Painting Your Way Out of a Corner by Barbara Diane Barry

Author:Barbara Diane Barry [Barry, Barbara Diane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-01-16T05:00:00+00:00

Exercise Introduction: I Can’t Do People

In the beginning, most participants in this imaginative work are very reluctant to paint a person. This is understandable, since it seems to test a basic ability to draw with anatomical accuracy, and no one wants to fail. Of course, we all know we possess a pair of eyes, a nose, and a mouth, but putting them together so they are recognizable? Ah, there’s the trick!

My student Diana is often troubled by her own painted figures, because she thinks they always look “cartoony.” In my mind that’s a plus, although she doesn’t yet see it that way. She’s an artist and interior designer, so she gets held up by her inner art critic. But it raises a valuable question. Why can’t our figures be like those in a comic strip? We are making up stories, and I’ve seen just how often the humor in an image will come to our rescue, making us laugh at ourselves when we need it most. That was the situation during one of my Saturday workshops as we began with the “Sticks and Stones” exercise that follows next.

One of the students, Mariel, showed up late, the steam of frustration almost visible due to an abundance of travel woes, all of her own making, she said. Mariel is twenty-eight, just starting a master’s in art therapy, and makes a long train trip to Manhattan to attend class. She has determination, but is the first to admit that she’s hard on herself.

After filling a page with small pipe cleaner–type figures, I asked her to pick one and add details—features, clothing, accessories. Where is the figure and what is it doing? Could we see something of the place? Does the figure need props for the activity? Are the other figures on the page doing the same thing or something different?

Even though I carefully set this exercise up as a fault-free experience, frustrations can rise quickly over first attempts, especially when it comes to depicting anything human. However, today Mariel’s brush was moving nonstop and unhesitatingly. She said later she knew instantly who the figure was and where—Mariel herself at the train station! After putting in black clouds over her head, she began playing with the other “people” at the station—a lady with a crying child, a Rastafarian resplendent with braids, a man with a dog on a leash, a cop flashing his badge, and lots more. By the time she had finished, she was laughing—at herself, at her story, at the little cast of people she’d created. What a perfect antidote to her earlier misery!

Like everything else in this experimental process, the ease of doing depends on your expectations and your ability to not take yourself too seriously. Are you working to make a lifelike portrait? Not even close. That’s why we have cameras. Let’s look instead to stick figures and smiley faces for permission to make it simple. If the great critic inside you raises its head over these first efforts, bring

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