fuzzy realism - a new art style

[elenaM]

These days I am in the process of defining a new art style, for the moment using crayons and watercolor pencils. I call this art fuzzy realism as it is a reaction to photo realism and its precision.For the esthetics of this new trend I will direct you to my blog's post fuzzy realism - towards a new esthetics (http://fuzzyrealism.blogspot.com/2009/11/fuzzy-realism-towards-new-esthetics.html)

Here are a few examples of this technique of rendering contours, shapes and volumes in strings of pencil strokes and color rather than unequivocal lines.

The pieces are called: 4 apples both dry and wet versions, bird in hand, still life with teapot, roships and lemons, african violet ( in oil pastels), and ladybug on a leaf.In some of the pieces i kept a realistic element as clue to the painting.
Right now i am in the exploration phase and any changes and additions will be made in early December when my order of watersoluble crayons and oil pastels arrives.

[elenaM]

At this stage I can't decide if I like the dry version or the wet of my watercolor pencils technique.Maybe you can comment on this.Your input will be appreciated.

[The Pariano]

I get the feeling that you are more concerned with having a unique, distinct style to set yourself apart, rather than perhaps creating work in a style you consider less unique that may be better able to convey your message. You're actively " planning" your future with this style, and you seem to be very concerned with making sure that this" fuzzy realism" style have a name.

On a purely technical note, I don't believe your built up application of strokes in the focal point creates the look of a realistic image that is selectively focused and broken down. I believe the ones employing wet media, and ones that attempt to conceal any white spots on the canvas are the most successful.

[elenaM]

I get the feeling that you are more concerned with having a unique, distinct style to set yourself apart, rather than perhaps creating work in a style you consider less unique that may be better able to convey your message. You're actively " planning" your future with this style, and you seem to be very concerned with making sure that this" fuzzy realism" style have a name.



Pariano, there is traditionally a struggle, an aim and a dream for artists to create new forms, whether they are musicians, writers or painters. It is the sense of cultural evolution and progress and if it was different we would still be at the stage of cave murals.Renewal of old forms it's the very spirit of life.Renewal, change of forms, innovation is what keeps us going and staying interested in art. I see no harm in knowing what i am doing, giving it a name , a definition, a concept and knowing WHY I am doing this.
Historically speaking cultures that could not evolve anymore died off, disappeared. The sumerian art for instance copied models along 2000 years, when this models where exausted in its forms the sumerian culture ended. See my essay From the tower of Babel to the Endless Column (http://values-and-societies.blogspot.com/)on this topic of evolution in spiral of human thought and knowledge in its threfold forms, esthetic, ethic and scientific.

Thank you for addressing the tehnical part of my painting and your input on that.


Here is an example of "copying a master", an oil pastel after Picasso's Child with Dove, 1901.


and my fuzzy interpretation in which i left one realist element as clue to the piece.

[Praemium]

You have to understand the rules in order to break them. There are many things I could say about your invention of "fuzzy realism"... but instead I will simply agree with Pariano in saying that you are perhaps becoming too caught up in developing a style that may potentially hinder artistic growth. There is no end to learning, ever.

Also, I understand this concept of "innovation" but there is a point in which I believe contemporary art is beginning to become a bit tasteless and brainless. Nowadays, I'd much rather see a student as talented as Michaelangelo versus another Damien Hirst. Don't limit yourself in stylistic boundaries. Although a bit too harsh in my opinion, this article does bring up quite a few important points:
http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2001/ASOPA/bad_art_good_art1.asp

[elenaM]

Yes, Premium, there is endless learning and that doesn't exclude exploration. Exploring new ways with media cannot but enhance growth and not arrest it. The arrest of evolution comes when you are stuck up with a technique. Probably we all start with realism and schools teach us traditional art of drawing from a realistic perspective. Any deviation from that has been a new stage in the history of art.
Photorealism is just a style in graphite, colored pencils, art and I feel the need to create loose, relaxed, with fuzzy shapes and color.
Only time and my own ability to take this to the next level, that of a structured, viable esthetic form can prove me right.
It's odd that I presented this new concept in forums viewed by people over 50 and 60 and I received a lot of support and enthusiastic feedback and on Concept art where the young generation, and students of art visit the thrill with new is absent.I see that with regret as I turned 55 and have no more than a decade or two to live and create and realism or photorealism bore me to death. So i need quick answers to my anxiety of finding my own style in art.It's a natural need not an ambition. Maybe i am moving too fast, maybe there is no point to stay for 10 years doing true to life portraits of cats and dogs like these ones.

