Boldness

A bold line in a painting is a confident line! It is not a well-thought-out, calculated line. It is not schooled and hammered in. It is boldness that you can feel.

To get a bold line you have to give in to what it wants not what you want. You have to trust that you won’t wreck the painting and if you do it will be for the better. A bold line is a bold life and it is done fast. But not the usual fast. It is a plunge into the realm of no fear.

Everything in life is like that line on a canvas.  You have to just go and trust that you will not kill anything that was worth keeping. I am speaking on a lot of levels now. Artists know what I mean. because they live there and have experienced it.

Today, live with boldness anywhere you can and you will find that you can find it in a lot more places than you  thought.

The underpainting

I do paintings in layers. Without my layers there isn’t much there. What are the layers.  Not just a bunch of paint I smushed on there for effect. They are paintings that for one reason or another were not worthy enough to stay alive. I paint over them. If I can stand to do it I figure they must not be good enough.

The only problem with that is I kill a lot of good paintings and it leaves me sick that I made such a rash decision. So the underpainting might be another really good one that got killed. The many lives of my girls can be seen if you look just under the surface. I think it makes them way more interesting to look at.

Yesterday and Tomorrow

Everything you did yesterday makes today what it is. and everything you do today makes tomorrow what it is.

True or false?

false

You can turn at any point and go an entirely different direction. No matter what happens today does not have wreck tomorrow. You just don’t know what is around the corner in the area of possibilities.

When I lived in San Francisco, I found that nothing was permanent. What I learned was no matter how hard one thing was it was not the way it was always going to be. If you keep that in the forefront of your mind you will not despair and you will appreciate it when things are going good. Life lived striving for the best in every situation will be most enjoyable and wonderful and you don’t need to worry about tomorrow.

I have been hearing a lot about doom and horrific economic upheaval ahead of us, Well that may be true but in the middle of the new thing will be a new road we did not see before and I am sure that all things will work for good for those that trust in the Lord. that is the key.

Piece of my heart

The thing that is sort of hard is selling a painting that has not been around very long. Once I just finished a painting and the gallery owner came to my house and took and and sold it practically the next day. I never even got a picture of her and I wish I had one. That was back in the day of having to take a picture and wait for it to come back from the photographer to see it. Now we can get in image immediately.

I miss the one that got away as it is foggy in my brain after all these years. Everything I paint now is for someone else. David Hockney said that it was sort of sad to not get to be around his new work at all but always it goes out the door.

Your children are always leaving before you can be with them awhile. But that is the cost. They have to leave and make room for more. Take another little piece of my heart now baby.

the next thing

What happens when you finish the show?  You have to immediately start the next one. So you had a good show.  That lasts for the night of the show. Even while the paint is still wet on the first show, you have to be thinking about the next thing.

It has been my experience that when I am busy painting I can do better paintings right after I just finished a lot of them. Creativity breeds more creativity. Momentum and follow through. “Strike while the iron is hot” is especially true for artists. there is no room for slackers in this profession.

So the next show is a brewing in my brain as we speak and soon it will see the light of day. The goal this year is to get into three more galleries. I am never more alive than when there is the pressure to get it out. Yes and amen to living the creative life. I could not be more in my element. I am flying…

error: Please do not copy.