Speed?

[Tom Edgerton]

Michele, thanks...

Usually when an artist arbitrarily speeds up, it's when panic is setting in, either because the painting isn't coming together, or a deadline is looming, or whatever. The problem is that that's when thinking goes out the window.

Best--TE

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Numerous artists of the past would spend as long as a year on finishing a painting. I think besides the individual own comfort zone or degree of experience, it also depends on the degree of detail in clothing and background setting. The more elaborate a work is, the more attention it needs.

Obviously the approach also determines speed, when layer upon layer is built through glazing, by nature you have to wait until the canvas is ready.

I don't perform well under time pressure either and prefer to take my jolly good time. This can sometimes be a very long time.

[Alexandra Tyng]

This is a very interesting question! As I was reading everyone's responses I was thinking about how I work. People who come into my studio are are usually amazed at how "prolific" I am, but although I get a lot done, I don't actually apply paint quickly.

Recently I set myself a challenge to get more movement and "life" into my portraits by working faster. I discovered that if I was very careful about eyeballing the correct facial proportions and sketching them in with charcoal or even pencil, I could complete a head in an hour and get a good likeness. I have been much happier with the looseness and the descriptiveness of the brushstrokes. I also just came back from Maine where I painted for a week with an artist friend. We set up our easels and st ourselves a goal to capture the scene in one, two or three hours, which is really all you can do before the light changes too much.

What I realized, reading this thread, is that I don't think my speed of execution was any different in either of these situations! The difference lies, I think, in the speed of my decision-making, and the knowledge that I had to complete something in a given amount of time.

Was it Michele who said that if she tried to rush to complete something, she usually ended up doing it over later? Well, this happens to me, too. I think the problem is one of inconsistency. It seems logical that, when we form a concept of a painting in our mind, we include the degree of finish in the concept. And the degree of finish is related to how much total time it will take to execute the work. So if we are working on a large formal portrait that we are planning to spend a while painting, it would be inconsistent to rush certain aspects of it and spend a lot of time on others. But if we are planning to spend a short time on something, the whole plan of attack is different. At least it is with me.

But I still think I don't actually move faster as I am applying paint.

Alex

[Henry Wienhold]

When it comes to painting portraits, painting quickly and pushing up the pace just seems unnatural to me. I like to think of it as being cautious, rather than slow. Whenever I try to paint fast and loose. I'm always dissatisfied with the results and end up doing it over.

[Tricia Migdoll]

This is such an interesting topic.
I am slowing myself down in the beginning, to make sure I have everything right before i go in with too much paint. I am learning to do this more & more & not to forget to check my underpainting out for imperfections first.

However, in a 3 day workshop situation , you cannot do this. You have only three days & then your props are gone. So the opposite applies.
I find myself getting looser & less precious & sometimes the results are interesting, if not marvellous. The workshops help me to loosen up, but my tendency is to be slow & precious. Therefore, they are a good exercise.

I often wonder about the professionals. I notice that it seems to take them months to complete a painting, judging by the paintings they post, even though they work at it steadily each day.

Thanks Michele for bringing this up.

[Michele Rushworth]

I often wonder about the professionals. I notice that it seems to take them months to complete a painting, judging by the paintings they post, even though they work at it steadily each day.

It does take me months, but a lot of that is up front prep: discussions with the client, planning the photo shoot, (location, lighting, clothes, props), choosing the photos, fine tuning the composition, creating color studies, prepping the canvas, etc. In the case of the Governor's portrait, this sort of planning work has been going on, albeit not continuously, over the course of nine months, before the painting of the actual portrait began. That is, of course, an exception.

The actual painting takes me around 100 hours for a one figure portrait, three quarter length, with background, on average. Sometimes I can do a full figure portrait in 80 painting hours, sometimes a more difficult three quarter can take 150 hours. There are also a few days of follow up work involved too. (Delivery, possible tweaks that the client might request, billing, thank you cards, etc.) If there's an unveiling party that can take a lot of time to help plan, too.

In addition to that there's marketing which takes up about 25% of my time. There's admin time (doing quarterly and annual taxes, buying supplies, organizing my studio, etc.) which takes up another 5 to 10% of my time over the course of a year.

All told, then, the amount of work time I spend putting brush to canvas for the actual commissioned portrait is probably no more than half my working hours.

[Carol Norton]

Michelle, your response to this thread was really clarifying to me as a freshman in art as a business Thank you.

Artists frequently are asked the question, "How long did it take to paint that?". One of my teachers said that he responds with "30 years". Answers of 100 hours to a CLIENT necessarily couldn't include all of those components that you listed. They just want to know the time it took from when your brush first touched the canvas until the final stroke. Listing all the necessary planning stages, evaluating compositions, obtaining resource photos, business, marketing, etc. are the tip of the iceberg. Added to that are the untold, ongoing hours spent learning and absorbing information gathered from multiple sources such as workshops, books, videos and, of course, The Forum. How about just painting paintings that either work or don't work - "The burn pile" paintings, Bill Whitaker called them in his workshop. A $4500 portrait that took 100 hours of painting time, adding in all the necessary steps that go into the final project could be....just a minute...let me get out the caluculator, ...below minimum wage? It must be LOVE.