Flashback Friday #2 - Search for Simplicity

I remember a time when the most intimidating thing about painting was simplicity. How to render a form or an idea with as few colors and brushstrokes as possible. It's still something I have to watch out for, and that I consciously apply in my current work:

More detail does not make the image better.

And yet even while knowing this, I'd still produce images like this one, full of photo-texture and background detail. Exhausting to work on, and with an end result that was, well... muddy. I'd be left vaguely uncertain as to whether I'd succeeded.

Almost simultaneously, I would be exploring exercises like those below, trying to force myself to do more with less. At the time, I felt them to be abysmal failures. Hardly worth a second glance. If you ask me which I prefer now... well. 

What makes these work is their readability and clear intent. It's something I've been missing the mark on during the broad explorations of style that have marked most of my work.

Perhaps only a handful of images I've created over the years (a small handful--like a two-year-old's hand) give me a level of satisfaction where I feel they really work. Or perhaps it's more fair to say: they feel like what I want to be making. None of this wishy-washy faded color high-texture stuff.

Simple, bold and legible. Images that have the guts to just be. Everything in its place because it belongs there, and nothing more.

Looking back on these old exercises, I know it's a realization I could have come to long ago, but that doesn't cause me any fuss. Every mishap and meander takes you to interesting places, and as long as you're moving ahead, it's all worth it.

Just take some time to look behind and remember where you've been :)