Artists are eternal optimists.

            Everyday we go into the studio and think, “Today is the day that I am going to paint the perfect painting.” Each painting is started with great hope, adequate courage and absolute resolve. 

       Each painting is its own world. It seems to impose its own laws of structure. Each succeeding decision is affected by the previous one. It you put a certain color or shape down, the next own has to relate to the previous one. It’s like constructing a sentence.

The subject has to relate to the predicate—the noun to the verb. Then come the adverbs, the connecting words, and the punctuation. After that, comes the rewriting for better effect, the correcting and perfecting of what’s there. It’s a process that is different each time.

      Each painting is a world to be explored, a spiritual place to be nurtured and built. Sometimes it’s pure magic to paint.

It seems to flow off the brush. You can do no wrong. These are the periods of pure concentration when all the work and training that have gone before this moment are suddenly available to draw upon. 

 

 Those are the times an artist lives for. But they don’t happen all the time, or even very often. When they do, it’s enough to keep you going for another month--or at least the rest of the day. So I am still cranking out small paintings, cocooned in my little world of warmth, while outside piles of snow are starting to melt. It's a good life. Thank you, God!

 

 

 

 

           The snow has fallen continually for 14 hours so far today. It sleeted and snowed through the night but I don’t know if it was constant or intermittent. All the peasants rejoiced because we didn’t lose power this time. Yeah! There is barely any traffic on the highway—only a few pick-ups, semis and an occasional plow. So it was a good day to be in the studio.

  

 

    I worked on more small paintings. It’s becoming easier to break down a complex visual image into its basic components, i.e., to simplify. Forcing myself to work within a smaller space requires a different kind of concentration. I am also learning that small paintings can have as great an impact as big paintings.

 The question of the day would have to be: How can I get George Clooney to fall into one of my paintings?  I was listening to NPR this morning and the talking heads were speculating on the possible scenario that if George Clooney had fallen into the $80 million Picasso at the Met, it would not devalue it at all. In fact, it might even raise its value. But alas, it was just some clumsy no-name that tripped into the painting and damaged it. I sure hope her art student insurance covers such things. You just never know when you are going to have an intense encounter with some art. I wonder who will be the first to try and get the movie rights.        

 

            I listened to Public Radio all morning while I painted, trying to hear updates about the impending storm. I heard the droning rehash of the State of the Union speech. It all started to fade into a big mishmash after a while. Personally I thought it sounded a lot like a campaign speech. I truly hope Obama can accomplish all he wants to. We should really pray for him.

He has a huge weight on his shoulders: us.

Today I painted more small paintings. It’s fun.

The trick is to not over paint them. Just simplify the big shapes. Suggest, don’t delineate. Less is truly more when working so small. Keep it simple, smarty.

 

            Today disappeared. I did a few more small paintings, then spent part of the afternoon putting the latest batch of small works into the frames that Ron had already built. That always takes more time than I think it should. Each painting needs to be photographed, titled, catalogued, varnished, framed, backed, and made ready to hang. It’s a lot to do.

            There’s a big winter storm scheduled to arrive in the morning, so the town is bracing for another blast. We already had a big storm this year and had hoped that that was it. We are all a bit gun shy from this time last year when we lost power for a week, lost lots of trees, lost a week of income, and had a lot of damage to our properties. Then there was the clean-up, repair and restocking. Oh my!

            So tonight there are all sorts of warnings about potential power loss and dangerous travel, etc. Oh darn! I hope they are wrong. I have a good friend who is a radio weatherman. He says it’s the only job where you can be consistently wrong, and still keep your job. Oh, well, even if they are right this time, I do think our town might be better able to persevere through this storm, since we have such a wealth of experience under our collective belt. Still, it looms large before us.

         More little paintings! In fact, they’re stacked on the dining room table, on the hearth, in the studio, and in the living room. I’m really getting into them. They’re fun and challenging. The trick is to nail it the first time. If you start fussing with them, they quickly become ruined. It’s more apparent how the concept of “put it down and leave it alone” works when using a small scale. When a painting is larger, there is a lot of room for aimless wandering, flights of fancy and just plain dabbling.

