Tag: creative inspiration

Taking a break from painting the figure.

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Painted today. Taking a seriously needed break from painting the figure. There’s freedom in not having any pencil marks or guidelines to follow on the canvas. The pure artistic desire to just paint. Taking the time to figure out on your own where everything belongs, how it visually looks and how it all relates.

I always start with the under painting. I use raw sienna and prussian blue and a little white for a change basically establishing my value study as I covered the whole canvas with paint.

I am working from a photograph I took some time ago in North Carolina while we staying at the Hilton. It was a summer night and we would stroll down the boardwalk. The evening lights and water reflections were a delight to be around while we would watch the sun set and then stop at a nearby bistro for a local beer and southern platter. Our little get away from the party at hand. The ocean breeze was so warm.

“The boardwalk in Charlotte” I have a few other photo’s so this could turn into a series. When I finish this one I’m hoping to bring it down to the local coffee shop called Smith Bros located right along Lake Michigan/one of the great lakes. Some very interesting array of artwork is on display there and some by a couple of friends I have unexpectedly come to know by chance. My work is not on display at this time because I had a piece disappear with the owner from another coffee shop that closed it doors unexpected. Stolen in other words…we take our chances as artists not like it’s worth a million dollars yet. There are a couple of other galleries that have pop up in Port Washington lately I need to inquire.

The creative process is alive and well.

The new year has started and it’s already been a month into it leaving me only eleven months to go. My outlook for this year looks good. The creative process is alive and well. My mind has been actively slipping back and forth on a number of different ideas But I am taking time to really think them through before I dive into any one. Preparing the ground work consumes a lot of my time so I want to make sure I’m in it for the long hall because without me nothing gets done.

I scraped off my artist palette. It was full of thick dried paint that had been sitting for at least a year. It was excruciating painful as I removed it in thick increments leaving thin shaving and dust everywhere. I dread cleaning my palette but this was ridiculous. I usually clean it more regularly but under the circumstances its been a rough and neglected year. although just the act of cleaning it is very promising and warrants a bit of quiet excitement.

I thought about doing a 365 day project but my mind and life does not work that way. I admire all those that can and do art everyday it is only beneficial to the artist and the creative process. Unfortunately I’m still working on a couple of paintings that I started 3 years ago definitely is on my bucket list.

To show my most honest interpretation of me as an artist I have to not only show my work which is the end result but my thought process. This may require me going shopping sometimes for some creative inspiration, maybe going out for a specialty beer and conversation, a touch of photography my never-ending love and my accounts about the process as a whole. In the end little excerpt from what I digest on a weekly basis from what I hear and read in a magazine, a book, the newspaper and or the internet. My thoughts come when I can identify and pull out the things that have some relevance or impact on me as an artist. At the end of the day giving me some commonality with the world in which I live.

I’d like to leave you with a favorite that keeps me inspired.

“To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with words and notion, but as they are apprehended directly and unconditionally by mind at large-this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone.”

Aldous Huxley

The Doors of Perception