The Two Most Important Things an Artist Needs

Southern Comfort 10 x 8 oil Available here

This week Heather Horton @Heather_Horton shared on twitter that the two most important things an artist needs are peace and time. Ahh  . . . quietness, stillness, serenity and the time to breathe it in.  But life doesn’t always serve up that kind of day or year.

This year has been a year for commotion.  Watching the decline of elderly parents puts aside peace. Participating in decisions for their care--time evaporates. Fortunately, the joy and excitement of a grandchild brings renewal and a sense of forward motion.  But even without turbulent life changes, an artist has many distractions to deal with.  I long to sit on a porch like the one pictured above and take time to reflect (more information here). Each day brings an assault of phone solicitations, advertisements, and tragic world news. I suppose it has always been the same down through the ages for artists.

I realized this past week during a short illness that I had let distractions destroy my peace and squander my time. I wasn’t painting, the very activity that keeps me truly emotionally, (and, I think, physically) healthy and connected to the world. I had gotten myself into a vicious cycle of not feeling peaceful because I wasn’t being creative, and not painting because I wasn’t peaceful!  After painting two paintings in a day at a plein air event in Wilmington this past weekend, I felt rejuvenated.

How are artists to have the peace and time to create?

In my April blog “4 Ways to Restart Your Engine” I listed some suggestions for getting over a “block” (see, I told you this has been a problem this year), but to that list I can now add:

• SCHEDULE or PAY for an event or class.  If you’re as cheap as I am, you won’t skip it.  You’ll have committed yourself to the TIME. I am thankful I sign-up for the plein air event.  What I dreaded because of low energy, lifted me up.
• Change your creative place. Set up where you work in a new location, even if it’s just in a different place in the house or yard.  It seems like a fresh start.
• Prepare your creative materials the day ahead, so all the analytical part is over.  For painters, that may mean do your sketches or thumbnails and materials setup the night before. Start the creative day fresh with no barriers.  Start with excitement!
• Absolutely shut off the phone, commuter and television for the entire day-don’t even think about those for the tiniest little bit! 

 

Sea Lion Lounge 16 x 20 oil Available here

I’ll leave you with a peaceful painting of sea lions lounging on a rock overlooking an ocean view (more information here). Lounge and breathe!

May you have a peaceful day!

A portion of my sales go to support bee/pollinator conservation.  Why?  Because I add beeswax to my oil paints, paint and consume the beautiful flowers, fruits and vegetables those bees and other pollinators provide.

If you want to be the first to know about exhibits and discounts, join my NEWSLETTER updates email list on my home page here.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoy my essays, please share with your family and friends.  I’d like to hear from YOU!  Please leave comments and questions. 

My paintings are available at my studio in Cary, NC, online at Sheffield Art Studio

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How I Discovered Buried Treasure

 When I was young I endured many ear infections and respiratory ailments. While I was in bed under layers of vapor rub with the humidifier running on high, I read Robert Louis Stevenson books. There was The Child’s Garden of Verses, Kidnapped, and, of course, Treasure Island. Maybe he planted the wanderlust and my life-long desire to find buried treasure.  I went on to study archaeology and anthropology which is a sort of treasure hunt about us and our history.

Sometimes treasure hunts and treasure “findings” are as close as a closet. The painting Between Dances, painted many, many years ago, illustrates such a case.

Between Dances. Acrylic 12 x 16 NFS

Between Dances

In her last years my mother wore only Birkenstock and Dr. Scholl’s sandals daily. Sturdy, comfortable, practical. About as close to barefoot as a person could get. My foot is almost an identical replicate of hers, so I inherited her closet of footwear. When it came time to clean out her closet, a treasure trove of memories fell out of the shoe boxes. In the back of the closet buried under old blankets there were sexy, hip, glittery shoes of bygone days, shoes made for cocktail parties and dancing.

There they were−see-through high heel shoes, glittery shoes, black strapless heels. The shoes transported me back to dress-up days in Michigan when I would raid my mother’s closet for shoes, dressing gowns, hats, and gloves. I would proudly parade up and down the street in my finery. It wasn’t just my mother’s closet I’d invade. It was a favorite pastime to scour my grandmother’s fabulous walk-in closet. There stored was my very favorite pair of chic, open-toed silver high heels that I always wore when I visited her home.

