Life through Rose coloured glass’s

I think I’ll remember this last 12 months as my “pink” period.  I’ll be moving to my next phase soon as I’m already exploding with new ideas.

 

ARTHUR STREETON- Inspiration!

Inspiration?

Where do you get it?  How do you find it?

Everyone is different. For me inspiration is usually visual, but I know there are some that can be inspired by words or thoughts or experiences, and not just by what they see. I tend to see poetry in nature, but others may see paintings in words.

My absolute favourite Australian painter was Arthur Streeton

I fell in love with, “Purple noons transparent might” –  and closely followed by the beautiful painting “Still glides the stream, and shall forever glide”

Still glides the stream, and shall for ever glide’ – the title is taken from Wordsworth’s sonnet “Conclusion” from his poem “the river Duddon”

A romantic expression of the mortality and transience of human life contrasted with the enduring beauty of art, the poem appealed to the young artist and expressed something of his own ambitions for his art:

For, backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
while we, the brave, the mighty and the wise;
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish; – be it so!

Inspiration is all around us and it arrives in many forms and shapes and comes to us in varied vehicles of life and experiences. I think you have to allow yourself to be a sponge and take it all in. What ever it is that gives you that Ophra Winfrey “AH-HA” moment. What ever it is that makes you pause or touch’s your heart, is a possible catalyst that could launch you into creativity. And it doesn’t matter if it is something you see, something you experience, something you read, or just a dream you had.

If you feel it, you can paint it.

AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPES- a journey begins with a single step

Sometimes its a good idea to go back and revisit your earlier works. It can also be a bit of an eye opener if you find you’ve been painting the same subjects in the same way for a long while. Your still playing it “safe” and familiar. Of cause there is an argument for staying in one area/subject source/style,  and investigating/exploiting it fully, before moving on to another period in your art making journey. Monet “haystacks” period for instance. But when that period has been exhausted, you need to know when its time to progressively continue on to the water lilies.

It’s beneficial to be able to recognise a progression and growth in your work. If you’re not allowing yourself to grow as an artist then you are treading water. Take chance’s, and if you fall on your face and make a fool of yourself, then get up and take another chance. Exciting new discoveries lie on the roadway during the journey. Not at the end of the journey. In fact there is no end to the creative journey, your always discovering and learning something new.

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I did this painting about 9 months ago and I just realized that I am still painting ( and painting it in the same way)  that same little creek near my home. I love  how the colours of the different seasons in the year change the atmosphere and mood of this creek. I think I’ve painted it from every angle and in every light. I may revisit this area to paint again one day but I know my time with this subject is drawing to a close.

CORNY-LAME-BUT SMILE WORTHY

What do you get if you cross an artist with a kebab? – Donner-tello

What do you get if you cross a painter with a boxer?
– Mohammed Dali

Why was the art dealer in debt?
– He didn’t have any Monet

What did the artist say to the dentist?
– Matisse hurt

The importance of being ernest

One of the most important things in life and art is integrity. I think if you paint without integrity it shows in the results. What is integrity in art? it’s a hard one to define, but you know when its missing. It’s a bit like watching a singer perform and your just not feeling it. The performance lacks something. The singer hasn’t “sold” you the song.

If you make your art from your passion and straight from your heart. If you don’t try to be something you’re not. If your honest and generous and communicate well. If you don’t hold back and you come from a point of inspiration, whether its abstracted or not, then I think that’s integrity.

The Australian Landscape makes me feel grounded.

The landscape makes me feel grounded.

There is so much “ugly” in the world. All you have to do is turn on your TV and your confronted. I think there is an overload of disturbing, sad, ugliness in the times we are living in. That’s why I love to paint  beautiful landscapes.  Nature, our landscape, especially water, things that lift my heart. We are prepared to pay more for a room with a view. A home that has water views. We take our vacation to beautiful restful locations. And yet we reward art that is pure sensationalism, ugly and confronting. We pooh hooo present day landscape art as superficial because it doesn’t “say” anything.  I think landscape art says more-  not less. I have Aboriginal blood in my veins and love nothing more than to feel nature against my bare soul.  To me art is not a slaughtered bloodied cow dumped on the steps of the Victorian Art Gallery. Nor my blackest ugliest nightmares on canvas. Painting the Australian landscape makes me feel grounded and at peace. Thats the feelings I want to share with my viewers. An appreciation of our natural environment is paramount to our spiritual health and feeling of well being.

DEEP PURPLE

Are you a child of the 70s rock era? Deep purple is my favourite colour. Do you find yourself always on one side of the palette and not the other? I rarely use hot reds and yellows, but if I find I have to,  I reach for the cooler versions of the warm colours. So today I am going to push myself out of my comfort zone and try to see my environment without mauve and dominated by purples. I can tell you that it wont be easy for me. I’ve been translating my surroundings into pinks and purples for a lot of years. But I think if you don’t challenge yourself sometimes, you become like stagnant waters, and its time to ride the rapids!!.

