Sea in Me (2016)

A new acrylic on paper.  It has literally been months since I’ve had the paints and brushes out and I must say it was glorious.  I could not resist the impulse to let my inner painter come out and play!

Untitled 102416

Why do art?  I look at this piece and something draws me in.  Is it the color, the lines, the visual composition?  But seriously why do we do this?  Is it because the creative impulse simply cannot be restrained.  Is it the outflow of our psychological lives manifesting our innermost thoughts & feelings into an objective, quantifiable reality?  These questions pervade my mind as I submit this piece tonight.

My Busy Palette

I was looking at this thing this morning and thought about all of the pieces I’ve worked on using this palette.  It has probably a near 1/2″ thick layer of dried layers of paint covering its surface.  This is what is on the surface now.  I feel a unique closeness to and affinity for this board that I mix paint on and paint from.  It is in many ways like a silent companion during the painting process but very much a necessary one.  It is, in my view, a work of art in itself.

Friends (1620-22) (2015)

So this weekend, I attempted three other paintings that all wound up being pulled off my painting board and thrown in the garbage.  I was having a serious block creatively.  I just could not see or interpret any of the lines that wound up on the page.  I wasn’t feeling it.  So this morning I painted and it was posted earlier as 1620-21 & this one this afternoon.  I feel like the block has cleared and I’m back on track.  That is a discomforting feeling, but I felt I had no option other than pressing on & through.

(Acrylic on paper, Nov. 2015)

Inspiration (2015)

How inspiration comes?  At least for me.  I see something and then set out to create it.

Defining What it Means to Be an Artist

I have painted consecutively every single day for almost a month and a half.  I mentioned in an earlier post that there has always been an artist in me and that I hadn’t picked up a brush since the sixth grade.  That artist found expression in other ways but was there nonetheless.  Now I’ve given myself permission to try and discovered I very much have a passion for painting.  My question is this, what is the difference between being a prolific artist (ie: producing lots of art) and a crazed artist (wildly insane) or is there not much distinction between the two?  I may have crossed the line a while ago!  🙂