 

     If you don’t have the overall concept communicated through the big shapes and colors, more detail is not going to help your plight in the least. If the essential idea is not in the first bare minimum block-in, wipe it off and start again. Better to not waste time on something with little chance of success.

         Yesterday was spent getting ready for our Monday night writers group. I dashed off a quick movie rant about Avatar, so I would have something to read to the gang. They thought it was great fun, so I decided to share it with whatever readers I might have out there.  (Hi, Mom!!)

            AVATAR, by Jody Stephenson

            Avatar, a word you type with one hand—if you keep your fingers where they are supposed to be, that is. Try it. It feels really weird. It’s also a movie you watch with one side of your brain—although it is my favorite side. It’s a totally right-hemisphere extravaganza, complete with chest pains, shoulder tightness, lock jaw, and post-movie visual disturbances. Migraine sufferers, beware!

            Like most junior high boys, I love fabulous blockbuster breathtaking seat-of-your-pants special effects. I love galaxies far far away, going where no man has gone before, and fighting for the ring of power amid evil war lords, orcs, goblins, elves, wizards, and hobbits. It thrills me to see rainbow-colored winged pterodactyls communicating with humans via organic uplink. I love metallic bluish hammer-headed rhino-creatures powerful enough to destroy a tank full of marines with a simple toss of their heads. I love seeing the animals take back their planet.

            Floating mountains? Trees made of lighted living tentacles with leaves big enough to sleep in? Collapsible helicoradian flowers? You bet! I’ll even put up with mega-firepower, over-extended battle scenes and stereotypical tanked-up-on-testosterone marine colonels to see such gorgeous special effects. Count me in. Trading my old corrupt body for a younger, bluer, purer, more powerful, nature-respecting, eco-nurturing version of myself? Sign me up! What more could I ask for? You wouldn’t think there would be anything. Yet I found myself yearning for substance, for something of lasting value—even lasting enough for the day after the movie.

            Even though the special effects nearly made me pass out, it was hard to remember any of it the next day. It was like a good drunk without the hangover, and without any memory of it—except that it was great fun. At least I think it was.

            Maybe I’m a racist. Maybe I can only empathize with depictions of the human race in the movies. Although in my defense, I was very sad when Nero destroyed the planet Vulcan in the latest Star Trek movie. I cheered for the Wookies when the Empire tried to take them over, and Yoda was my favorite character in the entire Star Wars universe. So why not blue creatures with cool braids? Why did I not give a fig about them? And why not humans transferring their consciousness into blue Na’vi bodies? Ho Hum!

            There’s still a place for good characters, even in sci-fi blockbuster mega-movies. You still want to care about the people, creatures, aliens and/or computer-generated characters in the movie you are investing your money and emotional effort into. I.e. there’s a desperate need for good screenwriting—especially now that the movies are so great that they can have an awesome impact on the psyches of junior high boys everywhere. Writers, rise up! Take back the movies. Fight for the lives of good characters on the screen. Never give up; never surrender!

            Considering the current economy, I am trying extra hard in my studio to use all materials on hand, to reuse and recycle everything I can think of in as creative a way as possible, to not waste any piece of flat paintable surface of any kind, and to have considerable gratitude that I am able to paint.  I am very thankful for my life and I don’t always convey the appropriate attitude to those around me. It’s easy to get caught up in day-to-day struggles, forgetting that mine are much smaller struggles than many people have to fight. Some people are fighting fire-breathing dragons while I am only battling a killer rabbit.

            In the interest of making more affordable art for my customers, I am doing a series of smaller paintings (8”x10” to 11”x14”).

 

I am trying to capture the peaceful landscapes around here, the beautiful skies, the rolling hills, the lakes and rivers, and the trees.

            Today was a good day. I put the finishing touches on the three florals that I showed you yesterday. I also stretched and primed some canvases to paint on. Ready for the next rush of creativity!

