Sunflower Soup II

Sunflower Soup II, 12 x 16, soft pastel on paper SOLD

Finally finished it. This one got stalled at the "ugly stage," and then I had an exceptionally busy week at work and left it sitting even longer. I wish I had a better approach to surmounting that no-apparent-hope-for-it phase of a painting. My current approach is to just pick up a pastel and start doing something--anything--until it starts looking decent again. It nearly always ends up working . . . but I always get stopped for a while.

The yellows appear to have desaturated on upload. Picture them a bit richer than they look here!

apples again?

I'm drawn to working in series. I'll often have a whole series planned and sketched with reference photos.... I paint one or two and get distracted by some other subject. But then in time I find myself coming back to my neglected series and working some more. There's an interesting tidal quality to the pattern. I just sit back and watch.

I don't tend to find any deep meaning in my series. There's no symbolism, no allegory, no whatever. It's more a communion with the objects and the play of light, and the way anything takes on a kind of sacredness if you look at it long enough. An apple ceases to be just an apple and becomes a living, breathing piece of something far greater than myself. I think that's what this is about for me--breathlessly seeking, again and again, that unspoken connection with the divine.

So I'll probably paint a lot more apples.

serendipity

Sun Dancers


August Light


Daisy Daze


Buddy the Mighty Hunter

I must confess, I have a new obsession. When I looked for an online gallery for my vacation pictures, I discovered Flickr. I'd had an account there for some time, but I had never taken the time to explore the site. Once I started exploring, it took over my life! After spending a week drinking in the images upon images at Flickr, my vision has been forever changed. I'm on fire for photography, and I also want to paint and paint.

Here are a few photos I've improved with some newly acquired photoshop skills. I'm looking at things in a whole different way.

See my Flickr page here.

Birthday/Anniversary

Yesterday was my birthday--which also marked an important anniversary. Last year, for my 40th birthday, my parents and son gave me an easel and some pastels. I had expressed a desire to revive a brief interest in art that, a few years previous, had led me to take a few pastel lessons. They thought that was a good idea, and gave me what I needed to get started.

I haven't looked back. I've drawn or painted nearly every day since then. This is more than a hobby--my whole life has changed! Calling myself "artist" may be the best thing that has ever happened to me. I feel so amazingly lucky to have found this calling.

Thanks for sharing it with me.

I'm still working...really, I am

My son is here for the month, so I'm spending as much time with him as I can...but I'm still working at my art, taking pics, sketching, etc. Tonight, while we watched a DVD of the first season of "24" (what a cool show--I'd never seen it before!), I cut paper from my roll of beautiful Wallis Museum, toned it with acrylics and stretched it to dry. Now the curl is out of it and it's ready to go! Here's a pic for proof.

I wanted a dark neutral color...we'll see how this purply shade works out.

Since that's not a very pretty pic, I thought I'd post one for Susan, who is still waiting for her roses to bloom. This is our Queen Elizabeth hybrid tea, which blooms its guts out all summer long with only the most minimal care. I planted this rosebush when I was nine. You do the math (it's not a young plant!).

Finding Art

The potential for art is everywhere. It's limitless. Everywhere the light falls, there is also shadow and color, shape and texture and volume. All day long I catch glimpses of things I want to paint, moments I want to preserve. The smell of the pear and the shine of the knife as I slice it become a single sensation. If I evoke the shine of the knife, will the viewer smell the pear?

And how do I choose which glimpse to record this time? Have I painted the play of light and color on glass enough times already? Perhaps I should be regarding faces, or city streets. Or should I try to get sensations onto the canvas without any images at all to make them speak?

Sometimes there is so much richness that it's hard to paint at all.

on getting started....

As someone new to art, I feel it takes a special brand of outrageousness to approach the easel and presume to create. I get that butterflies-in-my-stomach sensation when I even start planning a painting; it has been known to keep me up at night. Some may say it's a lack of confidence, a fear of failure, or just a drive for perfection that loads those first moments with such paralyzing anticipation.....but I call it love. Remember falling in love? That swooning excitement that runs through the veins, making one feel almost ill? That sweet elixir that has us walking on air...but unable to so much as speak to the beloved? Oh yes, it's love. As artists, we are privileged to fall in love over and over again. Each new piece bears the potential for that glorious intoxication--and for the paralysis of its glittering expectation.

This post was published in the "clickbacks" to Robert Genn's Art Newsletter. Click here to see my illustrated letter.

[Note: I'm in the process of starting several new pieces. I'm not sleeping well. I hope to share them with you soon!]

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