Painting color drenched artworks of places and things I love
A little while ago I was hunting for a painting subject and decided to revisit this scene I have painted a couple of times before. This pond garden was such a serene spot when I visited Clark Botanical Garden in my area and I enjoy looking at it.
Here it is in watercolor once again. I tried to leave more white space and introduce some brighter colors this time around.
Twenty minutes of work to keep it light, fresh and to enjoy the process.
Making art is a tough business to be in especially if the artist is the “at home” person. How I even make things happen around here is probably a miracle.
Yes, miracles do exist. They happen all around us. The trick is to keep our eyes open and be aware.
Synchronicity is one of those miracles that, if we go along with it, happens over and over by some magic trick of fate.
Once the “work” begins something unusual occurs: more work. Then the cascade of opportunities open up.One thing suddenly leads to the next, and the next. It’s so weird.
Let me explain the latest run in with the Muse.
An author acquaintance, who purchased a couple of my small watercolors last spring, contacted me to paint something for her newest book venture. As I’ve been going the rounds with Mr. Resistance lately, I agreed thinking it’d be the best thing to keep me accountable. Obviously, the 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge did not work this time around. What, 3 paintings? Nope, not good.
She sent me the photo above as an idea of what she was thinking and I set to work, coming up with my own version of this photo. The shapes and contrasts were interesting enough for me to keep working on it. Twenty minutes in I stopped working because if I didn’t it would be destined for the trash can.
This will be my second year participating in the Twitter Art Exhibit which is being held in Moss, Norway. Last year it was in Orlando, Florida. It’s a fun idea open only to artists using twitter. I’ve made some lovely connections with other artists across the globe, sharing ideas, our process, and our art.
The sale of each postcard-sized work will benefit a group called Home-Start Moss, which helps families in need. Artist David Sandum of Norway is a foundering member of the exhibit.
I’m happy to have done my piece and sent it out. This little painting made it safely to it’s overseas destination intact.
For me it’s an incentive to get to work done, push aside Mr. Resistance so I can meet up with The Muse at my art space. And that ain’t easy, as I’ve mentioned many times before.
Now, I know I’m going to hear it, that painting is a joy, all freedom and light, happy little trees in the forest Bob Ross stuff.
Creating art is a tough job and I’m a slacker lately. Totally unprofessional.
Shhh, don’t tell my guru Steven Pressfield. He’s already pegged me for an amateur.
You’ve got to be made of strong stuff to tangle in the creative realm. Distractions abound around every corner. The Muse waits for no one. Mr. Resistance, on the other hand, stays well past his welcome. He’s pretty sly, that guy.
Yes, the crickets are chirping here.
Yes, I’ve made it to the studio to get some work done.
Yes, it may not be pretty, but hey, I’m here.
Right?
The last beautiful, warm day in autumn just called for a quick visit to my favorite spot, Pt. Lookout beach. A wide open sky, calm ocean waves, with the crisp salty breeze made this day perfect.
With my granddaughter in tow, we surveyed every bit of seashell, discarded horseshoe crab carcasses, and our footprints in the sand.
The expanse of beach was limitless, as were our hearts, open and free.
Remember that give-away I said I wanted to get going? The one about adding emails to my soon-to-be newsletter thingy? My friends out there, you guys who read this blog about my bouts with Mr. Resistance as I paint, if you sign on to be added to the email list I will be giving away that free book to one of you lucky friends.
Here’s where it gets tricky. I’m adding some info here, and since I’m not a computer whiz I can’t be sure how it will look. But I’m going to try so take a look at the link here:
Does that look dopey or what?
Well, this is how it’s going to work. Sign up on my email list on the upper right corner and leave a comment at this post saying you signed up. When the campaign ends, which looks like it’s soon the way this works, I’ll announce the winner of the book The War of Art, by my guru Steven Pressfield, and send it out.
Let’s see how things go, okay? No judgement please, I’m new at this thing.
If Resistance couldn’t be beaten, there would be no Fifth Symphony, no Romeo and Juliet, no Golden Gate Bridge. Defeating Resistance is like giving birth. It seems absolutely impossible until you remember that women have been pulling it off successfully, with support and without, for fifty million years.
Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
As my “friend and mentor” Steven Pressfield writes in his great work The War of Art, Mr. Resistance can be beat. I can tell you he’s right because I’ve been successful at it, here and there.
If beating down Resistance would happen each and every day, it would be a grand thing for me.
A while ago I received this great gift in the mail. I wrote a post about it at the time, too. The publicist of the author Steven Pressfield, (a genius on artists and Resistance in my opinion), Callie Oettinger, sent me copies of his books after reading my tales of Resistance woe. Needless to say, I was in heaven.
This blog was new in this WordPress space, having migrated it from Blogger, and I thought it would be a great idea to do a give-away contest with these great books as a gift for readers who signed on to my email list.
