Creative process

It seems to me that the creative process - how it happens that one painting is painted - evolves through years. Or I am just becoming more conscious about how it works. Or... I understand less with time and just see the need of giving up myself even more?

What do I mean with this giving up? I mean for the creation to happen it is necessary to forget about yourself. About your ambitions, plans, preferences. Ah, and of course you need to forget about other people and their expectations, but this is quite easy. Bigger challenge for one artist is getting out of his own world.

I could say that important part of my creative process is not getting used to. I have never planned this - 'every week I will do something different'. The fact is I generally haven't planned much according to painting. It all kind of happens day by day. There are just things that I see more clearly with time, looking back.

In other words, the base of my creative process is being open for what comes. And being opened for what happens after you pick the brush. After there is something, some shade of something in your head that is supposed to be painted. Because what comes is quite undefined. It would be a mistake to stay just with this, you need to stay opened during the painting as well. Often it happens that the final result is so very different than you could ever imagine basing in that first sparkle!

And now I understood how I made progress as a painter during last years. I was planning to describe here the difference in my creative process between the first years and now. I was considering it as just different approaches that changed with time, but now I can see that now it is in a way more creative.

On the beggining of my painting adventures there used to appear things to me and I was painting them.

It was often some kind of shot - appeared 'A' and you need to put A on canvas. And it worked. I was happy that I was able of transforming that 'something' from my head (no idea where it came from and why) into

a physical object. And this paintings were quite simple. No surprise - they were based on that initial shade of idea. I am not saying it was wrong way of work. It was what was happening that time. And it is often that

I consider my first paintings the best. First times picking a brush and incredible things happening. Something comes to you to be painted and you are doing it - that is strange enough! You wouldn't expect that anything more is possible. But art is the most unpredictable thing I know. And more is possible.

How it is today? Why could I consider myself more creative? To make the long story short I would just say that I gave up more (forgot myself and many other things) and opened more. But how does it look in practice?

Beginning of a painting is similar - there comes feeling of something, more or less visual. But that 'something' transformed from being treated as a whole work (kind of aim to achieve) into (just?) a BEGINNING. Starting point. And after many things still happen, appear. During painting. I would say that I stay opened, not focused just on that initial 'something'.

As you can see my last works are quite more complex compared to the older ones. I work much more with colour. After making some kind of sketch, colours start to appear, one after another. Now I realized that before painting I don't have ANY colour in my head. Sometimes I started a work thinking that it is going to be black and white. Sometimes even because I miss black and white, it would be nice to make something with less colour... And they end up being rainbows. Because it doesn't matter what I miss, and what I would like, what would be nice! Blue picks a place and I just need to make it visible. There is not much discussion with red. Pink and yellow still surprise me but in the end I stay indifferent. Observing and learning. Not thinking much.

This kind of 'progress' doesn't also mean that my paintings will become more and more complex, with more and more colours. I do make many black and white sketches and so on. That is why it's hard to talk about the linear idea of progress in art as we know from the other disciplines. Maybe tomorrow I paint a black and red painting? What changed is probably the possibility of the MORE. That it's not just about that first thing that appears. Sometimes you make 2 simple lines and the work is complete! But sometimes it needs 10 colours. You never really know when it's finished. But when you watch carefully enough there just comes a moment to wash the brushes.