Art, in all its forms, is uplifting and informative. A child dancing in and out of streaming sunlight across an oak floor, a garden of flowers teaming with life, tomatoes on the vine, music from water flowing over moss covered rocks, blue veins on weathered hands, dreams of a young mother, are inspirational for all artists. Art brings me joy, educates me, brings me intune with a higher creator. My art whispers in the morning and shouts in the evening. It connects me with others who I have yet to meet. Alone they hear my colors and see my dreams. I am the stranger they know so well. The story teller who hears your story before you tell it. Art transforms us as it plays with our minds and opens our thinking.

Inspiration comes and I go deaf to a friend as a mother sees her daughter discover her first gold finch. I see myself painting the scene struggling with color, yet I am still sitting with my friend drinking coffee. 'Am I listening' he asked, as I paint the scene in my head sensing the mistakes I will make and correcting them as he tells me about his work. A story to be told in paints with a brush is forming before me. My mind is speeding as the mother begins to clean up. I rush from the table out to my car to get my camera asking if I can take their picture as I pass their table. The little one smiles and the mother says "yes". This is how it often happens, something will strike me so hard I will have to capture it in paint, even if it only in my mind. My camera will aid me this time. I tend to advocate working from life a lot, but some inspiration requires aid outside my desired way of bringing a story to life. How a work of art is created isn't all that important as long as it is truly from the artists heart and soul, others will connect with it's creator.

Well-known, very successful artists are recommending paint brushes and other products. They get paid for this which is cool, like actors plugging products. Seeing these artists recommending paints and brushes, knowing they were highly successful before these products were on the market I would like to have them tell me why they switched from what they were using and how much were the materials they used involved in the creation of their art. I had a teacher in high school who made his students analyze television commercials. He taught his students to think, to listen and analyze everything in life. So when I began seeing artists recommending paint brushes I wondered why they switched from what they had been using to what they use now?
One of my students switched from what he had been using to these new brushes. He discovered they did not work for him. He had trouble moving the paint around. The new brushes did not suit his style of painting. One of my students has tons of brushes, every workshop she takes she buys the brand and type of brushes her teacher uses. She cannot keep up with me because I'm so hard on brushes I just buy the cheap ones, I think will work. I never leave a paint store without things I've never used before. So my students know I will not recommending anything to them. Mary Kay is a wiz with her brushes and Linda loves her cheap runny paints and, she too, is a wiz at art. Jeff does wonders with his palette knives. My students cannot afford the finest - and sometimes fingers will do. I do recommend gloves then. It isn't the materials that make an artist, it's who you are.

Dreams of A Young Mother

Brushes - Sometimes Fingers Will Do