Matisse Monday: It's All About Process

{This is the second post in a series dedicated to Henri Matisse during Matisse Month, a self-learning experiment dedicating the month of April to the study of Matisse. As always, I invite you to take what you like and leave the rest. For the first post click here.}

La Blouse Roumaine, Henri Matisse, 1940

I have no art-making process except maybe the absence of a process.

I seem to function well on intuition and when I go to the table, I "see what comes." Usually when I try to paint something specific it just. doesn't. work. And I scratch my head wondering how the heck others do it?

With this in mind, I particularly enjoyed reading about Matisse's art-making process. Here are four things he did that I'd like to try*:

Reproduce emotion vs. reality: Matisse painted what he saw in front of him not necessarily as reality, but as it made him feel. Whether a still life or a nude, he painted the emotion it evoked within him rather than aiming to reproduce his subject as it was objectively visible to the naked eye.

"I put a bouquet on the table and I'd like, once the painting complete, that a gardener might be able to recognize each variety of flower; but I don't know what happens in the process, they become young girls, dancing."

~ Henri Matisse (quote translated by yours truly)

Use sketches and small scale paintings as precursors to bigger work: Matisse performed "études" - line drawings, colour studies, paper cutouts and sketches - before creating a major work. When working on his dancer series he did hundreds of sketches to study movement and line.

Danseuse, Henri Matisse, 1930-1931

Embrace re-work and practice patience: When painting La Blouse Roumaine (above) Matisse took fourteen photographs of his work in progress over nine months, depicting how he eliminated detail to come up with the essential for this piece. This absolutely floored me, to the point where I may have gotten a bit over-enthused and forced not only my husband, but my colleagues to listen to me describe how incredibly amazing this was. (Sorry guys!)

six of the fourteen photos, from the lovely little French book

Emulate or seek inspiration from the masters: In the beginning Matisse emulated and sought inspiration from masters that came before him like Davidsz de Heem, Chardin and Cézanne. Then he started giving those pieces his own twist. Apparently copies were good business back then too, he sold copies to fatten the art-making coffers!

So to recap...

1. Reproduce emotion vs. reality
2. Use sketches and small scale paintings as precursors to bigger work
3. Embrace re-work and practice patience
4. Emulate or seek inspiration from the masters

I don't expect I'll be tackling all of these immediately, but I do believe that picking these four approaches out of the pack and writing about them here will make them accessible to my creative psyche.

And really, that's what this little learning experiment is all about.

* The main reference for this post is a lovely little book on Matisse and some of his chosen pieces by Anette Robinson. The version I have is in French; I'm not sure if an English version of the book is available.

Micro-Creating (or Chocolate in the Name of Art)

Creating doesn't have to be a convoluted process. Often I intimidate myself by thinking it needs to be all or nothing. It doesn't.

These micro-creations were completed in ten minutes or less, maybe even five.

Matisse-inspired Easter egg wrapper girl (she needs a name - any ideas?)

materials: chocolate Easter egg foil wrapper on the back of a printed notepad sheet

My boss had a bowl of chocolate mini Easter eggs wrapped in foil at the office. Inspired by Matisse's "papiers collés" I chose a blue one, a yellow one and voilà! Easter egg wrapper girl is born. She spent about a week loosely put together on my desk until I finally ripped a sheet out of my notepad and pulled out a glue stick to make sure I didn't lose any pieces. I plan to hang her on my cubicle wall. Chocolate in the name of art.

my living room picture window and curtains

materials: black writing pen and a blank paper journal that was sitting on my shelf

The window above was sketched in about two minutes I spent sitting on the couch waiting for Sis to come join me at home before going for a walk. It's nothing fancy, but it's something. This micro "sketch-what-you-see" idea is directly from Week 4 of Julia Cameron's Walking in this World, and when it comes to creativity Ms Cameron knows her stuff!

Matisse-inspired sitck figure jumble (or Étude de Stick Figure)

materials: mechanical pencil on the back of daily calendar pages

Finally, to give myself a breather at the office between two tasks I pulled out a pile of old daily calendar pages and went to it. Inspired by Matisse's figures I quickly drew stick figures in a variety of positions, trying to figure out where the limbs would go, in which order and in which direction. A five-minute blitz resulted in 13 stick figures I can now study and play with on canvas.

Creating doesn't have to be an all or nothing process. Sometimes a mere few minutes is all you need.

~~~

How do you build micro-creating in your day? And if you don't at the moment, how could you?