Month: January 2011

I am working on some valentines for the shop to sell for an inexpensive little gift for someone. I am writing love notes on the sides of the paintings. and It is so much fun that I feel like I am in love . Funny how that is. The sun is out and the effects of the light is feeding the love. Sound silly. well it is not.

Yesterday I was totally in the dumps and that it is unusual for me. I was thinking about negative things and not having any energy to get away from them. But the valentines got me up and out of my weird thoughts and into how wonderful other people are. Love chases away sadness like a whip, snap it right out of you.

Write someone a valentine and give it to them. it lasts longer if you put it in a card so they can touch it when they feel blue.  Blue and red make purple and purple is a royal color that you cannot be sad in. Impossible.

I have had quite a few people ask me about prints of my work. I have put it off for years as the I don’t quite know if that wold be a good idea.  I came to the conclusion that limited edition prints were the way to go. That is what I am going to start doing. No more than 25 prints of any painting.

I would pay a lot to have a print of a lot of artists paints just to have them in the house. A print can be a good second best for someone who is out of my price point. I would rather pay more to have one made at a time than the whole line done at once. So if you see anything on my website that you would like made into a high quality print, let me know.

I am also going to make another line of work specifically for tableware. One thing I have learned about being an artist is you have to listen to what your market is telling you they want.  As I often say, there are two ways to learn:  listen or pain.

People usually say that you must have been inspired when you do a really good work. What does inspired mean? You got a good idea, or you were influenced, or what??  How can you be inspired?

Its a trap. Inspiration is nothing more than showing up for work. Do what you do and keep doing it. The best best best paintings I ever did were done when I had nothing left. When I had no idea what to do and I was sort of sick to my stomach that I did not have anything and sort of anxious and weepy and really upset and sleepy and stuck.

When I come to the end of all my great ideas then and only then does something really great get done.  Inspired? just the opposite. That is when I find the thing that I am looking for. two seconds before I throw myself off a bridge. So inspiration is kind of a constant suicide to get you out and something bigger than you in.

So when you are upset and cranky, something good is coming. you are just experiencing the death rattle of your ego. It puts up a fight every, every, every day.

I was thinking about how people pay big money for a simple drawing that Picasso did. My friend said that it was because it was Picasso and that is all that mattered. I disagree.

When you are an artist you spend your whole life refining your style and when you have refined it to a point that a simple drawing is wonderful, it is wonderful because it has all those years poured into it. There comes a point where whatever you do will have value because of the life that is embedded.

My friend Susan Cowan can do a three-minute drawing that that can take your breath away. In fact she cannot do a bad drawing. Sometimes the drawings are more pure than the finished paintings because they are the essence of the whole thing and are easily absorbed into your brain. Beauty is beauty.

So to make a long idea short:  No, it is not just marketing that makes drawings important.