Imagining the painting

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I have heard some artists say that they can visualize their final painting right at the beginning, and work towards getting there. Others say they don't know where it might be headed, but they are responding to the moment, what it needs, and the final product may be whatever it is. When I was writing more, some of the writers I read about also said something similar - that they know how it all ends, they simply have to write each chapter towards that end goal. Yet others said each chapter may be a discovery, and the ending could be anything, depending on the surprises during their journey of discovering what their plot was about.
As an architect, I feel I can visualize a space as I am designing, and it helps me solve problems - about ceiling heights, how something might connect to something else, intricate details - many times, I can visualize the answer, and sketching it out may help that resolution.
With painting, however, I cannot visualize the end product. I see the source, or reference material, and have no idea what to do with it, other than perhaps create a value study, then a color palette - but I don't know at that point what "style" the painting might end up to be. Does that come with more experience, I wonder, or do some artists have the ability to see the end product, and some don't? Time will tell.

I enjoyed painting these artichokes from photographs yesterday and today. The strongest paintings are the ones with rich darks, and some whites. We know what it is even if the form is quick and wonky.




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