing from the surface, which changes it absorption range.
There is now a vast array of gesso that comes in colors. Try experimenting with a black-surfaced canvas. It evokes an entirely different orientation, one where you are pulling the light from the depths of the canvas rather than laying the atmosphere or image on the surface. There is also a buff titanium colored gesso, which gives an earthy connection, a middle-grey one the forces a high value range as well as many other colors. (Daniel Smith Art Supplies has a beautiful gold gesso.)
Preparing your surfaces allows you to personalize your direct contact with the surface. Such time in preparation grants you time to get to know, on an intimate level, the surface and can start your creative process. You dream instead of despair.
One of the factors that might cause one to hesitate beginning on the whiteness is the nature of surface memory. With the visual arts, the history of each mark, every change, any alteration of color, shape, the deviance of a line is always with us. I imagine one of the differences between the literary and visual arts might be that while a writer might start with a single word or prompt – it would be a simply process to delete the beginning impulse and impetus. With the visual arts, every mark carries its particular history – even if one might erase seemingly completely that first gesture, there remains a trace on the surface, a pale ghost whose shadow nevertheless influences and effects the proceeding work.
I had an art instructor named Howard Brodie, who was also a courtroom artist-correspondent for television news-programs, who reported that if he did not feel his first mark was authentic, he would toss the whole sheet of paper. This appeared very extravagant to poor art students, though now I recognize and admire that there was certainly a high price to be paid to adhere to his principles. But I do not agree. The record of the search is also fundamental and enlivens the surface.
If you have difficultly confronting a blank canvas, take heart. There is the tale of Jackson Pollock and his process when commissioned to produce a huge painting – a little over eight feet in height and almost 20 feet long. He was intimidated by the size and scope of the project. He removed a wall in his apartment-studio (I am sure his landlord loved that) to accommodate this enormous stretched canvas and then he sat down. He sat in front the vastness of white and looked. He continued this action for six months – he did not do any other work. Then, after everyone thought that he would have to return the advance and that he would never be able to confront such a huge undertaking, he completed the painting in a frenzy within a 24 hour period. There is a classic debate – did this painting burst forth in a matter of less than a day—or did it take six months. I veer toward the six-month side. Ask yourself if your reluctance is a case of elaborate procrastination or if the scope of active musing is an essential step for you to proceed.
I close this musing with a quote from the great abstract painter Milton Resnick (one of my touchstone artists):
“What do you bring as knowledge to a blank canvas? How do you begin?”
Caerus Art Residency 
Now, in modern times with modern technology, it is easy to eradicate earlier words, although they might be somewhere in the guts and brains of computers and, of course, they have left marks in our minds: the mind knows I didn’t begin that sentence like that. Writers love to look at old handwritten manuscripts because they show the thought processes of earlier writers, much like the canvas shows the painters’ earlier marks.
I paint two ways. Either I am sketching real-life objects or people, or I am recalling things from my head. If I am going to sketch the physical world, I look around for awhile to figure out what it is I want to sketch in a given scene. If I am painting out of my head, I generally just listen for instructions, the word that tells me “Begin here, in this corner. “Red,” the voice says, or “Tomato,” “Carrot. Pepper grinder.” “Mauve.” I try not to disobey this voice, no matter what it says or requests — it is trustworthy. Too bad I can’t put it in charge of my love life (but maybe I can learn to do so). It functions best either in silence or when I have music playing.
I, too, love to look at old manuscripts and the mysteries of the swirls of the writer’s mind.
Painting in silence or to music present different states to me. I usually listen to classic music but I also experiment with silence, to be inside silence. Artists for centuries have utilized silence and it is a rich territory.
Thank you for this inspiring musing, Karina. I, too, find it intimidating to confront a blank canvas. I’m haunted by the realization that every brushstroke has the potential to be a mistake – but it also has the potential to be great.
As you’ve suggested, I’ve also begun by adding a layer of gesso to break the ice.