[armando]

You have to understand the rules in order to break them. There are many things I could say about your invention of "fuzzy realism"... but instead I will simply agree with Pariano in saying that you are perhaps becoming too caught up in developing a style that may potentially hinder artistic growth. There is no end to learning, ever.

Also, I understand this concept of "innovation" but there is a point in which I believe contemporary art is beginning to become a bit tasteless and brainless. Nowadays, I'd much rather see a student as talented as Michaelangelo versus another Damien Hirst. Don't limit yourself in stylistic boundaries. Although a bit too harsh in my opinion, this article does bring up quite a few important points:
http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2001/ASOPA/bad_art_good_art1.asp

Fred Ross is a businessman who owns a lot of Bougereou's, so of course he wants to see their value go up.

[bjoern3000]

I would not say that this is "a new technique in art" because the level of creativity is not very high.

The bird picture looks more interesting but the still lifes and portraits don´t fit to what you call a new technique.

Seems that you have found your target group - people over 50. Now you have to make intense marketing and you will have a place in art history.

[cdejong]

I'm confused, I don't think the name fits. It doesn't look fuzzy or realistic. I think you should just make art before building up these walls around yourself, trapping yourself in this one style that doesn't look like it can progress much anywhere. The fact that so many people study realism is because once one can draw and paint realistically, one can then fall back and draw and paint in nearly any style they choose (with a little bit of practice). The reason that people aren't taking to your style on this website may have to do with the fact that they are all pursuing realism and strong draftsmanship to achieve their goals. Your works don't exhibit a particularly strong set of foundational skills. Even though you think you are old, you still have plenty of time to improve yourself as an artist and create art that is truly impressive, inspiring, and fun to see. At the moment, your work doesn't evoke those feelings.

My recommendation, and do with it what you will. Do not shun realism just because you do not like what it represents. Learn better draftsmanship, color theory, values, etc in a more realistic format, and then apply what you have learned to your 'fuzzy realism'. If anything, you will only have the ability to create more precisely what you wish to create. And if what you have posted here is already exactly what you wish to create, then go ahead and knock yourself out making the stuff, just don't expect positive feedback if you have no willingness to improve yourself.

I mean this in the nicest of terms though, I sincerely wish you the best on your artistic path.

[elenaM]

I have a feeling that unanimously you guys say NOT TO as if exploring new ways is a bad thing or something you don't try at home.Where is the freedom of being yourself, the artist interpretation when even naive painting is a form of art.Nobody says that trying new ways stops you from learning old ones. My cat and dog drawings show already mastering of color and form.I don't see how can I draw that cat and dog with more "foundational skill" than already is in there.
I mentioned older people as they happen to be artists, and professional ones with lots of experience and exposure, teachers of art and established artists. They find that breaking from canons in the very spirit of learning and growing. To learn a technique is possible in two ways. To copy it and develop the skills for copying the technique and to enhance it with your creativity, i. e. to add that personal style which you develop by working and exploring in ways to better expresss the technique.
I am afraid that the reaction of young people(artists) to new is due to their insecurity and fear of not conforming with a model.But the model is there to be interpreted and not copied. The most realistic art will have always the imprint style of a particular artist and what I was saying is that for photorealists a chair in colored pencils is the same with the photograph of it. For innovative artists it is the chair of Cezanne, Van Gogh, Picasso.It can also be a fauvist, cubist, impressionist chair. Or why not, a Fuzzy realist chair.
I am loking at the big picture here and I do not bring arguments ad hominem like "stay in your age group" or "learn your basics". And I don't understand why the discussion is not limited to the pros and cons of this particular new concept I present here.I agree that my skills of rendering what I see now as piossibilities with this style might not be best expressed by what I just shared here but we discuss the merits of a new technique and not my drawing skills.

