Priorities

As many of you know, my daughter gets married in a month.  I can do little else but keep the list and check off each completed task.  So blogging is not a high priority this month.  In fact, I am not going to try to write once a week anymore.  I've decided to write when I really have something to say!  (but fear not--I always have a lot to say!)   So maybe once or twice a month.  Or so.

The bigger problem is I have no time to paint.  Walls, yes.  A painting no.  Flowers bloom and call to me-"paint me!"   I watch them fade, knowing they will call again next spring.  The landscape is awakening and it, too, calls me to pain it.  I  paint them in my mind and wait for another time.  And so it goes.

Seasons of separation from my art, forced or not, are good. It reaffirms that I am an artist in the most basic sense.  By basic I  mean it is such a part of me I need to create.  And I am lost when I cannot.   I think about it even when I cannot do it.  This signals to me that it's more than what I do, it's who I am.

So right now, my art and this blog need a break.  I will devote myself to the other things that are also who I am.  My family and friends.  My home and hospitality.  And the celebration of these things that are also most basic to me.  And going forward, living with intention -as I blogged when I met the bear-I want to celebrate.  My daughter and her future husband.  My family and all my friends.  And later, when the time comes, my writing and my art.

But there is that painting I have sketched sitting on my easel...:)  I'll post it when it's done!~

Perspective 101

Perspective is a term used in art.  As defined by Merriam Webster:

1. a technique of depicting volumes and spatial relationships on a flat surface.

2. a picture employing this technique, especially one in which it is prominent: an architect's perspective of a house.

3. a visible scene, especially one extending to a distance; vista: 

Perspective is an important concept in art.  A basic principle to learn that gives depth to a painting.  It helps us dipict three dimensions on a two dimensional surface.  I hear the word often used in what I do, but I want to talk about another kind of perspective.  You know, seeing the forest through the trees?

I begin a landscape deciding what to put in the foreground, middleground and background.  This is simple, perspective 101.  But in our lives, I think we tend live and focus on the foreground.  At least I know I do.  While it is true we only have today, "getting perspective" helps us to see the bigger picture.  And it's important to remember there is a bigger picture.  The tendency is to stay in the foreground of the everyday of the "to do" list or what's currently on our plate.  But "getting perspective" reminds us that there are other ways as well as other things to see. 


Students often spend a great deal of time on an area of the painting that is not really all that important to the overall painting.  That blade of grass they paint so carefully is not what they want the viewer to notice.  Yet they spend so much time on it, and give it so much importance.  Why?  We get caught in the foreground, because it is the easiest to see.  It is right in front of us, the here and now, so to speak.  

While the foreground is a part of the whole, let's not get stuck there. Lately, I've been getting the message that I'm not living very large.  Don't get me wrong, I have a great life.  Right here and now.  But things keep knocking me down, giving me a totally different perspective!  (sometimes I need a knock upside the head to see things straight!) I have several friends in crisis right now.  Which put's any problem I may think I have at a pretty low category.  And that's a good thing. My grandmother always used to say "there is always someone better off and someone worse off".  She was a smart woman. Her point is well taken. All I need to do is move to change my perspective.  But then the challenge is to choose what to focus on.  I have more options now.  I see more clearly, but I also risk confusion!  I need a "focal point".  (But that's another blog!)


So, I've changed my perspective recently.  Adjusting my perspective has given me a better view and expanded my vision.  I have some things a bit further down the road that are coming into focus.  Largely because I expanded my vision and took a cue from the messages being sent.  Live large, they chant.  Be bold is the chorus.  What are you risking by staying at a distance?  they ask.   I think you risk a limited vision!  I say, if your not liking the view, change your perspective!  


Have a great week!  

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Mixing It Up!

Today in the grocery store I was assaulted by Easter Lilies!  White Lilies everywhere!! It's tempting to pick up another one.  My mother loved and purchased an Easter Lillie almost every year.  She loved the "hot house flowers" that you can get during the holidays. 

Last Easter I had a "left over" Lillie and decided to "mix it up" with watercolor and Pastel.  As you can see, I have it framed and hanging in my house.  While not my favorite, I limited my palette by trying to stay with a few "spring" pastel colors.  I lost the under painting, but it was more and experiment for a class I was to teach later that spring. 

Later, for the workshop, my set up and demo was inspired by a trip to the garden center.  I bought some pansies (another favorite) and a small mouse.  I demonstrated an under painting with watercolor and applied pastel on top of a warm grey Wallis paper.  I did manage to leave some of the Wallis paper untouched, but I lost most of the watercolor under painting.  It even won an award at a local art show. 

My trip to the grocer reminded me of lilies, and the painting I see everyday.  It also reminded me I need to mix it up again!  Getting out of your comfort zone is healthy.  When you stretch yourself you find out all kinds of things are possible--just because you tried!  Go MIX IT UP!

Have a lovely Easter! 

My Blog Post on Empty Easel

Check out my article, taken from this blog (!) on Empty Easel @ http://emptyeasel.com/2012/04/04/what-i-learned-about-art-and-life-by-staring-down-a-grizzy/.  Empty Easel is an online magazine for Artists. 
Let me know what you think.

Inspiration

Close up from larger painting

Inspiration.  What's yours?  For me it's everywhere.  There are not enough days and never the energy to paint all the paintings in my head!  I see a potential painting daily if not hourly!

It wasn't always that way.  Inspiration used to visit on a whim.  If there was no way to take the inspiration to canvas or paper in that moment, the moment, and the inspiration passed.  Though not always forgotten, the initial excitement to act faded.  And more than not, nothing came of it.

Inspiration has to be nourished.  When I began to seize those moments and also learn to recreate them I found they visited with greater frequency.  Now I find inspiration in daily things and not just  those grander moments .  I see them in the light that hits something or just the color of the sky.  Now, the artists and the art I am most drawn to are those who paint common things and distill a scene to it's essence.  The common.

The One Sketch a Day journal has been inspiration for me.  Finding something to draw daily requires I draw what is at hand.  It's amazing what presents itself in the ordinary.  I fear I've been looking to far for inspiration in my painting when it's always been right under my nose!

Painting, drawing, writing, singing, cooking or whatever your art is-it should come from your heart.  From the things you love.  Which for me are often far and wide.  I love to travel.  I love to travel and PAINT even more!  But ordinary and close are where I spend most of my time.  To find the inspiration there makes me grateful for "the daily". 

Last week the Daffodils were blooming like crazy right here in my own back yard. I've planted many because they make me happy.  Gone so quickly and with other commitments I wasn't sure I'd get to them.   I will be heading out to teach a class at the Delaware Arts Castle on Flowers in Watercolor and I wanted fresh paintings to bring. (click the link! if you hurry you can still register!) .  Last year I tried to paint every type of flower as it bloomed in my yard.  The Daffodils never turned out.  For years I've painted them and was never really happy with them.  I'm pleased these at least resemble daffodils, even though I did them a little tighter than usual.  (I do that when I'm struggling!)  So from my own back yard I finally had a break through with the Daffodils.  Learning to keep at something and work from the ordinary has been my lesson for the week. Also I learned I'm grateful the deer don't like daffodils!

My challenge to all you creative's out there: find theinspiration in the common, the daily, the ordinary.  I hope it makes you happy and grateful.  It does me.