Details Are Destroying My Art

Details are so important in art. Without them our art can look flat. Ever since I have picked up a paintbrush it has been a battle between details and myself. At the time of writing this blog post I'm having a bit of a crisis of faith.

For many years I have strived toward more accuracy and detail in my art. Beginning in the early 2010's there was a movement toward hyper realistic art. For many years my Facebook and Instagram feeds have been artists painting a single eyelash on a portrait or even painting individual pores on a subject's face. I was captivated by this and for years did my best to produce art that could be a photo. There's a couple reasons for this: hyperrealism takes a lot of skill, effort, and time. It's also the most recognized by the general public. Aside from unusually wealthy abstract artists the general public seems to easily accept hyper realist artists because of the perceived effort these artists put into their work.

The goal of hyperrealism is to make art that looks real. This doesn't mean fantastical elements can't be present in the art. Jono Dry is a great example of a hyper realistic artist who makes more romantic and fantasy-based compositions. There are typically no visible lines or brush strokes present on the work.

I was first drawn to this kind of art because I felt other art was more 'lazy' and lacked enough details. As I began to pursue this kind of art some things stood out to me. 1. This kind of art takes an extremely long time to produce. 2. Although the medium used to make the art heavily affects how the art is made, you can't tell how the art was made. This is because hyperrealism generally removes all signs of pencil or brush strokes. 3. A camera is sometimes capable of recreating the art. This doesn't go for all hyper realistic art. Some artists paint scenes that are clearly fantastic or have such distinct tastes for composition it's obviously artwork.

For many years it was my goal to make the most realistic art possible. Draw every scale, hair, feather. My artworks would take me months and weeks to complete. As my interest for art increased I began researching other artists I wanted to emulate. One time I walked by an art gallery about five years ago. There were a lot of landscapes on display. Many of the artists used bold strokes of green and blue. One painting stood out above all of them. The painting was amber colored and had a forest and some rocks in it. What made the painting stand out was not only its colors but the composition. It was like the canvas was beckoning you to step inside.

The most incredible part for me though was how detailed it was. Every pebble and ridge of bark seemed accounted for. Even more amazing was on closer inspection it wasn't like a photograph. I could recognize bold paint strokes. Some wet and smoothly applied. Others dry brushed across the canvas surface. At the time I had already been painting for around eleven years. From the size and shape I could tell these brush strokes were quickly and hastily applied. It was so different than the small brushes and infinite details I had been following. There was no need to paint individual chips of bark when in three strokes you could give the impression of tree bark!

It was amazing to take a step back and watch these abstract strokes coalesce into a painting. Take a step forward and you could follow the artist's hand as they made particular strokes. I went home and began rethinking my art style. I loved the idea of art made from as few pencil or brushstrokes as possible. Inviting the viewer's eye to interpret paint strokes as pebbles and trees was genius! And less time consuming than painting molecule by molecule.

Since then I have tried to appropriate this technique into my art. I start by using the largest brushes and working my way down. I try to add selective detail. This means putting more effort on certain parts of the painting I want the viewer to look at. I recently finished a sketchbook entry of a smilodon skull. Smilodon was a genus of large sabertoothed cat that terrorized the Americas around twelve thousand years ago. On this particular painting I struggled a lot with detail. My reference photo had a lot of shallow grooves and pits all over the skull. Looking at the painting right now I do kind of wish I added some of these. There is a fine line between adding too much detail and simplifying the subject for the page. In some areas around the nose bridge I feel the painting is a little flat but this is pretty accurate to the skull itself.

My crisis of faith here is I'm not sure if more or less details would fix this skull. Now that I've had more time to think about it I think I know what I don't like. The areas I've chosen to add more detail to are too small and don't have a big enough affect on the overall painting. Once I'm done posting this article I'm gonna try to alter this painting a little.