 

         Then I finally finished a couple of plein air paintings that had been sitting against the studio wall since summer. Our plein air group goes out every week—weather permitting. We spend a few early morning hours painting on location.

 

 

 

     You have to paint fast and fresh. I don’t recommend working on paintings in the studio that have been started on location. It never seems to work very well—at least, don’t do anything but a few touches.

  

 

 

 I made an amazing decorating discovery today:

the Pekingese pillow!   

They’re very expensive.

In fact, they’re priceless.

 

 

 

 

           After seeing Avatar yesterday, painting seems like standing still. What a ride that was. My neck still hurts. An awesome movie that really shook me up. Such beauty I’ve only seen in my dreams. Oh, to have such a sweeping vision as James Cameron! It looks like the next wave in movie-making is upon us. It was as monumental as Star Wars in the break it made with its predecessors.

         I felt like a kindergartener going back into my little studio with my little paints and canvases. But I have to do something so I continue working. Since I had been doing such heavy subject matter lately, I thought I would take a break and do some florals. I needed to loosen up, play with the paint, and have a little fun. It’s just plain fun to paint. Even though it is hard work, and I constantly strive to become a better painter, it’s a wonderful thing to be a full-time artist.

          Even though an artist wishes they could spend every minute in the studio, it’s not possible. That is, if you want to have any kind of life. There are chores to do, bills to pay, movies to watch, poetry to write, and books to read—not to mention, marketing and framing, friends and family, church and civic duties. In short, there’s a life to be lived outside the studio. If you want to have any kind of balance in your life, you will need to pay attention to both sides of your life: art and non-art. Better yet, bring art into every part of your life. Of course, the work is ever-present in your thoughts. The work is like a friend, a lover, a taskmaster, an obsession, an addiction, and a mission. It shouldn’t be everything, but it almost is. You feel lost without it, guilty when you’re away from it, sad that you can’t be near it, empty without its comforting grasp around you. It’s a crazy wonderful job. But, once in a while, go somewhere different. Get away from the usual surroundings, and pretend you’re a normal person.

1.17.10

            I did some work on “Heal our Land.” The circular shapes in the lower left-hand quadrant were not working out so I had to deconstruct most of them. The digital image doesn’t really show the nice transition from the warm colors on the right to cooler colors on the left. All it gives you is a vague idea of how this painting looks.  I signed it, so it might be done.

           

            I made the adjustments to the upper right hand quadrant of “Weather Prayer.” Also a few minor touches that you can’t really detect in this little image of it. It also has a signature in the corner, so it might be done. Sometimes I just sign it to end the tension of knowing whether a painting is done or not. It doesn’t always mean that it’s done, but it takes the pressure off. Sometimes I work on it a lot more, even covering over the signature a few times.

  

            I worked quite a bit on “Apocalypse,” making some major compositional changes. I had to remove the big sphere shape from the lower left-hand quadrant. It just wasn’t working out.  Instead I put the sphere shape in the upper right-hand quadrant, and also a half-spherical shape in the middle left area as a counterbalance. I feel like the composition is well balanced now. I don’t know if the painting is good or bad, but I learned something valuable through the process: that the apocalypse is all about balance. I can’t believe I never saw it before. The thesaurus says that the word apocalypse means “a day of reckoning, Judgment Day, the end of the world, disaster, or catastrophe.” A day of reckoning what? The imbalance in the world—the injustice, the rampant evil, the abuse and misuse of natural resources, the cruelty of humanity—all of it will be brought out into the light and put right. The cries and prayers offered up through all the years of history will be addressed by the high court of heaven. Those are lofty ideas to try and paint. Who do I think I am?

            Sometimes my inner critic tells me that I’m foolish, that people will laugh at this kind of painting. Maybe they will and maybe they won’t. They probably won’t laugh to my face, so what do I have to lose? Anyway, our Sunday school teacher said today that we should “de-compete.” I really like that. I’m only competing with myself as an artist. This kind of work is very personal. It’s not about proving anything. It’s about exploring and sharing a visual message with anyone who might enjoy it. Not everyone will relate to it. That’s okay. That’s how it is with every painting.

