Rick's Rules #1 - Motive

Motive – You can’t start without a motive

Quiet Expectation, Study 1

You have a clean sheet of paper, a blank canvas, a fresh start, and you need to paint something.  You are looking at a scene or photo that could anything such as a broad vista or a cityscape, or a bowl of fruit, or a pot of flowers. It doesn’t matter; you are looking at something – looking for something to paint.  The problem is you don’t know where to start.  Your first reaction is to paint it all, but you know that’s not going to work.  Answer this question, “what one thing before me will make the best painting?”  What of all you see inspires you the most?

Here is my advice to myself - before you do anything else, you must reduce your project to one main idea and one clear emotion that the main idea can inspire.  Edgar Payne calls this your “motive.”  Too many of your paintings fail because you started without a specific vision of what you wanted to say.

When you decide on a main idea and emotion, your motive, write them on your sketch to remind yourself of your motive while you work on the painting.  At some point this may become unnecessary, but until having a clear motive becomes second nature, write down your description of the main idea and emotion.

Once your motive is established, remember your goal is to make a painting that you will enjoy and want to see again often.  If you don’t like the painting, don’t expect anyone else to want it.

Examples

Below my Motive/Idea for "Quiet Expectation, Study 1."  My initial idea was to place a focal vertical in a strictly horizontal marsh scene by using clouds and reflections as design components. I wrote this on the drawing before a chose my palette or put a single mark on the paper.

Motive / Idea on drawing

Below is my emotion for "Quiet Expectation, Study 1".  Knowing the flatness of the scene would be essentially quiet, I wanted to add an emotion that would build on that feeling.  The logical emotion for an early morning with sunlight breaking through the clouds is "expectation" which builds on the confidence of the vista.

Emotion on drawing

 
Rick’s Rules for Painting

These "rules" are my own principles of painting developed over time for my personal use.  They are to be used and applied in all my painting efforts.