Keith Haller Studio -- Painting Journal

View current painting journal 2007

PURPOSE OF JOURNAL

“Everything can be forgiven in art but boring art.” —Sergei Bongart

Herein lies the challenge. Art is communication, and to hold your gaze a painting must scream for attention. More precisely, we are compelled to view paintings that stir emotion. To this end, I place utmost importance on capturing mood or feeling on the canvas.

Capturing feeling requires personal involvement. As in a book, penned emotion is most genuine and believable if the author lived it. Therefore, a painting must start with placing myself immediately before the subject. Photographs will not do. With the subject before me, I then examine and explore my feelings. The emotion found then becomes my target. Lastly, the process culminates with transfering that emotional response to the canvas.

The need for a clear target is why I script a painting journal entry before each painting. It encourages me to comtemplate and clarify my human response to the subject.

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” —Aristotle

View current painting journal 2007