            “Night Prayer” is still in progress. I don’t know if it will become what I want it to or not. I always wish I was a better painter. My ideas far exceed my skills. But I guess that’s the fun of it. If every idea was easy to do, it would be boring. Some painting ideas I had for twenty years before I attempted to actually paint them. Some ideas I still haven’t done to my satisfaction. That’s what keeps me going back into the studio.

            I couldn’t stand the trees in the snow scene so I worked on them quite a while. I still don’t know if they’re okay. Doing bare limbs is a challenge. The best rule is always: Simplify. That would seem simple, but it is the most advanced concept in painting. Look at the great masters of painting. When they first started, usually their work was very complicated, i.e., it took a lot of strokes for them to say what they wanted to say. But look at their work in its full maturity. They can say so much with just a few strokes. Look at what Matisse could say with a few lines. He said more with a simple line drawing than he did in some of his more complex compositions.

            The message is: Keep it simple and you won’t be stupid!

            Yesterday I was blog-less. The computer would have none of it.

             I did work in the studio a few hours--continuing to work on the paintings in progress. I am really starting to have a relationship with them. They are beginning to say something beyond mere paint.          

            “Heal our Land” is shaping up. It still has some issues, but none unsolvable. Painting is all about solving problems. When there are no more problems to solve, the painting is finished. As an ever-evolving artist you will not always solve the problems as well as you might wish you could. It’s a life-long journey to become really proficient in painting. When you have solved the problems to the best of your ability and skill level, you will have to either accept your accomplishment or reject it. You will need to tell yourself, “This is the best I can do right now. I am happy with this level of painting for now, but I will try to do better in the next one.” If you can’t do that--shred it, burn it, or paint over it.

            This photo does not accurately capture the colors. I am trying to do this blog all by myself, so it makes painfully obvious who the photographer in the family is. Definitely Ron!

            I like the concept of a prophet sent to help heal our land, as the world seems to be coming apart at the seams. I suppose we are each one a prophet in our own corner of the world. We each must care for the land immediately around us, try to make our communities better, sustain the local economy, help our friends and neighbors, and speak words of hope and encouragement to a world in desperate need of healing. Anyway, that is the concept for this painting. It is a challenge to show order coming out of darkness and chaos. I am still working on it.

            I really like this painting, “Laundry Prayer.” I’m going to put it away for a while until I can be more objective. It might be done already. Remember what I said about painting too much?! I think the fairly monochromatic palette helps communicate the message of this painting. Prayer is all about finding light and becoming clean through communing with God. Prayer is hanging your laundry over the abyss.

      I did some more work on “Weather Prayer.” It is nearing completion. The statue of the saint needs a few more touches, but minor difficulties are usually easily overcome. I might glaze over the upper right hand corner with a purplish glaze to make it less dominant and differentiate it from the area just below it. After that, I will put it away for a while. Time to start some new ones.

            By the way, all these paintings are in preparation for the 5^th Annual 2010 “Art as Prayer” Show at Studio 62 during the month of May. It’s always a great event.

            Last night was the first ECHO clinic. We sneaked in for a few minutes to see how the place looked with the furniture arranged, and all the people there. It was very rewarding to see how much difference the paintings made in the way the room felt. It seemed warm and cozy, even welcoming. That’s how a clinic should feel--like a healing place.

            The working title for this painting is “Night Prayer.” First, the idea is sketched on the toned canvas in rough simplified shapes. I am attempting to portray the feeling a person has when they are drifting off to sleep, entering a dream state, yet still in a prayerful mindset--hoping to hear something from God or at least to connect with their own subconscious. It is hard to communicate elusive states of being in such an immoveable format. Much mystery must be left for the viewer to be able to enter this dream world. It all has to be done with paint—no fog machine, no background music, no time elapsing. Just some paint on a canvas.

