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I'm interested in learning how to create Surrealist art. Can you assist me please?
So, this is a different kind of post for the "Arts & Crafts" section here. As you know, I love making non-figurative Abstract pieces as well as some occasional cartooning. However, I'm very curious about Surrealism. I guess in a way, one of my favourite games, Animal Crossing, could be considered a tame form of Surrealism since most animals don't walk on two legs IRL, and most animals are incapable of any human speech (except certain species of birds who can mimic speech, such as parrots, afaik).
So, what I'm interested in is learning is how to draw/paint Surrealism. I wonder if there are any good places online to start learning. 🤔 Of course part of creating Surrealism is understanding forms, which is similar to creating representational art (whether Realism in Renaissance paintings, or cartooning, etc). And I have studied some paintings by Ernst and Dalí online. (Wish I could see them in person, lol.)
But, my question is, how do I go about my first piece? Is it truly all in experimentation and combining things in odd ways? Or is there anything else I may be missing?
Comments
i think it's about the mindset, more than anything - imo surrealism isn't so much about deliberate/contrived "odd" combinations, but unleashing some of the surprising free associations that you get when you leave your mind running.
people do automatic writing, so i guess you can try automatic painting?
here's a little book of surrealist games, to help get you into the groove.
best of luck!
https://archive.org/details/a-book-of-surrealist-games-alastair-brotchie-mel-gooding
This is not only great advice, but also seems to be an interesting book for reading. Thank you so kindly. ☺️
The dream of the man was one of wonder and excitement. Through various methods of misdirected meditation, in which the subject inserts himself or herself between the thinly veiled curtain between reality and dreams, the participant can venture into a state of somnambulism...a state of reverie...a surreal state in which the dimensions of the infinite universe unfold and become an onramp to envisage the unimaginable.
So how, you might ask, does one pierce and piece this veil?
There are many ways. I have recently, as of late, as a method, embraced the Holy Spirit to guide my musings in discerning what it wants me to achieve. Other practices oblige the viewer, the aeronaut of the subconscious to poke at visions in the dark seeking guidance, but beware for the novelty and fascination that may materialize states of awareness may not be comforting...nor productive. There is always a price to pay when one unpacks the Jungian dimensions of thought.
Surrealism is truly a state of mind of being in a state of mind...an interconnected tapestry of spinning yarns of thought into moments of clarity and fascination.
Dive deep, brother, with André Breton, Yves Tanguy, and Salvador Dalí...but do not forget Duchamp and Magritte, for they laid the foundation of what we now take as gospel in our modernity.
The above was a moment of automatic writing to depict and unpack surrealism for you @jwmmakerofmusic
@echoopera I guess that's the thing. I'm oft prone to more literal thinking rather than automatic writing, so I'm trying to find out how to do Surrealism in a more literal sense when it's anything but literal. 😂 LOL! But that was very beautiful and poetic.
Start off with Collages like James Koehnline:
Use the Cut Up Method as defined by Brion Gyson
https://www.briongysin.com/cut-ups/
Be inspired by the surreal photos of Duane Michals:
https://www.dcmooregallery.com/artists/duane-michals
Step One: Surpass reality.
Those pics are gorgeous! 🤩 Definitely going to read both links once I'm done responding lol.
How does one do that, I wonder? 😅
100-200ug LSD should work pretty well...
😂 I wish.
Whoa. Wild to drop 'only' when skimming
"Daaaamn Jdubs... 'this is not great advice'" 😂😂
Thankfully I've learned I suck at skimming
ON topic
First step is to fully realize that what we each see as reality is fully subjective. Down to what my eyes see and learned as Blue you also have learned to see as Blue, but if id look thru your lenses (and corneas, with how your brain translates this info) - it could be seafoam. Or forrest green. Or neon pink. Or a color my set of circumstances has never let me experience before
Second step is to attempt to put down what someone else would see/experience
That's already base level surreal, since there is no one else alive with your exact chemical makeup creating the idea of another's view and makeup. It's already surpassing the lines of our perception of reality
Then come up with the view of something common, but from a thing we have no connection to. A completely foreign view of an object of which youre instinctively aware
By this point, it's all about conveying an idea, nothing has to be recognizable... Unless completely grokking the viewpoint, and everything becomes clear
Edit: oh shit. This was for more of a 'getting into understanding' rather than capital S Surrealist style. My bad
I'm not educated in that direction, but I can show you how to get out of certain thoughts processesesses and headspaces 😅
...so do I actually realize how much my skimming sucks...?
Just out of curiosity… have you tried ‘letting it flow’ instead of planning ahead, designing…
Just to see where it takes you… see as of let it guide you rather than trying to force it into any shape.
(Earlier wanted to comment ‘less talking, more listening’ - but it seemed a bit aggressive, this is a forum after all
Don't do drugs, be drugs .
I think it's in the name, at least that's how I always looked at it. Real world imagery with "unreal" distortions, additions whatnot. I was very young when I saw my first Salvador Dali and I was never the same again. Magritte is another idol, the simplicity mixed with geniality - that's how I want to do it. 😀 I'm glad your looking in to the subject as it's an awesome genre.