So here I was ransacking my mother’s closet once again. My mother hadn’t relinquished these shoes because they told her story. Between high heels and Birkenstock there were dances and babies and three daughters to teach about dress-up, garter belts, stockings, heels and boys. I’m a grandmother now who wears tennis shoes and Birkenstocks. This time my closet raiding that began with grief and dreading yielded not just remnants of clothing, but happy memories, recalled love and complete delight. 

I look forward to the days when my own granddaughter will loot my closet—and discover still there in the back of the closet the shoes and stories of both me and my mother.

Hats Off 12 x 12 Oil Available here.

Hats Off  (more information here) is a recent painting from my own closet--dear memories from college, Easter and beach outings. 

Discover treasure in your closet!

  

A portion of my sales go to support bee/pollinator conservation.  Why?  Because I add beeswax to my oil paints, paint and consume the beautiful flowers, fruits and vegetables those bees and other pollinators provide.

If you want to be the first to know about exhibits and discounts, join my NEWSLETTER updates email list on my home page here.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoy my essays, please share with your family and friends.  I’d like to hear from YOU!  Please leave comments and questions. 

My paintings are available at my studio in Cary, NC, online at Sheffield Art Studio and at my Daily PaintworksGallery (see also clickable link above right) 

 Please LIKE me at my FACEBOOK FanPage

Follow me on Instagram 

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What Will Art Be Like In 100 Years?

Red Rock Beauty  18 x 18 Wrapped Canvas Available

Slow Down for Wildlife!

Everything slows down in the summer.  As uncomfortable and even dangerous as the heat may be, the cycle of slowing down is one I’ve always thought we should obey. 

One of the joys I have is associating art with walks and rejuvenating vacations. I recently saw the sign, “Slow Down for Wildlife” in a county park.  I know they meant it as a safety warning, but it’s good advice for painters. When we were walking the desert paths in Arizona, we might have missed the beautiful blooming cactus tucked in the hillside if we’d hurried by.  I’m glad we slowed down to find this cactus I painted and named Red Rock Beauty

Slow Down to Paint!

It seems lately every art-related email I receive is about “speeding up”.  “Quick draw” competitions and “paint-outs” are very much promoted during this time of year.  These events require artists to paint outdoors for controlled time periods. The emphasis on painting quickly seems to be gaining momentum as a standard for painting, emphasizing that capturing a “singular moment in time” is superior to studio painting.—or superior to that of developing a painting outdoors over several days.  These events have many positive aspects, but I consciously work to overcome the frenzy I feel and strive to restore the meditative quality that is so special about developing a painting.  Do I really want to paint fast?  I keep reminding myself: a deliberate, thought out stroke is preferable to three impulsive ones.  

Industry Is Primary 8 x 8 Oil on Panel Available

Slow Down to Experiment!

Another joy I have in painting is the freedom to experiment.  When I try something new, I learn things about myself. I develop a language for expressing my experiences. After many miles of painting, my experiences are leading me to focus and simplify, as you can see in this latest painting Industry Is Primary.  I am increasingly moving toward a strong abstract quality in my representational work.

Experimentation demands breadth and scope.  Frequently marketers and art consultants tell artists to limit and narrow their work to a singular medium, singular subject, singular audience, etc.   If the limitation is done too soon, it prevents an artist from developing an authentic and personal style. In the course of investigating here and there, an artist may, indeed, eventually come to concentrate on a single subject or medium, but it will be “natural” (based on discovery), not engineered.

Lately I’ve been fortunate to view the works of Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and our native North Carolinian Claude Howell. They all investigated different art materials and painted varied subjects; they painted both in the studio and outdoors. They traveled and studied.  I believe this is still a model for the future.

So, what will art look like in 100 years?