 

            The next step is to scrub in some dark areas with a transparent brown (alizarin crimson and sap green mixed together and thinned with medium.) Once it starts to take shape, a bit of cadmium orange is added to the areas that will end up being the lightest values. I try to keep my options open as long as possible, not letting any lines get too definite or any shapes too dominant. Even when you plan a painting, you still have to develop a working partnership with it. You have to let it help you. Let it speak to you. If you can become humble enough, the painting will tell you what it needs. If you just impose your preconceived plan on it without being flexible, you miss out on the many happy accidents and unexpected creative turns that any painting will take, if given half a chance.

 

            Now I’m starting to get somewhere. A dreamy nighttime feeling is evolving. It is beginning to speak to me—opening the door to the realm that I hoped it would. I will need to set it aside where I can live with it for a few days, or weeks, until I know what to do next. I guess that’s why I start so many paintings and set them around the studio. I look at them every time I go in there. Sometimes I just sit in my director’s chair and stare at them. That is a very important part of the working process. As I tell my students, thinking is working!

            The difference between a beginning painter and a more experienced one is that the experienced painter can stop. Beginners paint obsessively, accomplishing little, often painting over the best parts of their work because they didn’t take the time to stop and look at it. Give it a chance. You might surprise yourself. You may even amaze yourself!

 

 

 

 

            Here are some pics of the ECHO installation. They are still working furiously to make their Thursday target date for the first actual clinic. These pictures were taken on Monday 1.10.10. They’ve probably made a lot of progress since then.

            For those of you who don’t know, ECHO is short for Eureka Christian Health Outreach—a free medical clinic started by Dr. Dan and Suzie Bell. They are a model for what people helping people can do for a community. Many volunteers from throughout the entire town are involved in this grassroots effort.

            The clinic has been featured on the Oprah show

http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090416-tows-heroes-hard-times/2

            The ABC evening news:

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=6593866&page=1

            Check out their website:

 http://echofreeclinic.org/newsandevents.html

 

            In our own way, Studio 62 is trying to become a model of art philanthropy—more specifically, an example of what the little guys can do. We are just a small business—doing all of our own work including creating, framing, and marketing our art, in addition to the day-to-day activities of running the gallery. That’s how it is for most artists we know. The artists here in Eureka Springs contribute greatly to the economy—in addition to being giving and caring citizens who use their art for the betterment of the community. 

           

            The days seem to race by. I'm not sure where yesterday went. I think it went "POOF!" I did some work in the studio--mostly on the pastel of the snow scene and on the oil painting "Weather Prayer."

            I think I might have already overworked the snow scene. The funny thing about pastels is how fragile they are, yet how versatile and forgiving they are. The whole pastel process is about "broken color"--like you are trying to make a tasty stew with big chunks of vegetables in it, not a pureed mush like baby food. As you might imagine, it's a lot easier to make mush. You hope that the ingredients will retain their individual taste, yet make a harmonious blend.

            In pastels, a lot of overlapping and intermingling of colored strokes goes into the process. Somehow a balance must be attained between mixing strokes and retaining the individuality of each stroke. It's somewhat like writing your own name on the same page a hundred times. If you write it in the same place and in the same way each time, you have a hard fixed immoveable object in one spot on the paper. On the other hand, if you write your name a hundred times all over the page in different ways and in varying sizes, overlapping now and again, once in a while colliding and covering its own lines, you would probably end up with a much more beautiful pattern. That's how it is with pastels. You have to attain an integrity of strokes and colors. You also have to have some sort of subject matter that is intelligible to the viewer--even if it's an abstract painting. It still has to communicate. The painting must be well done, and it also has to say something and say it uniquely enough that the viewer can think, "Oh, that's a Stephenson."   

