Tag: painting

Wisdom is not as complicated as people think.

Image

This is a photo I keep coming back to from time to time. It’s a child hood memory. A time and place. 

No great artist ever sees things as they really are.

If they did, they would cease to be an artist.

Oscar Wilde.

Painting has been a vigorous and emotional endeavor. It has been a constant source of anxiety and delight.

I want it to be uncomplicated and practical.

you do not say the same thing in one room as you say in another…….Louis Kahn

Where do they get this stuff?

The same people who say “I want to make beautiful living effortless.”

Now this I like…practical no…but like yes.

As artists we encounter the unexpected.

We need to use our artist instincts.

And maybe reveal our secrets of the trade.

Wisdom is not as complicated as people think.

Making hay with words.

Image

Making hay with words.

Sitting here painting enormously absorbed.

Detail is my essential preoccupation.

As I investigate my progress I see I am far from finished and the further I get the less done it looks.

But importantly I have to make sure I don’t over paint it.

I think I need a break and a beverage.

We made it through the Polar Vortex. How’s the weather doing on your half?

Last week it was -40 degrees F and today it was 40 degrees.

Tomorrow we have a winter storm warning from 7:00am-12:00pm with possible blizzard conditions but not until after I get to work.

We call this winter here hey:)

The cross-country ski’s are ready.

I know I should be thinking about getting this painting done but I like to think skiing is part of my creative process.

We went skiing two weekends ago.

The timing was perfect right before the deep freeze.

While we were getting our ski’s on we saw the tail end of four deer pass before us about 25 yards away.

Nature at it’s best.

What is required to paint when you have none.

Image

It has been dark and dreary for two days.

We have been in a tornado watch all day.

I have been working a lot of over time so my painting has been minimized and limited to none.

It is all my fault I suppose…no energy, no ambition and no desire.

It is funny what is required to paint when you have none.

It is nice when you have a little left in the end of the day.

That little bit can make a difference.

Instead I sit and stare at my paintings in process and say I can’t. I can not see it happening.

My birthday was in October.

My birthday marks another year for me more importantly than the annual New Years Eve party and celebration that takes place every year in January throughout the United States.

I like that day too but my birthday is a special day that bookmarks my unique timeline.

It is telling me I have one year before I reach another decade in my life and part of a century as well.

So instead of a party…my goal is to have another art showing or another one lined up by my next birthday.

A show usually consist of 10-15 paintings. That is a painting a month. Is it do able yes. Can I find the time that is the question of the day?

Some how I was able to miss three deer standing in the middle of the road yesterday so I feel anything is possible today.

I call it the Finnish Sisu.

Sisu is about taking action against the odds and displaying courage and resoluteness in the face of adversity. Deciding on a course of action and then sticking to that decision against repeated failures is sisu.

First dandelion ever

Image

This is a 24″ x 20″ portrait that I am finally starting. I’m working on the preliminary sketch which I will get quite detailed with. I’ll lose it all once I start painting but I’ll have some good coordinates to work from. This is not a picture that I took but instead a photograph that was taken by my client and was asked if I could do a portrait from it. This is a very nice image although I did crop it by switching it from a landscape image to a portrait image. This is day #2, Day #1 was printing the picture and doing the grids.

There is no work of art so big or so small

eBay413 276

She used to drag her mattress beside her low window and lie awake for a long while, vibrating with excitement, as a machine vibrates from the speed. Life rushed in upon her through that window-or so it seemed. In reality, of course, life rushes from within, not from without. There is no work of art so big or so small  that it was not once all contained in some youthful body, like this one which lay on the floor in the moonlight, pulsing with ardor and anticipation.

Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark

eBay413 273

Inspiration comes when it wants. The secret is to sit and wait for it or bore yourself silly. When it does come it is fleeting and it’s brilliant. The moment is more real than any other moment.

I love the early stages of a painting. It’s muddy, sloppy and wet. It’s just a  bunch of ground work that makes no sense to anyone and not even me sometimes.

Almostfinnish current news;

Forced lockdown of a city. Militarized police riding tanks in the streets. Door-to-door armed searches without warrant. Families thrown out of their homes at gunpoint to be searched without probable cause. Businesses forced to close. Transport shut down.

These were not the scenes from a military coup in a far off banana republic, but rather the scenes just over a week ago in Boston as the United States got a taste of martial law. The ostensible reason for the military-style takeover of parts of Boston was that the accused perpetrator of a horrific crime was on the loose. The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city. This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.                                                                                                             
Ron Paul