Technology will undoubtedly speed up reproduction, distribution and access.  I hope there will be more profound discoveries in chemistry and in light and color which may lead to new pigments and materials; maybe there will be art that extends our physical and sensory knowledge; maybe there will be more interactive art.  I believe, regardless, that it will be achieved through the old model by artists who have a need to slow down and take a diverse and creative path.

What do you think?

A portion of my sales go to support bee/pollinator conservation.  Why?  Because I add beeswax to my oil paints, paint and consume the beautiful flowers, fruits and vegetables that bees and other pollinators provide.

If you want to be the first to know about exhibits and discounts, join my NEWSLETTER updates email list on my home page here.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoy my essays, please share with your family and friends.  I’d like to hear from YOU!  Please leave comments and questions. 

My paintings are available at my studio in Cary, NC, online at Sheffield Art Studio and at my Daily PaintworksGallery (see also clickable link above right) 

Please LIKE me at my FACEBOOK FanPage

Follow me on Instagram  

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How I Came to Love that Three Letter Word

Lilies for Diego 16 x 16 cold wax and oil Available here

W-A-X.  Specifically beeswax.  I’ve experienced the world of hot wax (encaustic) painting and am now diving into cold wax. I now routinely mix cold wax with my oil paints for traditional painting on panels.  Hot or cold, wax is a blast! 

Fireworks Encaustic. 6 x 6 Available here

 

I have a preference for working with cold over hot.  It’s 100 degrees outdoors! Working with cold materials in summer is preferable to working with hot materials.  Setting up with cold wax is also quite simple compared to encaustic. Painting with encaustic materials requires hot plates, electric blowers, dishes of hot pigments, gloves, and a vent system. Cold wax merely requires a tub of prepared beeswax paste and a palette knife for mixing it with your tube pigments.

In either case, beeswax imparts wonderful qualities to the paint. The translucent quality it lends to the pigment is immediately apparent.  It changes the consistency of the paint so that the artist can manipulate the paint to achieve different textures and edges. And the cold wax mixture, non-toxic, sets up faster than oil alone. According to an article at the web page for Cold Wax Painting, there’s no need to worry about the traditional oil painting rule of “fat over lean” (for non-oil painters all that means is how much oil your paint has in it—for drying and cracking reasons, the oilier paint goes on top of paint that is less oily or thinned paint.)  When the paint is mixed with cold wax medium the wax equalizes the ratios of paint and oil that necessitate this rule. Finally, the wax gives a soft matte finish to the painting, but one which may be buffed to a low sheen.

Test tiles for painting with cold wax and oil.  See below for explanation

The medium provides great freedom of expression.  There are frontiers to explore:  new objects to use as tools for mark-making, new ways to create textures, and new mixed media techniques (collage) to bring more excitement and interest to my work. 

I made a few test tiles and here are some of my early test explorations above: left: palette knife and embedded tissue collage; top center: stencil first then sgraffito marks into wet paint; top right: sgraffito only; bottom center: sgraffito very pronounced; far right bottom: two layers of stencil

Think “Madame Tussaud”, anything’s possible!

And that’s the buzz about beeswax. Thank you little worker honey bees!

If you want to be the first to know about exhibits and discounts, join my NEWSLETTER updates email list on my home page here.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoy my essays, please share with your family and friends.  I’d like to hear from YOU!  Please leave comments and questions. 

My paintings are available at my studio in Cary, NC, online at Sheffield Art Studio and at my Daily Paintworks Gallery (link above too!) 

 

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What the Beach Breezes Stirred Up

Palm Breezes. 12 x 12 oil Available here

Tropical Storm Ana was forming in the Atlantic, but things were calm in Ft. Lauderdale where we’d driven to visit our son’s family, especially his beautiful new daughter. A walk along the Ft. Lauderdale waterfront under palm trees and clear star-filled skies should have been serene. But things were stirring within me. We’d spent the afternoon at Nova Southeastern University Art Museum  at two of their exhibits:  Kahlo, Rivera and Mexican Modern Art Exhibit and Pablo Picasso: Painted Ceramics and Works on paper, 1931-71.