@PapaBPoppin Actually, this is more helpful than you may think. The whole "getting into understanding the mindset" helps me improve my own mindset to understand Surrealist Art at large.
@0tolerance4silence Makes sense actually, both the more "less talking, more listening" approach and the "let it flow" approach. May have to do that, but when I "let it flow", it becomes more in line with non-representational Abstract art, which I do love, but not exactly the aesthetic I want to tackle this and next month, lol.
@tyslothrop1 Haha. Maybe shrooms could work, once they are decriminalized in the US. (That's a gripe for "Other" though, haha.)
@Pxlhg I agree, it's an awesome genre of art. Salvador Dali and even David Lynch and his Surrealist films are inspos for me. Hope to aspire to be half as great as they are.
Don't worry about what category your art falls under. That's marketing (by the way, Salvador Dali was a consummate showman and self-promoter). Just make what you want and let others worry about what to call it. Unless you're trying to start an art movement and sell your work, then putting what you make into an easily defined category does not matter. Just my opinion.
Yeah, I know genre titles can often be limiting. 😅 But it does adequately describe the vibe I want to make in my art.
Find an online random word generator to serve as a motif prompt for a painting or collage and then translate those words to a visual.
Bat-Cookie-Liquid-Iceberg
Imagine what those words conjure in your mind, and visualize that in whatever format you like.
That might be a great idea, and I may steal that prompt for my first Surrealist piece which I will attempt tomorrow. Today, I just feel like making simple Abstracts. 😂
Cool.
Surrealism for me has always been about looking at reality sideways and inverted...and adjusting the reality tunnel filter of my mental model interpretation engine
Surrealism can be very small things, or very large things...it's all about how you want the viewer to tune their perception:
this was from ages gone by:
I love surrealism and I think there haven’t been much revolutionary artistic movements of significance since it, and it’s been what? A century?
I think we need a new one!
Surrealism may have been the last art movement that was relatable to the average person. Lots of people dream, but not many possess the semiotic fluency required to navigate the intertextual scaffolding of postmodern praxis. In the wake of late-capitalist accelerationism, contemporary art increasingly abstracts itself into meta-discursive frameworks that privilege conceptual over phenomenological engagement, rendering the viewer a passive node in a recursive feedback loop of meaning deconstruction.
He certainly was and you, of all people, make it sound wrong for some reason. He was also, more than once, hired by the big ad companies. Anyway, he didn't invent the genre, he just used it brilliantly.
All the fucking -isms 🤣 can go and fuck them selfs for all I care but it is what it ism.
I wasn't necessarily advocating drug use, but paraphrasing Dali, who, when asked, if he did drugs, replied: I don't do drugs, I am drugs.
I guess, if you've figured out how to be drugs, you're a surrealist master. David Lynch is pretty judgmental about drugs, by the way (doing them, being them might be alright).
David Lynch "was"... unfortunately he died January of this year.
Haha. Dali was a showman, self-promoter and salesman for Surrealism. I'm not saying that's "bad" per se. Even artists have to eat. One of my favorite art world figures is Andy Warhol. He never pretended what he was doing with Pop Art.
Oh no, hadn't heard that yet.
I don't know if this is surrealism per se but, it started with no idea whatsoever and if I remember correctly I used some crumpled paper to get a texture. Now that was a long time ago, I don't know if I ever finish it. It did inspire me to do Pipe Dream, a +500 hours Procreate drawing (here displayed on YT).
Maybe you get some idea on starting, I hope so.
@echoopera I absolutely love that video and music. Quite mindbending, mate.
@pedro I think the last great art movement was pure non-figurative Abstraction about a half century or more ago, which is what I've been doing the past month. I want to move more towards Surrealism to make pieces that stir the imagination and possibly disturb people on a primal level. 😈 Surpass the Superego and Ego and strike straight to the Id.
I can create and have already created some disturbing dark soundscapes like the late and great David Lynch and others of his ilk, so I have the audio part solidified. It's in creating the artistic visuals to accompany such pieces I want to dive into. To tickle the imagination and create unseen worlds immersed in both soundscape and landscape.
Ultimately, and this will sound a bit cliche, but I want to send a huge middle finger to AI generated schlock. 😂 One reason I stopped using AI to generate album covers is...I know firsthand how aggravating it is to try and find freelance production/art commission work, only for some lazy sod to generate the AI schlock instead of paying me, a human being, to make art/music for them. No longer will I devalue my own artistic integrity nor anyone else's.
@tyslothrop1 Interesting way to put it, mate. Not to take the drugs but to BE the drug. Dude, that is some pretty cool esoteric shit, and I'm digging it.
And yes, as @NeuM pointed out, David Lynch passed in January. I made this piece in honour of him.
https://on.soundcloud.com/fVDcpQe7opAcD8V56
@Pxlhg Criminy, that was sublime! Really amazing work and 500+ hours well spent to give us 6+ min of amazement and wonder.
You might also check out the many works of Rene Magritte and what about all those 70’s & 80’s album covers commissioned from Hipgnosis London.
I'll check Rene's works out too.
So much to dive into and study. And studying art is absolutely fun.