#30×30 2026 : Simplification from Reference

Here’s another practice piece in HEAVYPAINT.

I didn’t check myself, but I’m going to say it was a couple hours work after dinner. Again, iPad Pro and Apple Pencil 2.

My goal tonight was to focus on simplified brushwork, working with the biggest possible brush for the shape at hand, and picking color by eye from the color sliders.

The idea is, every single stroke does it’s work describing the form, with no glazing or smudging or modification after the fact.

It’s a very efficient way of painting, which I find to be a kind of meditative puzzle. Just pick color, and place it on the picture. I can sink into flow-state and just enjoy painting.

So; I am of course ‘simply copying’ the reference here. Which is why I like to give credit to the photographer @victoria__veil.

Artistically, ‘simply copying’ is of course what we’re doing with any still life, or a plien-air painting, (or all the life drawing which I’ve been binging-on recently).

If I can ramble for a second; I do feel representational paintings (still life, portrait, plein air, and master-copy-work) have lost some respect in the contemporary art world.

Though they remain the passion of hobbyists who enjoy the process – and atelier-artists who are selling skill-development. They do rely on laying your eyes on an external image – and then *reacting* to it – – rather than creating the image out of whole cloth.

So one becomes open to criticism that you’re not creating – you’re only copying. No matter how much personal touch you put into it.

It seems that during the build up from Van Gogh to Picasso and maybe culminating with Jackson Pollock, it was decided that ‘a true artist’ creates entirely in their own mind, with no outside assistance.

I feel this is tied up in the Myth of the Genius, and underlying desire for collectability and monetary value in art.

If you don’t have a mad genius who creates impossible-to-compare works, springing from his forehead like Athena from Zeus – – then you don’t have masterworks that skyrocket in value.

I mean – outside of irreplaceable historical paintings, which have value for different reasons, but of course are limited in number, (besides by forgery – so that’s no help to an ambitious art dealer!)

I feel this is why artists are often tied into knots about ‘originality’. This art-world concept of originality being the source of value. Which puts undue stress on artists to invent strange working methods or niche obsessions.

You might as well ask a musician why they play. It isn’t about making new music every time, right? We have classics for a reason. We can play them over and over, and it’s the *performance* that is the end product.

But yes – I digress.

I will say, this sketch did help me understand what I like about this app.

The way it handles ‘paint simulation’, every brushstroke has character – unlike say – the Procreate app, or even Photoshop, where the default mode is putting down uniform color in a ‘stamp’. As if the brush-shape of the mark is the only thing that matters.

HEAVYPAINT, by contrast, is designed to modify every stroke depending on the color below or beside it, and – even if there is no layering – to add color distortion *inside* each stroke. So the focus is the texture of every stroke, not the just brush-shape.

Thus – even when you don’t change hue or value stroke-to-stroke; the ‘gesture’ (the speed and direction of a mark) is always visible. The handwriting of the artist remains on display at all times.

Interesting hey?

So I suppose the answer to my musing about originality and copy-work is – ultimately it’s more important what you *do* with this skill once you develop it.

Rather than just doing it as an end goal in itself.

That does seem to be a reality.

I do have some ideas, and maybe you can guess :) I really want to produce a graphic novel before I die :) But let’s just leave that for now as I don’t really have anything to show yet :)

Meanwhile – that was my #30×30 for today!

So thanks, and take care, and send me what *you* are working on!

We are coming to the final stretch of this year’s marathon. – Ten days left!

We just had a VIVIFY call this morning, with a dozen or so participants, to do a kind of mid-marathon review. If you are signed up there you can see it in the ‘Meetings and Recordings’ tab of our pod.

And we’ll be doing this twice more next Sunday the 28th – one early, one late to accommodate time zones. Just check the POD Description tab for updates.

If you’ve been participating over there in the sharing space, please do come out and show your favorites from #30×30!

~m