Learning to Live With (And Without) The Muse: Julie Gilbert Pollard Keeps Painting
The muse goes by many names. Flow. Momentum. Inspiration. Intuition. You know when she’s there and you feel it even greater when she’s not.
In a career spanning 40 years, watercolorist Julie Gilbert Pollard (Ep. 25) has spent her fair share of time feeling her muse come and go in both big and small ways.
“One day, I might just be really strong with drawing by itself. And then it could even be an hour later, I pick up that pencil and it's like, what is this strange object I'm holding my hand. I don't know what to do with it. It's not cooperating. And the same with paint the same way process, it's sometimes everything clicks. And other times you just sit there and say, I don't know what to do.”
Painting with the muse is easy. It’s when the muse has left the neighborhood completely, that the artist has learned to create systems to keep herself (and her students) painting.
LEFT BRAIN RIGHT BRAIN
Pollard was a professional artist when her mother died. Her death hit her hard. And the muse left.
“And I just didn't have the will to paint.”
Pollard had been taking art seriously for a number of years at this point and knew she didn’t want to abandon it. She also knew she didn’t have the act of painting in her for awhile while she grieved.
“So it just came to me that since I couldn't paint out of joy at that particular time,” she says, “I would just try to delve into the technical aspects and explain how to do this or that or the other thing.”
Pollard wrote an article about acrylic underpinnings. This is a technique for watercolorists to lock in their value pattern by establishing their darkest darks with a very thin wash of fluid acrylics before they begin their watercolor layers. The article was picked up by a major watercolor magazine.
The article put Pollard onto the path of being the published author of two books and countless magazine articles on the subject of painting. It also helped her understand the need for learning how to work when the muse wasn’t around.
INSPIRATION: HELPFUL BUT NOT REQUIRED
When asked about the steps she takes to create a painting, Pollard stresses that she has no set process. She has techniques she loves and calls on but a huge number of her choices for color and approach come in reaction to the painting and subject matter itself.
“Most of it is pretty intuitive at this point,” says Pollard.
Or it is...until it isn’t.
When the intuition goes away, Pollard has to come up with a new plan of attack. Color for example. If the muse is there and excited, Pollard will focus on value and let the color truly play. If she’s working museless, then she looks for the local color and pushes it.
The same with the individual techniques that make up her painting. If she doesn’t have the answer on what to do or where to go next on an intuitive level, she’ll stop and really think through her options before moving ahead.
A ROAD MAP
It’s helpful to give the muse a roadmap, and Pollard does that through what she calls the four step sketch. It’s become her favorite tool and she now shares it with all her classes. It's a small time investment and helps aim her (and her students) in the right direction before they begin contending with inspiration.
Here’s how it works:
She finds her big shapes (traces them with her finger on her photographic reference or out in plein air), she decides what her lightest light will be. Then she paints everything (saving her whites) with a light wash, followed by a midtone wash, and finishes with her darkest dark.
The four step sketch isn’t a place to be super creative with her favorite watercolor techniques. Instead it’s a place to find the bones of the painting. It makes a stronger painting and it also gives her a road map if she gets stuck inspiration wise.
NO WAITING AROUND
Sometimes Pollards will use the sketch as a way to start her paintings. However, if the artist is feeling the muse, she may jump into the painting directly.
“Sometimes everything clicks,” Pollard. “And other times you just sit there and say, I don't know what to do.”
If Pollard is neck deep in the painting and suddenly finds herself stuck, she’ll go back to the four step sketch.
“I could be well into a painting and stop and say, okay, follow your own advice.”
It’s also something Pollard understands about working, successfully, without the muse. It’s not the time to rely on pure creativity.
“I have all the steps written down. So I don't have to be intuitive. I don't have to be creative. I don't have to wait for the Muse or the right brain, I don't have to do any of that stuff. I go to one of the documents that I created that I send via email to my students, and I just do what it says because I've already figured it out. Do this, do this, do this. Do this. Just do it.”
And that’s key. Museless times are not the time and place to get creative. The creativity isn’t there to be had. So it’s tried and true systems that Pollard has learned will help her (and her students) move forward as an artist during those times.
And occasionally, those types of work will invite the muse back.
“And once you start painting, you know, the Muse kind of starts to poke its head around the corner and say, Oh, that looks like that might be fun. And so learning how that works on a simple basic level, I think carries into the larger, more complex work as well.”
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