Debra Keirce

We all know it was a seemingly unimportant o-ring that failed and took down the Challenger space shuttle, in one of the worst and most preventable tragedies of our lifetime.

 

The devil is in the details. This is absolutely true in design engineering. When I was designing manufacturing facilities with dryers and crystalizers and filtration systems that processed dangerous gases and chemicals and pressurized liquids, there were lives at stake if anything went wrong. We had to keep the product sterile and the workplace safe. I took that very seriously, so it is no surprise that I brought much of it with me to my art career. Lives are not at stake, but my strong personal code to create the best realism I can is often flirting with disaster. 

 

In engineering, we always designed with at least 3 levels of safety, for any catastrophe. If a seal failed, there was a valve on either side of it to seal off the equipment until it could be repaired. If either of those valves failed, there were vessels or other means of containment further up the line. In art, I create similar safety nets. I have a back up plan in all of my artworks.

 

Whatever my focal point is, I am painting or drawing it with the most detail. I am sure that the movement and lines in the composition are all drawing the eye toward it. I use the most contrast around the focus. The edges of the focus are sharper than the other edges in the piece. The focus is typically most chromatic. In all these ways, I am creating back up plans. If your eye doesn't go where I want it to initially, the hope is that one of the back ups will redirect you.

 

Sometimes, the trick is to know when to remove details. Just like in engineering, where you try to simplify a design as much as possible, I often end up removing elements from my compositions at the last minute. If something is not contributing, in support of the star and co-star of my art, I may love having it there, but in the end I face the music and take it out.

 

Details are fun for me, and I have to be careful to blur  or desaturate or uncomplicate as appropriate. Too many times, I get attached to what a section of my work looks like, and I don't want to change it. It takes discipline and a blind faith that I sort of know what I am doing, to remove or lessen the importance of a detail I have come to love, but I do it. 100% of the time, this strengthens the work.

 

Like every other human, I have to remind myself constantly that too much detail is distracting. I tell my students all the time that the only place you need fully realized textures and color transitions is in the local color area of a turning form. The dark side has little detail. The shadow has none. The lit side has little detail. The highlights have none. So it's really only 1/3 of your lighting scheme that details even become prominent players in. 

 

One of the biggest challenges, I think, is artists do not want to correct details. We all know what an egg shape looks like. We all know what the ellipse on a teacup or wine glass looks like. How many times have you finished a painting, only to turn it upside down and see that one of your shapes is wrong? Do you put it back on the easel and fix it, even though it means several more hours or days of work? I force myself to. If you notice the error, I guarantee that it's the first thing a judge or peer is going to notice.

 

So often, it is the tiniest detail that gives you the context of whatever you are painting. Looking down at rocks in a brook, they will not look real without the tiny meniscus that forms with specular highlights around them. If you don't believe me, try it!  A wine glass won't look real if you put the highlights in the wrong places or forget to make them soft edged. I challenge you to prove me wrong! A face will appear unrealistic if your eyes, nostrils, and corners of the mouth are not all in the same parallel horizontal locations. Landscapes fall apart if you don't account for atmospheric perspective and loss in saturation to create a depth of field. 

 

All of this we have heard a hundred times before. We know better. Yet, just like the Challenger design team, we get ourselves into a group think mode (even when the group is just me, myself and I,) and we often justify why we shouldn't elevate details to the importance they deserve.

 

Take teaching workshops as an example. I know that everyone wants to be seen and heard. They want to leave, feeling their time with me was well spent. Fun, learning, and growth are the expectations. There are lots of instructors, and if I cannot provide these things, the students will find someone else who will. I focus on those details, completely unrelated to the artwork students produce. Everyone gets a hug. Everyone's questions get answered. Everyone gets an HONEST assessment of what I would change if they put their painting on my easel. Nobody goes home without experiencing some challenges, because growth and learning are at their best when we are challenged. It's not about just the art they produce. It's all the details of the process they are going through while we share the workshop experience together.

 

Finally, if you are not convinced yet that details are important, I always encourage students to do what I do, and squint to check the shadow shapes at the end of their painting sessions. Shadow shapes are where we find our likenesses. It doesn't matter what subject matter you are working on. Humans have evolved to have instant recognition via the shadow shapes. You have a stronger artwork when the shadow shapes are identifiable. So if you turn your art into a notan (threshold filter on photo editing software) and you don't see a recognizable pattern, experiment with what you need to darken or lighten to make it emerge. Impressionists turn form with color, not value. So this does not apply to them. But it applies to all of realism. I have yet to find a renowned realistic painting or drawing without a strong and recognizable notan. That's a detail artists often gloss over. The master artists don't even think about it. They just do it. 

 

My hope is that you pay a little more attention to the details. They can help you or hurt you, but you are not without agency!