I start painting uneasily. How do I start? Boldly drawing some peripheral lines with the pencil or the charcoal. Or laying out some basic axes that will be needed in a while. Uneasiness with a sense of my mediocrity. But also, of my clumsiness. With the fear of God, faith and love.
But since I entered the culture of free painting, this fear has left me.
Clumsy lines give you a strong difference from all other painters and is based on the free and clumsy line. Clumsy line means that you became a child again. You love weaknesses and acknowledgments that your clumsy strokes claim equal treatment with the so-called “straight lines.”
These will give you more authenticity, a stronger artistic identity.
Picasso says: “If you start something and it goes well, spoil it a little. This will be more authentic. And do not be afraid. In the end, the first beauty will remain on the canvas and shared, but it will be more tortuous.” You should brag more about your clumsiness and mistakes than your supposed perfections. After all, a perfect circle is made by the impersonal computer corrector, while the crooked circle is purely yours as your inalienable right and pride!
As the Apostle Paul says, “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses,” so you too should boast about your… crookedness. You cannot imagine how much freedom such a philosophy will give you.
Father Stamatis Skliris
Painting Diary, October 2020
