Landscape into Art
Daily paintings by Suzanne McDermott
2006-2011
"There is something profoundly religious in landscape painting inasmuch as it seems to explore and to express that layer of the unconscious which is beyond the personal unconscious and which, it seems to me, is just as much given, impersonal, and not immediately connected with me as the external world. So the value of landscape paintings is not merely that they present us with images of the external world, but that they present us in the most powerful way with images of this deep, fundamental essence of Mind at large, from which the individual mind takes its source."
--Aldous Huxley
Upon moving into my newly built studio in August of 2006, I planned to start a daily painting blog right away. Fortunately, I dragged my heels, giving myself a year to recover from building the studio and time to let my painting develop unselfconsciously, without (too much) pressure.
When I did start up with my Landscape into Art watercolor blog in 2007, I used the format and blogging discipline to explore the ideas of landscape painting with different combinations of paper, palette, source and approach. The results were mini-series of variations on particular themes.
Why landscape? I discovered that when I put brush to paper without a lot of deliberation, my subconscious immediately looks to the horizon; to the sky and sea or land. It's my spiritual subject.
As a result, I thought and read a lot about landscape painting. In homage to the brilliant Kenneth Clark, I titled my watercolor blog after his early collection of essays, Landscape into Art. Based on a series of lectures he delivered during his first year (1946-47) as Slade Professor to the University of Oxford, this perfect little book examines with profound understanding and compassion the artistic process, human nature, western civilization, and the history of landscape painting.
"Facts become art through love, which unifies them and lifts them to a higher plane of reality; and, in landscape, this all embracing love is expressed by light."
— Kenneth Clark
As this phase of my painting unfolded, my intention became to move towards direct experience in painting, to free myself of reliance upon draftsmanship. Rather than trying to control the outcome, I learned to let the painting lead me, to give the medium as much voice as possible. What watercolor pigment, water and paper create among themselves is what keeps me most enthused about the medium.
"A really good picture looks as if it's happened at once. It's an immediate image. For my own work, when a picture looks labored and overworked, and you can read in it—well, she did this and then she did that, and then she did that—there is something in it that has not got to do with beautiful art to me. And I usually throw these out, though I think very often it takes ten of those over-labored efforts to produce one really beautiful wrist motion that is synchronized with your head and heart, and you have it, and therefore it looks as if it were born in a minute." --Helen Frankenthaler
This early series of landscapes is no longer available for viewing publicly online.
2011 and beyond, my journey with landscape painting continues...
Daily paintings by Suzanne McDermott
2006-2011
"There is something profoundly religious in landscape painting inasmuch as it seems to explore and to express that layer of the unconscious which is beyond the personal unconscious and which, it seems to me, is just as much given, impersonal, and not immediately connected with me as the external world. So the value of landscape paintings is not merely that they present us with images of the external world, but that they present us in the most powerful way with images of this deep, fundamental essence of Mind at large, from which the individual mind takes its source."
--Aldous Huxley
Upon moving into my newly built studio in August of 2006, I planned to start a daily painting blog right away. Fortunately, I dragged my heels, giving myself a year to recover from building the studio and time to let my painting develop unselfconsciously, without (too much) pressure.
When I did start up with my Landscape into Art watercolor blog in 2007, I used the format and blogging discipline to explore the ideas of landscape painting with different combinations of paper, palette, source and approach. The results were mini-series of variations on particular themes.
Why landscape? I discovered that when I put brush to paper without a lot of deliberation, my subconscious immediately looks to the horizon; to the sky and sea or land. It's my spiritual subject.
As a result, I thought and read a lot about landscape painting. In homage to the brilliant Kenneth Clark, I titled my watercolor blog after his early collection of essays, Landscape into Art. Based on a series of lectures he delivered during his first year (1946-47) as Slade Professor to the University of Oxford, this perfect little book examines with profound understanding and compassion the artistic process, human nature, western civilization, and the history of landscape painting.
"Facts become art through love, which unifies them and lifts them to a higher plane of reality; and, in landscape, this all embracing love is expressed by light."
— Kenneth Clark
As this phase of my painting unfolded, my intention became to move towards direct experience in painting, to free myself of reliance upon draftsmanship. Rather than trying to control the outcome, I learned to let the painting lead me, to give the medium as much voice as possible. What watercolor pigment, water and paper create among themselves is what keeps me most enthused about the medium.
"A really good picture looks as if it's happened at once. It's an immediate image. For my own work, when a picture looks labored and overworked, and you can read in it—well, she did this and then she did that, and then she did that—there is something in it that has not got to do with beautiful art to me. And I usually throw these out, though I think very often it takes ten of those over-labored efforts to produce one really beautiful wrist motion that is synchronized with your head and heart, and you have it, and therefore it looks as if it were born in a minute." --Helen Frankenthaler
This early series of landscapes is no longer available for viewing publicly online.
2011 and beyond, my journey with landscape painting continues...