[The Pariano]

My initial concern was not with your experimentation, I fully encourage that. My concern is that you spent more time explaining that what you're doing is fuzzy realism than WHY you are doing it- which is something id like to hear. Also anybody else that may be giving discouraging comments on experimentation might be doing so because if you are going to attempt a fuzzy REALISM then you should have a very firm grasp on realism- something not apparent in your pet portraits. Dorian Iten is a perfect example of someone here who is dedicated to learning the fundamentals before he really puts his soul into his work- some people here may even be a little anxious to see what he does with his skill( as am I ) but im sure he has something to say, and just urges for the skill to say it well. I feel your statement of your pet portraits is verging on ignorant. Perhaps the experimentation should wait if you believe you have really mastered color and form. If you are going to bring up the name of Picasso, I encourage you to learn how to paint as well as he did when he was 16 before you even mention his abstractions and cubism. Before we can really discuss the pros and cons of this fuzzy realism, we must know WHY you are doing this, WHAT you are trying to say, and then connect that to how fuzzy realism accomplishes those goals.

[elenaM]

The answer to why I am doing this is simple. I need a way of expressing myself in an easy, new, unrestricted manner so instead of putting 4 to 6 hours in a colored pencils drawing to do this in a spontaneous manner guided only by my own concept of seeing form.It's too early to even succeed to exemplify this but the definition and conceptualization in esthetic terms help me express my idea probably better than what i am showing now as finished pieces. They are actually just attempts in something i might later change as i am moving along.I am going to explore the posiblilities of watersoluble crayons and oil pastels on canvas as I find it a style for line and wash.

For instance this colored pencils apple took me 4 hours to complete. The fuzzy version in watercolor pencils only 25 minutes.

[*ViRuS*]

time shouldn't matter when creating art. the work takes as long as it takes to get the job done. an artist should be happy to spend however many hours on a piece as they need to, because it's not a pain to us. we create what we want because we want to. i think the longer apple study is much better than the "fuzzy" one, not because of style (although, I'll admit, I don't like this new style at all) but because your seeing more in the apple. there is more information on the page to describe the apple, which is what you seem to be doing. if your goal was to only represent the idea of an apple, and there is a deeper meaning, than the style is ok... but you don't seem to be doing that in any of your works, I don't see any deeper meaning to anything here, just somebody trying to find a style. maybe a change of subject matter and concept/thought will help you solidify your idea of this new style and a direction you would like to go in? I wish you the best. =)

[elenaM]

watercolor pencils on stonehenge pad 5x7in.

[Aberzheim]

I don't think Picasso can be considered a master.

That said, there's no such thing as 'fuzzy realism.' It's commendable that your intentions were honest, to find a personal style, but realistic this ain't. Learn the fundamentals- through constant practice, your 'personal style' will develop.

[LumoGraphite]

First of all, not to be rude but that statement about mastering form was ignorant. There is no mastery there, it is completely stylistic and you will never master color and realism with colored pencils..the value range simply doesn't exist in that medium, this is why people paint with oils. secondly, know your art history and who has done what besides the "big names". Nothing about this new style is fuzzy, and maybe it's just a poor choice of words. scratchy would be better. There are no soft or blurred edges, just lines put hastily on the page. If your looking for "fuzzy realism" the closest your going to get would be pointillism. I know you said your older so I understand your mentality of "reinventing" art that was going on in the 70's but that has been explored quite enough. As Greg Manchess would say it's not rocket science and there's no sub-atomic particles we are working with. Thirdly, you posted here for people's input and you got it, good or bad. That's what critics are, if you don't like it just smile and say thank you. you cant' force people to understand and identify with it if they don't. Your also in a concept art forum, not a contemporary art forum, so your not going to get the reply's your looking for.