06/05/2007: "The Quantum Leap"

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!”

Replies: 14 Comments

on Monday, July 2nd, A. Decker said

"If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem wonderful at all."--Michelangelo

on Monday, June 25th, Ellen said

Shlomo-
I was just taking poetic license with the term "quantum." I see that you use a very interesting mix of your own brand of physics in your art. It's fascinating! I love the intergration of the varied elements! Obviously, you subscribe to the "hard work" theory of creating art. Thanks for writing in!

on Monday, June 18th, shlomo said

In every day life "Quantum Leap" has only a metaphorical meaning and nothing more.Physicists
themselves have no clear cut argumentation how
to interpret a quantum leap.Myself a visual artist
know that to make some effective art is hard work.

on Thursday, June 14th, Ellen said

Ron-
Got back to your sites and have found a wealth of inspiration there. Your paintings are really beautiful, too. Sent you an email through your site re linking. Good luck in spreading the word on the value art plays in the lives of everyone!

on Monday, June 11th, ron fritts said

Thanks for the compliment..first time commnetator on an Art blog...glad you took time...let me know more as you read on. No I left NY where I had The Fritts Collection (7 years)in Soho on Spring St and then on W.Braodway. I am now in AZ in the desert. Please share my sites with others. I see you link on your site...??Most important I want to share the info on The Origianl Window..We are what we see....read on and thanks again.......I will continue to follow your blog...

on Sunday, June 10th, Ellen said

Ron_
All for art and Art for all! I LOVED your site and will have to return to it. I also really loved your paintings! Thanks so much for writing in..... I will return to your site and spend a while there to truly appreciate the wealth of information on it (only had a chance to spend 1/2 hour on it!) Are you still in NYC? Thanks again!

on Sunday, June 10th, ron fritts said

Your searh for the "leap" comes from that extrordinary instinct called "the creativeimpulse". I don'T know that it is ever really attainable. But that its not the point.I have entered a new web site on the subject of The Creative Process which I have been teachin for over Thirty years. You might want to log in www.theoriginalwindow.com. It is all about the enigma of The Window computer or otherwise. Take a look, you might enjoy.

on Sunday, June 10th, ron fritts said

on Thursday, June 7th, Ellen said

I think that we all agree, Andrew, that it's an endless struggle. But, regardless of the frustrations and defeats, how could we exist any other way than to do art? The tricks do help, but as you noted, can take away some of the freshness and sparkle of discovery. Cathch 22. Thanks for writing, Andrew!

on Wednesday, June 6th, Andrew said

Like any trade, it takes a while to become familiar with the little tricks that help you do more things quickly and efficiently. Those are the items that make it appear that you've taken a leap, even if it took you a very long time.
Recently, like now, I completed a sculpture that had to weigh in at less than two tons, yet cover an area the size of a big car. I started with a fourteen ton block. Three weeks later, the sculpture was done, and weighed in at 1 4/5 tons. A few tricks that I would never have thought of at my beginings...drill a row of holes, and drive wedges in until the pieces break off precisely. Day one I took the four corners off, and dropped the weight two and a half tons. That alone would have taken me months back before I learned how to do it. And...fear, the fear of cutting off too much, or of cracking the block. I didn't know how to calculate weight by measuring average dimensions of irregular forms. All that stuff came slowly, and only when I was ready for it. But knowing how is a trap in itself. The risk of failure, is something that gives work done by beginers spirit, and a freshness, which can be lost when you know too much, and take no risks getting to your result.

on Wednesday, June 6th, Ellen Fisch said

Thanks, Jose. But how come it looks so easy for Valesquez, et al! I'm sure that they did spend hundreds of hours learning and doing.
I also like the computer for graphics, but nothing can take the place of a brush in my hand and turpentine on the brain!

on Wednesday, June 6th, jose said

I like to use the computer to stir things up a bit, try out permutations, merge images, blur them up, rearrange colour schemes. But the images I come up with are very seldom ideas for a painting, they're more like a stimulus or a direction I feel I may one day like to follow. The paintings may start out in my mind as result of some permutation I liked but they have their own life and always become something else. The real fun is reworking those ideas as sketches in my little black book and then the process of working and 'talking' with the actual painting. It may not be the quantum leap but it is a great tool. Besides, Ellen, I don't think the masterpieces popped out of the canvases to the great masters either, more likely they popped up in their minds eye as a result of years and years of dedicated studies and sketches using whatever tools they mastered at the time.

on Tuesday, June 5th, Ellen said

Right, Mark! The computer is merely a tool. I employ it to help me with my digital photography. But, I also can sometimes visualize projects better when I look at reference photographs (my own) on the computer screen. The above painting was done in oils on canvas. However, digital photography gave me ideas for composition and subject. I think that there is no "Quantum Leap"....only hard work....for me anyway.

on Tuesday, June 5th, Mark said

Quantum Leap? I am not knocking the computer but other then using it for sites like this and recording my paintings, making brochuers and card, and emails, I have not realy used it much. I actualy like the struggle of painting, the putting in and taking out or covering to reach as finisshed an idea as I can. I find the textures and the in-and-out quality the struggle creates only adds to the work. Sure I might avoid some bumps with the computer, but then I like the bumps. Yet I also feel any tool one can use to make a better work of art and reach the goal one sets out to reach is good. Still all in all I for one do not want it to come easy.

Art Blogs - Artblogs - Art Weblogs - absolutearts.com - wwar.com

06/05/2007: "The Quantum Leap"