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Di Fronzo painted the grassy fields in his landscape paintings with a
nontraditional "comb" made with sixty or so individual hairs.
All works by Francis Di Fronzo. |
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Breaking out of a painting rut sometimes requires a little
more oomph than just adding another color to your palette or going from a still
life to a figure painting. Sometimes your whole process needs an overhaul. A
few years ago, artist Francis Di Fronzo took a fairly drastic measure to take
his work to a new level. He set aside the traditional painting brush for a tool
of his own invention--a "comb" with individual hairs seated along a length of
wood.
In 1998, Di Fronzo was facing what he describes as an
artistic dead end. He'd been working on non-traditional trompe l'oeil paintings
of unusual objects like mechanical tools that were no longer satisfying to him.
He wanted to create large scale landscape paintings with the same attention to
detail as his earlier trompe l'oeil paintings.
"I figured the only way to do
that was to paint every single blade of grass," he says. He started by using a brush with only one
bristle, but found that this process was too time consuming, so he created a
brush with fifty or sixty individual hairs on it, lined up in a row. This
"comb" allowed Di Fronzo to paint texture convincingly and capture the illusion
of fields of grass as he built up the surface.
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Di Fronzo's "comb." |
The invention and learning how to paint with it gave Di Fronzo
a major boost of confidence. "I've always felt a need to do things differently,
and I've never really felt comfortable using the tools that exist and simply
accepting that traditional brushes are the best tools for the job," he says.
"So when I came up with the idea for the comb and it worked, I felt much more
confident in approaching art with an open mind-both in subject and technique."
The comb allowed Di Fronzo to paint individual blades of grass
precisely and quickly. The comb was only used for the grassy expanses in his
work; all the other parts of the paintings were made with traditional brushes.
And although Di Fronzo has transitioned out of landscape painting to other
subject matters, leaving the comb behind, he marks it as a creative peak for
him, mostly because of the high value he puts on process. "Making any artwork
is not just a matter of creating an interesting and powerful image.
There's always the question of how the painting
will be made," he says.
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The comb Di Fronzo create, top, allowed him to create the illusion
of individual blades of grass without having to paint individual blades. |
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I couldn't agree more. Art can and should stand on its own,
but that doesn't disvalue the importance and interest we have in the details of
the creative process. Di Fronzo created a new technique for himself that opened
doors for him at a time when his creative sensibility needed a boost. My
digital copies of Highlights
magazine, particularly the Fall and Spring 2009 issues, have given me a lot of
food for thought about painting techniques and methods.
From grisaille and
tonal painting art processes to prismatic palettes and palette knife painting,
these contain a career's worth of artistic information that will keep you
inspired and the creative juices flowing. And the Artist Daily Store Sale ends to day, so it is the perfect time to get all the resources you've been waiting for. Enjoy!