Try something different today in your art making. Get out of your comfort zone and either change your palette or subject source. It will be like taking a vacation.

Arty one liners-

When you dream in colour… – it’s a pigment of your imagination.

The color blind association is having a huge social event…  – They are going to paint the town GREY!!

How Many Modern Artists Does It Take To Change A Light Bulb?

Four. One to throw bulbs against the wall, one to pile hundreds of them in a heap and spray-paint it orange, one to glue light bulbs to a cocker spaniel, and one to put a bulb in the socket and fill the room with light while all the critics and buyers are watching the fellow smashing the bulbs against the wall, the fellow with the spray-gun, and the cocker spaniel.

Poetry in pastel

The main thing I wanted to say with this painting was,- it was late afternoon just before dark when I parked my carand walked along the river.  I felt isolated and also very alone.  The darkness of late afternoon descended very quickly. The river was beautiful bathed in approaching sunset, it softly mirrored the colours above. I was so caught up in the private stillness of this scene playing out that I didn’t realize I couldn’t get back to my car before complete darkness.

I could have taken this painting to the next level and made it more photo real, but then it wouldn’t say how I felt that afternoon, it would just be showing an image. The river looked poetic and that’s what I wanted to communicate.

Fore play

Creating a painting begins with foreplay. You have to ease into it very slowly to bring it to its full potential. Each layer of the painting has to be laid down cautiously. You can’t jump in too quick with detail, you can’t rush to the finnish line too soon. Its like pealing back an onion one layer at a time until you reveal the finished work. Softly softly,  you can always do more but its impossible to do less once you’ve gone too far. Savor the  moment when you will add those last few flicks of highlight and wait for it to happen naturally. Don’t rush in too soon. Pastel is a tricky medium, being opaque you have to create the illusion of transparency by working in very thin layers. You have to coach the painting out of the paper, don’t be in a hurry to get to the details or the reward at the end. The painting will tell you what it needs as you progress.

I start with a very light pencil sketch just to lay in the horizon and a few key elements. I don’t do a detailed drawing because I’m a painter not a sketcher.  Everyone is different, but that’s me and you’ll find your own identity as you spend more time at the easel. Next I put down an under painting so I have a foundation or map to guide me.  I don’t spend much time doing this because that’s not the painting, it’s just the thermal under garments to support what is coming.

I feel my way slowly, building the painting up intuitively. All the time waiting for the painting to tell me what it needs. II don’t cling to the photo source image. The photo is just the spring-board to help remind me what it was that attracted me to that scene.  I only work from my own experiences and source material. Always keep in mind why  – why was I drawn to this subject? what was it that made me want to paint this? because that is the conversation I want to have with my viewer. That’s the story I want to tell, so that’s what needs to come through in the finished  work. Patience, because each painting you do becomes your baby for a while and you need to nurture and help it to its feet. I’ll put the underpainting up later so you can see the building blocks, it’s a bit like looking under the skirts of the finished painting.

 

the under painting

Sunday, rest day.

I did not lay my hands on canvas or paper today with the intention to create, but I did paint constantly in my mind. Everything I saw, every moment that passed by had my busy painters brain mentally working overtime. I seem to be constantly storing snapshots, and creating imaginary paintings even when I’m not actually standing at the easel to paint.

Today was a day to rest, appreciate good friends and not paint, but my brain was over revving with ideas. I just wish that when those ideas arrived on the canvas, they actually looked as amazing in real life as they did in my mind’s eye. What happens in translation? don’t you wish the picture you create in your mind looked just as amazing as a finished painting?

Tomorrow we’ll begin working on the scene I photographed yesterday and I will try to capture each stage to share. It’s a slow layered process to find the painting, I hope you enjoy the journey.

Note to self –  Begin keeping a visual diary that you can jot those wonderful ideas and mental imagery into because when you go back to your memory storehouse trying to find where you filed them away, alas- they have been lost behind the day-to-day issues of life.

If you stand silent, you can hear the sounds of nature.

mental imagery

Wanted- Artist assistant- four legged helpers need not apply!

I have 3 animals that love me claustrophobically. Two small poodles and a very large hairy cat. I am an aerobic painter, i.e.:  paint, walk briskly back and look, walk forward paint, walk back look- walk forward and paint.  I can end up spending my painting day tripping over animals that are curled up behind my feet or at the foot of my easel. Today, at the easel and in my “painting zone”, I stepped back to the sound of Olly the cat screeching “OUCH!  your on my tail”  forcing me to leap sideways to avoid falling back on my pastel sticks, only to trip on Tilly the  black dog ( Tillys big brown eyes always say, “but I love you more than the others do”)  and I landed on Sharlly the brown dog ( “huh, what? where? who?, – Sharlly has many a blond moment) . All in a cloud of rising pastel dust, claws, complaints and fur. If in a hundred years my pastel paintings are analysed for DNA clues to determine the artist, I’m sure eyebrows will be raised, as, animal dander, poodle fluff and cats whiskers will definitely make up a large component of the results.

This is a pic of Olly my pastel assistant.

Olly helping not