Coffee And Paint Drips Blog - Page 34 of 79

Thought for Thursday

‎”Everyone has talent at 25. The difficulty is to have it at 50.” ~Edgar Degas, artist

When I signed onto the vegetable CSA for the season I planned to receive flowers and eggs as well as the fruits and vegetables they offered. It’s been interesting to see the different produce I brought home. Some things I never saw before and never want to see again, to be really honest. Let’s say it’s been an experience.

Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the flowers. Those sunflowers had an effect on me from the start. I liked the jaunty way they sat in my vase and I just had to photograph them. The life of fresh flowers is fleeting, so to preserve their beauty I had to take photos. Did I think I would paint them? Yeah, the idea came across. Did I think I would be enamored of sunflowers? Nope.

This painting was the first of the bunch and it was memorable because I painted it in great weather in my backyard garden. It just happened to be a beautiful day with painting happening.

At the end of the summer I added it to my portfolio of work that I brought to the workshop I attended. Did I think it would be purchased during that weekend? Not at all, but that’s exactly what happened, as I said in the post about the workshop. Crazy.

Me, my painting, and happy new owner Grace!

Grace, my table-mate fell in love with my painting and had to have it (her words)! Of course I sold it to her, and we took photographs of the moment. It was a lot of fun. (By the way, Grace makes beautiful pottery and owns her own pottery studio The Potter’s Wheel. Visit her site and Etsy shop when you can.)

Sunflowers Outside hanging in Grace’s home

Just this week Grace posted to Facebook a photograph of the newly matted, framed and hung painting in it’s place of honor in her home. It was a wonderful feeling to know that painting is loved by someone other than me, it’s maker. Doesn’t it look happy? I think it does. And so am I.

Process Leads to Finished

Four Sunflowers 14×20 Watercolor on Lanaquarelle paper
©2011 Dora Sislian Themelis

You see, the process, when implemented by the twenty minute time slots, leads to finished product. It’s a coincidence that I just read something to the effect that artists with a day job should fit creativity time in their day just like this. They should set a timer for twenty minutes and push headlong into painting, or whatever.

Amazing!

I finished this today. Believe me, if I don’t put it away right now I will find some other spot to play with on this work. After I took this photograph I made a small area of the background darker to pop the yellow flower petals a little bit more.

That is my downfall. I tell myself I’m finished and then after I clean the brushes and my palette I spy an area I think needs a flick of the brush. Many a work has been ruined by such impulsiveness.

Forget it, I’ve already uploaded this photo and that’s it. The little brush stuff I just did will have to be discovered by someone else, hopefully a happy art collector.

Just putting it out there into the Universe, hoping the Universe hears that little plea for a buyer to show up and give a nice painting a new home. That’s all.

Thought for Thursday

“Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite — getting something down.” – Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way

Back to Twyla

There hasn’t been much time for reading lately. Painting during the day when I can, and knitting at night takes up my time. I really enjoy reading a good book, too. (And a “real” book at that!)

The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp is a quick read though, and I’d prefer to take my time with it to savor her thoughts of making one’s art a habit. I have read ahead almost to the end, but I haven’t taken notes. When I read The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron, I took plenty of notes, did the exercises and tried to be a good student. This time around I’m not being quite as good. I’m just reading.

However, I am taking away some very helpful points and ideas. There are things I already know about myself that Tharp discusses in her book, one idea is to build up a tolerance for solitude. Well, I’ve got that one down well. I know I need it and can do it very well, thanks.

I can imagine that there are some people to whom quietness and solitude could not be a good thing. Not for a long stretch anyway.

Tharp says: “Some people are autophobic. They’re afraid to be alone. The thought of going into a room to work all by themselves pains them in a way that is, at first, paralyzing within the room, and then keeps them from entering the room altogether. It’s not the solitude that slays a creative person. It’s all that solitude without a purpose. You’re alone, you’re suffering, and you don’t have a good reason for putting yourself through that misery…you need a goal.”

It’s impossible to me to be miserable in a room all by myself. No suffering here. I’m a person who enjoys my own company. I have many things around me that keep me busy and give me inspiration. My goal is the solitude itself within which I can then create.

Some people, for the life of them, cannot be alone for any stretch of time. There is no goal. They are lonely and sick without interaction with other individuals.

“Alone is a fact, a condition where no one else is around. Lonely is how you feel about that.”

Now I am Famous, Sort of

A funny thing happened on my way to my painting spot. I got side tracked by iPad. It’s been happening lately. That pesky iPad makes me take detours and it’s not pretty. The convenience of having computer accessibility anywhere in my house could be a good thing, but it’s both good and bad.

I don’t need more distractions than I already can handle.

So I found myself in a trance in front of the iPad screen looking at everything this week! Emails, facebook, twitter, the blogs I write for, just everything. Up pops a new email from someone I do not know. Should I open it? Is it spam?

To make a long story kinda short, it was from someone involved in a website called Become.com and they read my blog and wanted to feature it on their site in a monthly e-magazine section called Pocketchange “Best of the Web” with a few other neat blogs. How cool is that?

When I made sure it was legit, hey you never know, I responded with Yes! I sent them a blurb about my blog and a photo, the one posted here today.

It feels nice to be recognized for my writing and painting skills! Gee, this must be my next fifteen minutes of fame right here. Wow, I don’t want to get a swelled head or anything like that. Ha ha! Right.

Painting Photo for Friday

Finished another watercolor painting! I am on a roll. Actually, I just wanted this one done with. When I am ready for something else I get antsy to finish and continue. Not like other times when I don’t even touch the paints. No, I am trying to behave and keep working.

For each painting session I was still using twenty minute segments, letting the work dry in between. And here I am painting from photographs, too. There was a time I just couldn’t do that. The subject had to be live. But the blue tractor was adorable, and I liked the scenery. So there you go.

Now I’m over it.

Thought for Thursday

“It took me forty years to find out that painting is not sculpture.” ~ Paul Cezanne, artist