[Art inspiration #6] War-torn mango
To mimic reality or not to
Here is an perfectly realistic painting of a perfectly ripe Mango, meticulously drawn using oil colours:
Here is my 15-min rendition of a mango fighting through his challenges:
Which artwork do you like more?
Which of these images do you think you will remember for longer?
Does the first artwork makes you want to pick up some colored pencils and sketch or does this happen with the second artwork?
In creating paintings that look like photographs, I feel that there is one big shortcoming. The worth of such artworks is usually evaluated based on how closely they mimic reality (and ofcourse how compelling is the subject they chose to mimic).
But given our super-occupied lives, how many hyper-real mango paintings do you think you would ever be able to finish? I believe that the desire to only create realistic paintings handicaps you into starting far less new paintings than you would have otherwise started.
If you break away from sketching / painting realistically, then your artworks get a whole new set of parameters to get evaluated upon - parameters like how visually harmonious or striking your forms and colors are, how unique your drawing style is, how did you utilize the canvas space etc.
My favorite parameter to judge / appreciate an artwork that does not aim to mimic reality is how much joy and satisfaction did the artist get while creating the artwork.
I did enjoy creating this mango. It helped me feel more relaxed and gave me a sense of satisfaction which only creating something genuinely from the heart brings - the satisfaction which I believe we all are very familiar with. So, irrespective of how appealing or unappealing my mango looks, I like it.
I hope this post makes you want to do a quick sketch or two.
Thank you for reading!