My Pinterest account has about 200 boards and each of them has a healthy quantity of pins. One of these boards is “word of the day” with its 507 pins. I pin words I find intriguing or interesting in whatever language. The watercolor above is about the word palinoia. Palinoia is “the compulsive repetition of an act, over and over, until the act is performed perfectly.” It comes from the Latin word palinodia which means singing over and over again.
When I saw the word it felt like it described me to ahem, perfection. I can spend hours doing something repeatedly until I feel either tired or I am reminded to eat; usually by my husband. In previous posts I shared how obsessed I have been with a particular technique in watercolor painting. Recently in a conversation with Ben Shamback, we discussed the illusion of perfection.
I take drawing tutorials from Ben because he is truly a master at it and I, to put it simply, am not. I want to learn and develop a better understanding of drawing because it improves my observational skills as well as my lettering practice. In the tutorial sessions, it is common for us to engage in long conversations about tv shows we are currently watching, books we are reading, and the things to improve on in my drawings. He is a very kind and patient instructor and I am very lucky to be able to study under his tutelage.
This last week, I shared how obsessed I had become with watercolors during the summer. There is something about watercolors that holds my attention in a way that other paint mediums do not. Their transparency, lightness, and glow leaves me mesmerized. Ink does the same thing for me. I see works in ink in the manner of De Kooning and it speaks to me. By the way, did you know that De Kooning came to this country hidden in a ship in route to Argentina? The shipped docked in Virginia, De Kooning got out, and avoided immigration making his way to New Jersey? I digress…
Watercolors hold power over me and I find myself searching for mastery and perfection. When I shared this fascination with Ben, I cited the work of a watercolor artist I have been admiring all this time. I mentioned how I wanted to attain such mastery that when I take the brush I am able to draw the shapes without pencil guides like the artist was doing with a particular flower.
In response to my comment Ben shared his wisdom. I confess I felt I was being corrected from a big error. He said, that what I was seeing was someone who had painted that flower over a thousand times and of course her flower was going to look much more sophisticated than mine. Then he added, “it is for example, my G’s compared to your G’s. Yours will be much better G’s than mine will be because you have done that G so many times.”
I have said the same thing to my students on many occasions. But I forgot that it applies to me as well in whatever area I am pursuing. Later on, a student commented how good my letters looked on his practice sheet when I was lettering some words for him to practice. I looked at him feeling his comment, smiled, and said, “you just need to practice patiently to attain a certain level of mastery.”
It is good for us to aspire to be like those we admire and have achieved a certain level of mastery on a craft or skill. We all need a mark. But, the truth is that these masters also have their masters they aspire to be like. The road to mastery is palinoia. A relentless pursuit of mastery day in and day out with proper breaks and times to recover of course.
The road to mastery is palinoia.
After sharing with Ben my obsession with the watercolor artist, I realized that I had fallen prey to a common and familiar trap. I had suspended disbelief and in my mesmerized state over her skills, I ignored how much time it must have taken her to do the flower in the way I wanted to. Online videos flatten the process in such a way that it does not allow you to see the bumps, the problem solving, and the mistakes.
In my sophomore classes I often do a live vectorization of a sketch demo. There is no preparation before hand. No prepped files to go from or anything. I do not even use my own sketches. I ask them to give me a sketch they will not use and I go through my process of vectorizing it live. Which means I have to look at their sketch and analyze it. The analysis is usually an assessment of the geometric shapes that are the foundation of said sketch. Their sketches are not done with geometry though. The sketches could be a bat, a bird, a pot, an activity or something else. The point is that these sketches are not my visual understanding of a subject. I take out my tracing paper, I do a simple geometric analysis, photograph the sketch, clean it up in the computer, place it in Illustrator, and start creating the symbol in front of them live as I talk to them.
The students asked me why don’t I record these and post them as videos in the online classroom. My answer was simple: it will be cleaned up because otherwise it would be too long for them to watch and then they won’t see me making mistakes to get to a version I am satisfied with. I want them to see me make the mistakes, get a little frustrated, stumble on the tools to use, get lost on the interface, have my mouse not work, and so on.
The tutorials online have to balance time and length because it is different than to watch someone live doing it. It is easy to look the other way when a video like this takes too long. But not that easy to look away when it is done live.
Had the watercolor artist I am obsessed with not edited her videos, I would get tired of it because of it may be too long. Thus, it is understandable that I am seeing a pristine recording of her watercolor flower. But, I need to remember then that it does take a long time to do something with mastery and perfection. I need to be patient when engaging in palinoia. But, don’t we all?
Love,
Alma