            However, the good news is that overworking a painting is not the end of the matter. Go back in and mess it up a bit to get the excitement back. Sometimes you have to shock yourself out of your rut. Scribble across a section you have spent the most time on. Mess it up! Put a kind of stroke on it that you normally wouldn't. Infuriate your uptight left brain hemisphere. It will liberate you. Look at some other artists that you like and try to emulate one of their strokes.  Turn it upside down or on its side. Do whatever you have to do to get your enthusiasm back. If you do not love it, neither will your audience.

           

            "Weather Prayer" is going pretty well. I am satisfied so far. The funny thing about this type of painting is the sort of thinking it inspires about the philosophical and theological levels of the painting concept. When I am trying to paint a cloud that looks 3-dimensional on a 2-dimensional surface, I wonder: how does God work in three dimensions? How does he make a cloud? How much does he control the weather? I know that science has answers for these sorts of questions, but somehow those kinds of thoughts aren't near as fun as the more poetic ones. When I'm painting the stones next to the clouds and the colors overlap, I think about a stone turning into a cloud or conversely a cloud turning into a stone. I think of a cloud forming under a glass goblet and then being captured in a bowl. I think of the complex systems running the universe. I think of the great encounter in the Book of Job when God asks Job, "Where were you when I made the universe?" Then he proceeds to tell Job about the immense undertaking of overseeing all of nature. The poetry is absolutely beautiful. (Listen to the two very different but equally poetic songs by Joni Mitchell and by Michael Card)

            Anyway, all sorts of strange and wonderful thoughts come to me while painting this sort of imagery. That's part of the fun of it.

            Saturdays are generally the busiest day of the week in the gallery so I had a lot of work to do. After the removal of the 41 ECHO paintings, the gallery needed rearranged and tended to. Even though it was extremely cold, with ice and snow still on the ground, some brave souls ventured into the gallery today.

            I didn’t get into the studio until after dinner, but I managed to block in the pastel snow scene that you see here.  It just seemed like a good day to do a snow scene. I applied the pastel directly onto a previously prepared piece of paper that had been painted dark blue (with pumice added to the mixture), and then mounted to a piece of foam core. I didn’t want to overwork it in the first hour, so I stopped when I had a notion that I would go too far if I continued working on it.  You’ve got to give each work of art a fighting chance to become its own unique creation, without interfering too much with the direction it will take. Each work contains its own set of problems with yet-to-be-found solutions. Each piece is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The answers are never quite the same. General principles and experience should guide the artist safely through the process.

            This morning it was still too cold to venture out. There was actually ice on the inside of the windows! I felt like Laura in Dr. Zhivago. It was a good day to be in the studio.

 

     I continued working on several of the paintings that are in progress—including “Apocalpyse” and “Weather Prayer.”

 

 

       Another painting that I haven’t documented yet is called: “Laundry Prayer.” The full title of the work is: “Prayer is hanging your laundry over the abyss.” I think it’s a good definition of prayer, even if I did think of it myself.

 

    I am trying to communicate how prayer feels: that it is a fragile foolish act in which you put great hope and desire. It’s a powerful force that hurts and transforms, humbles and transports, the person who is desperate enough to truly seek the God of all comfort. 

 

     We hung a van-load of art at ECHO (Eureka Christian Health Outreach) this afternoon. The facility is nearly ready for its target opening on the 14^th of January—at least that was the last I heard. It was a flurry of activity: electricians, painters, workers, computer people, floor-finishers, volunteers of all sorts. We hung 41 of my paintings. They put a spark of color and life into the place! It was a pleasure to bless the clinic with art.

 

           Today it is bitterly cold—so cold a person doesn’t want to venture outside. The studio is warm; the dogs are sleeping by the gas stove. All is well inside.

            Here is another sketch that will soon be developed. The working title is “Heal our Land.” The idea for this started after my Mom gave me a stack of Time Magazines that she had recently finished reading, which contain a lot of reflections on the past ten years. They dubbed it “The Decade from Hell.” It just goes to show how our view of hell has changed. I don’t believe we are currently in any sort of hell. Even though our standard of living has fallen, we are still alive. Many of us are still warm and fed, with friends and families, cars and computers, televisions and furniture. We still have some freedom to act in our daily lives in ways that affect our immediate circle of influence. Clearly that does not describe hell. In fact, it sounds like some pretty nice gifts from God.

