Blog

In my last blog I featured a little painting called "Rock Band". MY painting method got me out of the creative dry spell I had been in -  thick, fast, and loose and not much attention paid to details. In fact, I literally "painted what I saw" without much regard to what each shape and color was. I am telling the truth when I tell you that, until I was halfway finished with the painting, I did not identify the guy at the keyboard in the center of the painting as my own son John!

This is not a bad thing. As many agree, a bad painting habit can be to get overly caught up in details without letting the painting do the deciding, and letting the creative side of the brain take over. And, here is another example: my original purpose for writing today's blog was to extol the virtues of painting a series on a single subject, or of a single style or atmosphere. And, actually, I do think that this is a fine idea - to thoroughly explore whatever it is that has caught your attention as a creative person. After viewing "Rock Band" last week, several people asked me if was going to paint more works in my "new style", which they said they loved - loose, liquid and swooshy. And I will, and the attached painting "Cowboy on Bourbon Street" is the first of a series I am calling "Night Lights". Two or three more paintings will probably be in this series, and I am tweaking my materials or methods or subject matter each time. It's a learning experience for me and very enjoyable.

But my secondary purpose for this blog has turned out to be an encouragement to artists to allow themselves to veer off the path most traveled (by them) and to experiment with letting their "fingers do the walking" to see what happens. It might be a happy surprise!

I was just going to say that I "worked hard" in getting myself out of a dry spell, but that is almost the opposite of what I did - I actually worked around it. My studio never looked neater than now, I have lists of things to do and people to contact and upcoming shows and blogs to write, and on and on. These are things that needed doing, but tended to get shoved aside for the greater pleasure of slapping paint on a canvas. Can't tell you how many times I have heard women artists say they wished they had a wife to do all of the above, as many male artists have. Maybe that is a good thing after all.

After a couple of days of puttering, (and one has to be careful not to get carried away in that mode and get stuck there) I got a small canvas and a favorite easy subject and painted. And, hurrah, it felt good and the painting wasn't half bad. Started a second canvas from a photo of a rock band - "Dead Western Plains" (don't ask, I don't know) sent to me by my son several months ago. Good time to try it, I thought. Had...a...blast!!

Going to keep that attitude. Yes, making good art is work, as we all know. But if you don't love your work, it will look like it.