Never know what's coming your way, that is especially true with me. I never pass up a chance to work with an interesting person or a pretty girl. When I'm lucky to have both qualities in one person, well that, my friend, is heaven. There are times when I'm in a real quandary with what to paint - peonies in bloom or an interesting young lady at the door asking to pose?
Actually it was Brad, Jordan's dad at the door with Jordan. Figured if he is half as interesting as Jordan, he's my subject, my reward for being such a good person. Really didn't ask him to pose, just sat him down and pulled out a canvas and set about painting him. The three of us had a great time getting to know one another. Listening to stories of life in the Arkansas hills, raising a family on near nothing added a richness to Brad's weathered face, and more interest in capturing the inner qualities in Jordan.
What to do about the peonies though? They bloom only in the Spring and never have I seen peonies in floral shops. I had to photograph them for a later time. Way too revved to do peonies. I had no idea it would be a few years before I got around to using those photos of those peonies.
My method of working, creating art, is to dwell on a concept for day or weeks while completing another painting. I have 92,674 pictures locked away in my computer as back up for things I may need to work through in a painting. The white roses didn't work out for my present still-life so finally, after 10 years, I'm using the peony pictures. In doing so I remember Brad, giving me the urge to do a portrait of a friend from Jake's where I spend my Wednesdays and Fridays drinking great coffee and studying the characters that frequent Jake's.
My mind is constantly dreaming up paintings, sometime I would like it to give me a break and let me finish the painting I have on the easel. My concept calls for a garden scene behind the arrangement of flowers on the windowsill. For the garden scene I have a detailed on-the-spotter of a collector's garden, which I need to work up into a major piece for them. I need to get out to their place before Autumn is here. This is how it is, now I'm not sure what this blog is about... Oh yeah, it's about getting a painting done, whether you paint from life or from photos or from imagination it's the finished painting that counts. I'll do anything to get what's in my head out onto canvas. Those 92,674 photos are there in my computer to help me create. I may head over to the florist to stock up on inspiration when I finish this blog, always nice to fill the studio with possible paintings.
Slower Water is Clearer
Somewhere along the way I became the constant painter. Listening to a friend tell me what is new in his life, my mind forms a picture of a place or moment. A stranger strikes up a conversation on the street while I study the colors in his face, the more interesting the conversation the more visual information I absorb. A city worker cleaning up the park below my window begins to tell me how he is a volunteer. His story grows and my interest in drawing him intensifies; I study the colors in his weathered face. Uninterested in posing for me, I at least get him to pose for a photo. How far this encounter develops depends on how intense the piece on my easel is. I may or may not interrupt what is developing on the easel to do a very quick sketch of my new friend. In the past I have hunted down homeless men because of the stories they have given me. At 10, I was struck by a hobo's story so much I disobeyed my parents and visited a hobo camp near the river to hear more of his story and sketch. A veteran of the first world war, he traveled around the country seeing all the wonders of America. He was cowboy for a while, a then a fireman who fought forest fires. In 7th grade I did a drawing of the bricklayer working on the new church next to school. My mind was always elsewhere, developing scenes of places I would visit or sketches of people I would meet someday, like cowboys I would work with when I was old enough.
Still developing paintings in my head, I do a lot of plein air painting without paints or brushes. I'll study the greens in a single tree and analyze why there are so many greens in just one tree. Leaves picking up the blues in the sky while other are yellow from the sun streaming through them, and still others display a rich true green as they hid from the sun and the blues of the sky.
Other days I'll sit staring at the ripples in the river trying to figure just what is it I am seeing, the color of theater itself or is it the river bed between those reflections of the sky and trees above? Spent a week in Wisconsin staring into streams and studying water. A local told me the water itself has different colors due to the iron in the rocks it is eroding. Slower water is clearer due to the plants growing in the water.
Painting out on the spot is always a learning experience, someone always comes along who wants to share something with you whether it is a child who informs you their dad is a better painter than you or a grown up telling about the developer who is putting up a shopping mall in the middle of the scene you are working on. When painting without paints or a brush people tend to leave you to your work. Picking up a brush loaded with paint is an invitation to people join you. I love it, I learn about things I have no interest in that I can pass onto my friend so they'll leave me to my painting when we get together for coffee.
