Painted Steps: Walking the Camino #17

There's a kind of war between script and image, a struggle for dominance. In Painted Steps, I want the images to win.
As I'm working on the truck image, I'm thinking about the source photo, wondering about the words on the side of the truck. From the beginning of Painted Steps I've kept choosing not to use text, not to paint words. I considered labeling the little pictures, and decided against it. Somehow using words feels like cheating. Would I be using text to cover for a failure in image making?
I penciled in place names along the striped elevation band, but reluctantly, and only for strategic reasons. They're discrete and graphically unobtrusive.

I may seem contrary. Painted Steps is a kind of ‘map’ but I don’t want it to have words.
 
On the other hand, the crescendo-like perspective, of the lettering could enhance the sense of drama, size and speed of the truck. Also, the words are in the photo, a real part of the truck. Without the words it looks a little blank, as if it was carrying a secret but somewhat bland cargo.

So, I will try. I'll practice the lettering with a study on a separate piece of paper. I feel intimidated. I feel I don't know how to do it. How do you 'paint' letters. Isn't this writing? I try painting the individual letters in tiny strokes with my finest brush and using my magnifier.
 
Actually I never believe I'm capable of successfully painting any of the little pictures. As we found on the Camino, not knowing exactly where you're going can be exciting and adventurous. Sometimes however, the uncertainty borders on fear and self-doubt, a place where I often find myself stuck.
To avoid this place of stasis, I set up a kind of  "suspension of disbelief", I act as if I am capable.  I use a timer to create a bubble of safety - boundaries of 30 minutes. I try to keep on this side of belief, working in patience until the image unfolds into a Real-ism. The feelings transform into awe when the image reveals itself and becomes clear and satisfying.

Even if it's a bit clumsy the lettering enhances the drama. I'm pleased. I paint it into the truck picture on Painted Steps.

Even if it's a bit clumsy the lettering enhances the drama. I'm pleased. I paint it into the truck picture on Painted Steps.

Some time after I finish the truck image I take another look. Now that all my labour and struggle is forgotten I reassess. The lettering is still not quite right. My problem, I think, is the words I've been using to think about the lettering problem.
 I can't paint text, that's lettering or calligraphy and I'm not good with lettering. But when I think of it as an image of signage, in pictorial terms, my job as a painter becomes clear, and I know what I need to do.
 One of the basic methods for creating the illusion of space is gradation and contrast of colour intensity. Generally, close up is sharp, bright, intense colour. Distance is suggested by fading away to softer paler tones. So, I pale out the letters F and L because they are smaller and farther away and sharpen and brighten up the letters L, L, and A. Better.

The image stands out in Painted Steps because of the words. You can read the side of the truck as well as "read" the image.
 Despite all the attention on detail and accuracy, I don’t intend Painted Steps as a bulletin board of information; I want to offer a sequence of experience. I'm hoping to make powerful images, lingering potent images, giving life to illusion; illusion as a doorway to remembered and desired experience. Not symbolic. Simply there.
 
And without the mediation of words.

I am a compulsive reader. For me being literate means it's simpler to read words than to 'decode' images. The words are a mediation, they choose and isolate a particular aspect of the world. Words speak. Images are silent.
 
In 'My name is Red', Orhan Pamuk tells of a battle for truth and authority between script and image. In Islamic Persian script-based culture, painted Miniatures are meant to act only as aids to the story, to illuminate the story, not exist as acts of creation in themselves.
I want exactly the opposite. I want the images to be 'creation'.
 
Both before and during my Camino walk I decided that the experience would not be mediated by 'scriptures'. I made a point of not reading the current Camino guidebooks. I resisted being told what to notice.
 
And yet, I find myself compelled to write about making the painting, the 'guide book', to the parallel journey. So, despite the strain of switching from the act of writing to the act of painting I keep lurching ahead, keeping on the move!

Eight hundred and forty two words! And a picture....
"A drawing is simply a line going for a long walk."
 
Buen Camino!