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The Mexican Art exhibit included a wide variety of vibrant expression, including surrealism, abstract, fantasy, and realism in a wide range of materials. The Picasso exhibit was similarly invigorating with the range of elegant, animated, and humorous drawings presented alongside the ceramics.  I felt all the works were similarly bold and direct whether they were about private or civil statements.

Seeing these paintings was like having the sea breezes reach right into the building and blow away cobwebs. I became excited to try new subjects and new materials. Since returning to my home studio I’ve been inspired to work with materials languishing in my cabinet (oil pastels, cold wax and gouache/opaque watercolor.)  I’m especially strengthened in my resolve to work on issues in my own style that I have long wanted to achieve, such as a bringing to it a more linear style with direct and simplified form and color. I was impressed by these shows how the sense of line and volume filled up the space. Finally, I’m encouraged to get more personal--to dig back into my own heritage and see what I can put into my future work. I’ll be trying new themes and subjects, maybe Celtic folktales and dreams. I may do more urban and industrial subjects (remember, I’m a Detroit “girl”.)  

 

Service Is Our Business #2. 12 x 12 Oil and Cold Wax. Available here.

And playing more!   

 

Cabana Life 7 x 5 oil Available here.

   

Art is fun when it’s about evolving and exploring  . . .that’s what's blowing in the wind!

 

If you want to be the first to know about exhibits and discounts, sign up for my NEWSLETTER email list on the home page of Sheffield Art Studio.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoy my essays, please share with your family and friends.  I’d like to hear from YOU!  Please leave comments and questions. 

My paintings are available at my studio in Cary, NC, online at Sheffield Art Studio and at my Daily Paintworks Gallery (see also clickable link above right) 

Please LIKE me at my FACEBOOK Fan Page.

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4 Ways to Restart Your Engine

We all have dry periods--times when we just don’t seem to produce much or even have the impulse to participate.  Call it what you want: depression, distraction, a creative block.  I hit a long period between December and April where I found it was very difficult to do many paintings. Much of this was due to personal and family illnesses. Most of the time when I feel this way, “just showing up for work”, as they say, has been sufficient to get me over the hump.  What I mean is that just going to the easel and the process of starting a painting has been enough to get me going. It wasn’t working this time. So I had to come up with some other ways to motivate myself, to “rev the engine”.

Here are some practices that helped me:

1. Play with something new that doesn’t require much planning.  Don’t place any obstacle in your way.  Get out what you have easily available.  I got out tissue paper, glue, a board and a little fast drying acrylic paint.  I just started pasting down colorful torn paper. The results- two collages based on an egg theme (It was around Easter, so the theme came easily.)

   

   Fresh Eggs 8 x 10 mixed media Available here

2. Doodle or sketch in a small notebook with just charcoal or pencils or markers.  Be a surrealist!  Draw things from your imagination. Keep it simple, no pressure.  This can be right in your own home.  It’s about seeing and dreaming, not producing.

This is a sketch that resulted in the painting "The Original Nook"

Unplanned doodling

3. Make jewelry.  Jewelry is good because it’s small and you see progress quickly. I started another copper link bracelet.  You can congratulate yourself on a few inches of work. Honestly, I haven’t gotten much more accomplished since last month, but I’m not worried.  I’ve got my enthusiasm back! 

You can make a lot of different costume jewelry with collage materials or by reassembling scrap jewelry. You’ll be calling on many of the same art principles you use in other work, but doing it on a small scale.

The beginning of a flower chain bracelet.

4. Visit galleries and museums and allow other artists to stimulate you.

I can’t say I enjoy these fallow periods, but I often come through them into a more creative period afterwards.  I am grateful for the renewal.

If you have ways to restart your engine, please share them with me. 

If you want to be the first to know about exhibits and discounts, sign up for my NEWSLETTER email list on the home page of Sheffield Art Studio.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoy my essays, please share with your family and friends.  I’d like to hear from YOU!  Please leave comments and questions. 

My paintings are available at my studio in Cary, NC, online at Sheffield Art Studio and at my Daily Paintworks Gallery (see also clickable link above right) 

Please LIKE me at my FACEBOOK Fan Page.

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