Guess what happened? You know it! Mr. Resistance decided that it would be such a stupid idea. He told me I wouldn’t be able to figure out how to do it anyway so why bother. That guy did so much yapping in my brain I couldn’t stand it.
This email sign up stuff has been the hardest thing I’ve had to overcome. Since reading The War of Art I recognize it’s the one thing I need to do to move ahead. I’m having Email List nightmares.
Have I figured out how to manage the give-away? Nope, but I’m determined to do it now as soon as possible. I’m going to give myself a deadline and tell you right now that by year’s end I am giving away The War of Art to a random person who signs up for my list, details to come.
There, I’ve thrown down the gauntlet Mr. Resistance. Let’s watch the fireworks happen now.
Daylight savings time is a real drag on me. When the clocks need to spring forward or fall backward my brain and body can’t handle the action.
My inner clock is thrown off balance. I usually don’t need a watch to tell the time, except when the day comes for the annual clock adjustment thing. The day is dark when it’s supposed to be light, and light when it’s supposed to be dark.
It’s all very confusing to me.
My father used to tell us, “The time is the time!” He had no patience for any thing other than to follow the correct time, whatever season it was.
If you think about it, he was right. Too much time is spent thinking about time, having enough, not having enough, spending it wisely or not. Deciding whether to spend time on doing something worthwhile, or waste it frivolously on nothing much at all.
Should we be busy? Should we stay idle? What’s the best, or worst, use of our time?
Children can’t wait to grow up, and adults wish they were still young. And time does grow short very quickly, no matter how we mark it as we age.
Staying in the present moment is a tough task, but really the only way to slow down time enough to savor and enjoy it. I try to keep my eyes wide open, calculate every movement, use all the senses at once, to really see and watch and learn and remember everything, and everyone, around me.
Otherwise each delicious moment of the day cannot be counted and drift away. Babies grow up, day becomes night, summer turns into winter, and time runs along.
In the last few months of my art journey, between listening to Mr. Resistance and trying to fend him off, I was intrigued by two kinds of art processes: the daily painting and plein air painting.
As I would love to be one of those intrepid daily painters, I’m not sure I can hack it.
Yes, I’ve been painting in twenty minute segments and getting work done that way. But real daily painting? And to be responsible enough to post that work? Hmm, maybe that’s not me.
Then there’s the plein air painter. Also an intrepid bunch of folk, some of who trudge out to remote locations to paint the scenery. I would love to be one of those artists, and I have done that, but not really equipped the way some are. I am working on that though because I think I could be one.
Then again, I do get anxious thinking I’m all alone somewhere, which I like, but it’s scary too. Anyone one could be lurking about, with little old me happily painting away unaware.
I had an opportunity to join a local group of artists who meet once a month to paint at a local plant and garden nursery. That was great fun to see flowers, tractors, fall scenery, and a rocky waterfall.
I particularly enjoyed the waterfall, and the tractor which I already showed you here.
Take a look at the waterfall sketches I did in my Moleskin notebook:
Quick sketches in micron pen with watercolor washes, and straight watercolor work without pen sketching. The idea was just to get something down on the paper, the feel of the subject, some color and light. That’s it.
Imagine, I did three sketches outside! Next up, I’m investigating outdoor painting easels and pochade boxes. Maybe if I am well equipped I can make the plein air thing happen more often, but nearby, in full view of civilization so I don’t get scared!
Resistance is fear. But Resistance is too cunning to show itself naked in this form. Why? Because if Resistance lets us see clearly that our own fear is preventing us from doing our work, we may feel shame at this. And shame may drive us to act in the face of fear.
Resistance doesn’t want us to do this. So it brings in Rationalization…The spin doctor.
~The War of Art, Steven Pressfield
How does author Steven Pressfield know what is going on in my own head? It’s so easy to just let other things going on in life walk right in and take over my precious time at the easel. Pressfield has such way of explaining Resistance that makes sense to me. I can hear my own New York accent in my head, laying it all out and making it plain as day.
It’s Resistance’s way of hiding the Big Stick behind its back. Instead of showing us our fear (which might shame us and impel us to do our work), Resistance presents us with a series of plausible, rational justifications for why we should’t do our work.
The big take-away is that reading The War of Art, and talking about it with you, really helps me stop letting life stuff distract me.
What Resistance leaves out, of course, is that all this means diddly. Tolstoy has thirteen kids and wrote War and Peace. Lance Armstrong had cancer and won the Tour de France three years and counting.
Reading these words sets me on my path, reminds me what I’m supposed to be doing for the day, and pretty much kicks me in the butt. Well worth the effort.
Just like everyone else in the world, I am a busy person. There’s a lot going on around me, much of it has to come from me, but my real work is painting.
Now what’s the problem?