What’s New?

Webbed, photograph
“We tend to think things are new because we’ve just discovered them.”
- Madeleine L’Engle
I wonder whether artists 100 years ago found it easier to believe they were being creative in a unique way? These days it is so easy to see the art of others.
Thousands of individual websites, blogs, online galleries, social networking art [...]

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What’s Bugging You?

Infernal, 10 x 10″ Acrylic and Spackle on Illustration Board
“You are no bigger than the things that annoy you”
- Jerry Bundsen
I love the efficient wisdom of this quote. What you let bother you defines you. Makes you think twice about to what exactly you are willing to concede that power to.
I’ll admit it – I [...]

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In a Land Far, Far Away…

Nova, 10 x 10″ Acrylic, Spackle on Illustration Board
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all sciences.”
- Albert Einstein
Is all beauty mysterious?
What makes something mysterious? Is it just that we don’t understand it? I think there is more to it since I don’t [...]

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How to Avoid Failure

Meteoric, 8 x 7″ monoprint, ink and pastel
“There is no such thing as failure. There are only results.”
- Anthony Robbins
We are in such a rush to judge. Perhaps artists are even more prone to this pernicious tendency because we are always trying to figure out if what we’re doing is any good. Should we do [...]

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So Much From So Little

Cosmos, 6 x 6″ monoprint, ink and pastels
“My studio begins at the art supply store. I imagine all the paintings trapped inside those tubes of paint.”
- John Ferrie
One thing that amazes me about art is the variety and complexity of what can be created from the simplest of elements and tools.
I know of some painters [...]

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A Man with a Plan

Emerging, 6 x 6″ ink, newsprint
“I found that if I planned a picture beforehand, it never surprised me, and surprises are my pleasure in painting.”
- Ives Tanguy
“Without planning, your painting will probably be indecisive and fragmented, and you’ll try to say too much in one picture.”
- Ron Ranson
So which camp do you fall into?
I must [...]

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Simple or Complicated

Oriental Grunge, 10 x 15 acrylic, ink
“In mathematics the complicated things are reduced to simple things. So it is in painting.”
- Thomas Eakins
As artists we are taught that it is better to simplify what we put in our paintings – as Robert Browning said, “less is more”. When we start to paint objects or the [...]

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Avoiding the Straight and Narrow

Ikebana 1, 10 x 15″ acrylic, inks
“When the snake decided to go straight, he didn’t get anywhere.”
- William Stafford
Our artistic paths have a trajectory that is unique to each of us. About the only thing they have in common is that they are not straight, often to our dismay. It seems like we’d get to [...]

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The Artful Life

Dreamcatcher, 11 x 15″ acrylic, ink
“The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.”
- Robert Henri
Maybe if we focus more on what this state is and how to get ourselves into it and less on making art, more art would get made.
While this state may be different [...]

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Naked Painting

Dreamweaver, 11 x 15″ acrylic, ink
“You must learn [...] to manifest the wildness of an artist. This wildness has many faces. It is an amalgam of passion, vitality, rebelliousness, nonconformity, freedom from inhibitions. Think of this wildness as ‘working naked’.”
- Eric Maisel
Maisel recommends taking this literally -  take off your cloths to paint! He mentions [...]

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