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06/05/2007: "The Quantum Leap" by Ellen Fisch
All my life I have been waiting for “The Quantum Leap.” The Quantum Leap, in my mind, is a tool that would facilitate creating art: somehow, magically, all of the keys to unlocking the door of being able to produce an artwork would come to me in one fabulous leap of consciousness. I would be able to deconstruct landscapes by just looking at them. Portraits would be a snap because the head would become a roadmap for easy tracing. How could I fail when all the visual tools I would ever need would spring forth in a single moment: the Quantum Leap? An epiphany!! All the extraneous information would disappear and only the images I needed would be THERE! I truly bought into those college stories about Michelangelo’s “releasing the image in the stone” or the tales of Monet’s seeing only the lights and darks in an isolated patchwork of configuration.
Klimt’s intricate designs were simply thrown up on the canvas in a single burst of passion and Durer just picked up pen and immediately knew where every stroke should fall to form those amazingly detailed drawings! Now these guys probably did just that: WAM, the art was created! However, I’m not so sure if the slights of hand or eye that I, personally, was hoping for, are not the culmination of thousands of hours of training the eye to see and the brain to process. I, as one who desperately longed to produce art, thought for many years that it was my inability to immediately see, to move my hand swiftly, surely, correctly: to “GET IT,” ALL in a single moment! Anyway, this Quantum Leap never happened for me. I was not about to give up painting, so I went to “Plan B.” I painted, sketched and studied art techniques and the work of the masters every day. I still thought that there was an easier way. It was just not available to me so hard work was my only option. As I got older, I stepped it up: tempus fugit! 
As the old joke goes: To get to Carnegie Hall, practice, practice, practice!After many years of practice, practice, etc., I have discovered some time saving and stress relieving tricks that allowed me to spend time on what I really like to do: paint. Perhaps these shortcuts are the efforts of forty years and not a magic wand stroke or nose twitches, but they work for me. The numerous publications about art and technique are very helpful. I try to take the time to sift through the mountain of information on tools, ways to paint, and artists whose work I admire.
The camera has always been a good friend. I used to take hundreds of slides of landscapes for reference material. The frames helped with composition, light source and color. I could combine several slides into a composition or simply get ideas by viewing images I had shot. Now with digital photography and my computer, I do not have to wait for processing or pray that my films are not lost/destroyed at the lab. In the last couple of years, I’ve amassed thousands of digital images for reference. These help.
The computer, namely the program Photoshop, has also honed my art skills in a variety of areas. The possibilities that the computer offers me, personally, are vast. I am more adept at decision making in my artwork as a result of using the computer. The choices I make are more readily available and easier to undo than those in traditional painting. Additionally, my sense of composition, design and perspective has benefited from using my computer. The digital age has given me insights into my work and has helped me break down information. I use my computer skills as tools to augment my painting NOT, in any way, to replace it.But the greatest progress that I have made in trying to take that elusive Quantum Leap is not to try so hard to find the shortcuts or tricks. Years ago I came to the conclusion that I was NOT Michelangelo (well 99% anyway). The images will never magically appear: A completed image will not POP out at me from a blank canvas. Once I relinquished my quest for “immediate masterpieces,” the process became easier. I have begun to see landscapes in fragments and heads as shapes. I guess that my practice is beginning to pay off, hopefully. And the Leap I’ve been searching for most of my life? I think that it was hiding behind the attempt to find the “easy way!”