            Gratitude should be one of our chief goals in 2010. That would go a long way in healing our land. Imagine for just a moment what it would be like if you switched on the evening news and the anchorperson began to extol the beauty of the day, the noble acts committed by ordinary citizens, and the many wonderful things that happened in all parts of the world that very day. Imagine further that this newsperson went on the talk about a glorious future full of hope and promise, about what a difference each person makes in their little corner of the world, about all the things we have to look forward to in the near future. Can you even imagine what impact that would have? Well, guess what? We each have a chance to do that very thing every day to the people we come in contact with.

            But back to the subject of this painting: I like the feeling it has with a bit of paint on it. I like the mystery that shrouds an unfinished painting—when all possibilities are still available and the imagination is free to actively engage in the dialogue. My teacher in Colorado used to tell her class that we all paint too much. For a long time, I did not understand such a remark. But now I do. It’s a common ailment among artists. We close the veil too tightly, nail things down too solidly, and impose the will of our literal left brains to such a degree that we end up stifling the imagination, not to mention the paint quality, i.e. we work it to death. Sometimes less is more. I am hoping I don’t do all of the above to this poor painting. I hope I give it a chance to live!

 

 

            Here’s the sketch for “Weather Prayer.” The idea behind this is the confusion people feel about praying for certain weather to happen or not happen--when they need to travel in safety or when an important outdoor event is imminent. It’s a similar quandary to when opposing football teams are both praying to win. Someone’s inevitably going to be disappointed. If a person becomes broad-minded enough to be satisfied with an answer of “no” to at least some of their prayers they have reached partial spiritual maturity. In this painting, I am hoping to communicate the concept of our sometimes foolish prayers.

 

 

 

 After establishing the darks, I went ahead and added some white into the wet orange underpainting. As I said before, it is better to wait and use white at the last possible moment, when you absolutely can’t stand it anymore. You should build it up slowly, but I am a product of my times and A.A.D.D. is strong among artists. Sometimes I just have to go for it, to create without thinking, to just rely on experience. I am satisfied that this painting will be successful. 

 

            Today was a very productive day in the studio. I was in a mood to work. I started several paintings that I had planned over the summer when I was teaching a class at the art school about how to plan your paintings using collage. It takes all the guesswork out of the colors and composition, so I know right where I’m going when I begin to paint. I always try to have a supply of canvases that are ready to paint on—covered in warm acrylic tones and textures because I don’t like to work directly on a white canvas. The first step is to transfer the drawing or design to the canvas. There are many ways to do this: just sketch it on freehand, use a grid to assure accurate proportions, or use an opaque projector or transparency projector. I use vine charcoal to put my drawing on the canvas because I can just wipe it off with a paper towel if I need to erase. Here is an example of the toned canvas with the vine charcoal drawing on it. The working title for this painting is “Apocalypse.”

 

After I have the drawing on the canvas, I block in the lights and darks using a modified Flemish method. For the darks, I use a mixture of Sap Green and Alizarin Crimson to make a transparent brown. For the lights I use Cadmium Orange. To thin the paint, I use Alkyd Walnut Medium thinned with a bit of odorless turpentine. 

This type of painting is very intuitive—even though I have already worked up the design with a collage. I let the painting take shape without trying to force it to look exactly like the collage. It always looks so different when it’s blown up 10 times the size of the sketch. Sometimes I can’t tell if it’s a good idea or not until it’s on the canvas, the actual size. I scrub the paint around in a very free manner, trying to get to know the painting, and let things progress with the least amount of forcing it.

Ideally the Flemish method of blocking in the painting is worked up slowly, but I am too impatient to wait very long. As soon as I get a feeling that the painting is going to work out, I plunge right in with the colors. That is how far I got on this painting during my session this afternoon. I started a few other paintings today, but I am too tired to blog them all. Hopefully tomorrow.