Once I’m actually composing the image, I spend quite a bit of time contemplating, even using the brush with no paint to rehearse a line before actually painting it in. I try to tune in to my instincts – which are usually good.
Great suggestion about tinted gesso. I’d love to try the gold one.
I do not hold that every brush stroke is a potential mistake. I tell myself that each mark has an important role in the scope of the painting — but I try not to label an action while painting a mistake. Those that I might consider mistakes are really an opportunity to learn something completely different, maybe even uncomfortable, raw.. A painting is an on-going series of solving problems that creates new ones and there is never a right or conversely a wrong approach — only those that bring one to a different spot. It is the process of trusting our instinct, of learning to trust that creative instinctual force the roots us.
The blank sheet – I guess I don’t think about it anymore because I begin each image with a bold black line around the perimeter of my paper. This is not meant to be cute or decorative but is a simple device to help me “see” the edge of what I am working on. I cannot find “my place” in what I am looking at if I cannot find my place on my paper. I was intrigued by the use of the inner-border line when I discovered the work of German artist Horst Janssen. I am not sure why he used it but for me the line is there to help define the space i am working with and I have found it also helps me to frame what I am looking at. If I find I need more space than the line allows – I paint over the line – less then the line is left to stand uninterrupted.
When I am in the studio ready to work then my 22′ of wall space is fixed with varying sizes of paper (determined by the subject) pinned beside the reference photos for each – so depending on the size of the images – I will have anywhere from 5 to 8 sheets of blank paper pinned to the wall. Sometimes I load a house painting brush with a light color like a very watered down yellow and go along the line of paper sheets loosely brushing in the yellow leaving huge gaps down to the white of the paper, By the time I get to the end the first piece is dry enough to go back with a loaded sword (dagger) brush full of black and then zip, zip, zip the black border lines are in place. From there using the same sword brush I just start drawing in the images.
I think it sort of funny what your instructor Howard Brodie said about a “wrong” line. Good grief – if I ever worried about a wrong line – especially at the beginning – I would NEVER get any work done! There are wrong lines all over the place in my work – I think they are interesting.
I heard that Winston Churchill – The Lion of Britain no less – was also intimidated by the blank canvas and instructed his canvas maker to deliver all stretched canvases to him with a giant orange X painted through the middle.
Lauri, thank you for the detailed insight into your painting process. Cezanne would also sometimes paint a prussian blue line at the edge of the canvas to first explore the boundaries and seat the painting in its space. I have been considering getting one of those sword / dagger brushes — now I will advance my timetable.
And I had not heard Winston Churchill method of dealing with the blank canvas. Interesting. But I do ascribe to his adage: “Never give up! Never give up! Never give up!”
Lauri, an invaluable comment for those lucky enough to read it. Thanks for sharing your painting process. It makes me feel brave about the dark calligraphic marks I’m working with. So generous of you to be so detailed.
Thanks Suzanne. I love black and while I buy almost all my Golden paints in 16 fl oz jars – I buy my black by the gallon!
@Nishi. Painting to music, especially music with words, gives the critical part of my mind something to do (it can like or dislike the music, singer, intonation), which keeps it from criticizing my painting or painting skills. It’s just a trick because I am highly auditory so I give auditory brain something to do while I paint. If it isn’t feeling critical it just enjoys the music. But if I sketch outside on on location somewhere I work in silence.
Nishi, I thought that maybe Pollack was just drunk and procrastinating. The delay-indefinitely-then-have-a-burst-of-brilliance-under-deadline is not really a viable model for most of us! But the surface texture via gesso or spatters is really good. Own your canvas first. Take possession. I guess Winston Churchill’s canvases could then be said to be pre-owned, like cars!
Although Pollock had a well merited reputation for alcohol-enraged pugnacity, apparently this was during a time before many of the fabled misbehaviors. This painting “Mural” is seen as a turning-point for him — and he handled success very poorly.
But something we let ourselves, for many reasons — though principally fear and loathing — be pushed to the edge of the deadline abyss before we will act. Unfortunately, at those instances — sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn’t.