 

            The life of an artist consists of more than just creating art. There are lots of activities that don’t seem very artsy, but are essential to having a sustainable career. My husband and business partner, Ron Lutz, and I are trying to develop some different products over the winter that we can sell in our gallery during the upcoming tourist season. We want to have a new line of inexpensive items to offer our customers. Today we experimented with some alternative ways of mounting prints on surfaces that don’t have to be framed, but will hang on the wall—similar to gallery-wrapped canvases. Ron had the brilliant idea of turning picture molding on its side so that the finished edge was exposed on the side instead of front as is common in traditional framing techniques. Next he glued the print on a piece of mahogany with the paper edge of the print hanging over just slightly. He trimmed the print after it was glued into position, and then went around the paper’s edge with a brown permanent marker. The entire piece was then coated with texturizing Z-Gel to give it the look of an original piece of art. The piece is called “Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream.”

            I also spend part of every Monday getting ready for “The Eureka Springs Christian Writers Group” that meets here on Monday evenings. It’s a great group of people who enjoy and help each other  to be the best writers we can possibly be. It’s a great life in Eureka Springs.

            End of the third day of the New Year. The studio is clean and organized. No more excuses. There is only the work to be done.

There are many questions to ask about the work. What is important to do? What is necessary to do? If there were no limits or obstacles, what kind of work would I do?

The most important thing to do is to ask the work itself: What does it require of me? Does it involve new skills, new attitudes, perhaps a totally new direction than I had previously considered? I have to wait for the work to guide me. Creativity is an elemental force—not something I can control. If it sounds crazy; maybe it is. You have to be a little crazy or you won’t relinquish your conscious mind enough to do the deep work that is inside you to do. Through my years as a working artist, I have found that it is not worth stopping the flow of creativity because of the superhuman effort it takes to start up again. Once I’m disconnected from the work—either by time or space, the momentum has to be regained. That’s where I’m at once more. But I’m tired from cleaning the studio, so I guess those questions will have to be answered in the coming days. 

The second day of the year—this is the day to see if my resolve will actually stay, or will it be back to “business as usual?” I’m reading a couple of books to help me get my mental act together—which is critical to the accomplishment of artistic work: Shortcut through Therapy: 10 Principles of Growth-Oriented, Contented Living  by Richard Carlson and From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Profound New Vision of Growing Older by  Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. Both are helping me to silence the inner critic in my brain that keeps me from enjoying half my life. I am resolved to do some serious work on a more positive mental environment in order to flourish in the new year.

The studio is still a mess from Christmas. I have been stacking stuff in there to keep the rest of my house clean during the holidays. So the first thing is to clean and reorganize. Out with the old year! In with the new!

I can’t even remember what I was working on before I got stopped. Oh yeah, I was putting the finishing touches on a group of paintings I’m donating to ECHO (Eureka Christian Health Outreach)—our local free medical clinic founded by Dr. Dan and Suzie Bell. Their grand opening of their new facility is scheduled for mid-January. Very exciting.

 

 

A New Year in the Studio

2010 - "Begin Again"

Black Bass Lake, a great New Year's Day Hike!

            My motivation is always the highest the first day of the New Year. It's a new day-a chance for a new start, a portal into new hope, new direction, new possibilities. Even if it's only an arbitrary division of the flow of time, it still seems significant enough to cause a shift in personal consciousness-a kind of "kick in the butt" for the artistic soul.

            My mind is still full of images from our New Year's Eve viewing of "The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King," the most beautiful movie ever made. I have seen this movie countless times, but this time I was struck by the sheer artistry of the movie--the power of art to move the emotions, to speak the unspeakable depths within the human soul. It renews my resolve to get to work.

            How do you get back to work in the studio after the Holidays? After Christmas over-indulgence, company, parties, slacking off from working, and just plain having a good time? Should I pick up where I left off or should I begin something entirely new? That, of course, is always the decision to make when entering the studio.