Raspberry Stems, Late Light

 

Glowing tufts of dry flowers, red-glazed stems, savagely bright afternoon sky, and the exuberance of it all against the encroaching dark.

Raspberry Stems, Late Light, 12 x 10", oil on artboard 

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Don't Settle

Every time I pick up painting again after a break, I need to relearn a few things. Yesterday I remembered to wait.

Despite perusing pond, woods, and field for nearly an hour, I hadn’t felt moved to paint by much of  anything. I get to a point sometimes where I'm just wandering for wandering's sake, telling myself there’s some worth in just being outside, pondering composition. “Maybe I'll learn something,” I think, “even if it’s only about what doesn’t work.”

Then I got stopped by a section of field where a few pine trees cast an indigo shadow across the gold grasses. Some dry goldenrods lit by the late sunlight stood in bright silhouette against the streak of dark. No surprise - it turned out to be nearly the same scene I'd painted on a similarly sunny November day last year. The moment grabbed me with the same emotional pull, and I had to laugh. There’s no denying it. The emotional power a composition has for you is there or it’s not, and you know it when you feel it. 

It’s a relief, in a way, because it's good to know you can’t fool yourself. When you’re desperately trying to compose a subject out of meager nothingness, you should let go and keep searching.

I ended up behind a row of trees painting raspberry stems red-glazed by the lowering sun. (I had to break another rule I’m relearning: “Don’t paint facing the western sky late in the day.” Too hard on the eyes.) The brilliant tufts of dry flowers, the glowing stems, the savagely bright afternoon sky - and the exuberance of it all against the encroaching dark - was a sight worth stopping for.

Snowy Trees

Still hooked on briers :)

Snowy Trees, 10 x 11", oil on artboard panel.

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Squash Flowers

Nice moody day up in our nearby community gardens. 

Squash Flowers, 14 x 14", oil on artboard panel.

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Gold and Blue

Beautiful old building on a hill as the sun was going down.

Gold and Blue, 11 x 11", oil on artboard.

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Redbud Hillside

Dance of trees and blossoms against the hillside. Love that cloudy day light!

Redbud Hillside, 10 x 12", oil on artboard.

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Sky Green

10 x 20 inches, oil on artboard. Looking for compositions in a late August field, I found these green leaves reaching into the sky, defying fall.

$450 total 

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Hillside in Bloom

14 x 14 inches, oil on artboard. From a few weeks ago, when the hillside was in full bloom. Colors galore! 

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Hillside Carnival

14 x 16 inches, oil on artboard. Crazy beautiful day. Love all the extra colors in the spring landscape.

$500 total 

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Doing What You Know vs. What You Don't Know

While out painting the other day, I got myself into a tangle. I had paint all over my board but no glimpse of a developing structure, not an inkling of how to move forward.

I had been in the mood to play, to try something different. I didn't want to repeat myself or take the safe way out. But, once stuck, all that optimism seemed like a bad idea.

It's a familiar feeling. It happens either just before I make a complete mess and go home empty handed, or when I break ground and come up with something new. When it works out, I feel released—from the old way of doing things, from the fear of doing things differently—and renewed. When it doesn't, like it did that day, it's frustrating. But I try to remember that it's worth it.

Van Gogh wrote "I'm always trying to do what I haven't done before, in order to learn how to do it." He's right, of course. You should always be pushing past your boundaries, even when you wind up completely lost. At those moments, remind yourself that you're exactly where you should be: up to your elbows in confusion. If you know what you're doing, it's because you've done it before. And that can result in a tepid, bored rendering—a repetition, a replaying of old moves.

Which is not to say that any time you get out of a painting alive—that is, with a piece that somehow works—it's not something to be happy about. But if I'm just doing what I've done before, I'm usually not happy with the outcome. Not only did I fail to learn something, but my painting is missing a sense of experimentation. A teacher of mine once said we need to see the "struggle" in a painting. Patness doesn't make good art.

Turning yourself inside out every time you paint can be exhausting, of course, and unappealing. That's why it's so important to maintain a sense of play and lightheartedness. You need to not care. You may care, really, but at the crucial moments, you need to act as if you don't. Otherwise you won't have the strength and courage to risk ruining everything in order to make it better. Or to take it, and your skills, somewhere new.

Bright Winter Woods

14 x 14 inches, oil on artboard. Lots of bright warmth in this winter scene - hard on the eyes but good for the spirit!

$450 total 

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Plein Air Demo - Lily Pads

Got out to paint as winter was shifting to spring and took my camera...

Don't Care

I've heard Wolf Kahn and others talk about the importance of "not caring" when painting, and while that seems to make sense as a goal, I've always felt a little skeptical about how achievable it is in practice. You're putting everything you have into a painting—how can you not care?

Today, I grasped the flip side of that question for the first time: really, how can you care? Because if you care about whether your painting turns out well, you'll undercut yourself altogether. You have to try hard and give it all you have, but up to the very point that you decide to stop working on a painting, you shouldn't be looking at it as a potential success or failure, and you shouldn't want anything at all from it other than the opportunity to get out and paint.

If you're in it for the long haul, caring about the success of each painting is just too exhausting, and it inhibits growth. If you want to improve your skills—to grow, to explore—you have to feel free to do anything, to take any risk.

I'm probably able to see this now because it's harder than ever for me to find time to paint. So when I do get a chance, I have to use strategies that conserve energy, emotional energy above all. And if I use up emotional energy caring about the eventual "product" of my work, it's all too likely that on any given day, painting will seem too hard and too draining to attempt.

The only way to keep going, to keep making paintings and to continue to stay open to accident and the unexpected—which is critical to growth and to having fun—is to paint simply for the sake of it. If only one in a hundred paintings turns out to be something you'd want someone else to see, so be it. You'll still be painting.

Milkweed and Gold Field

11 x 11 inches, oil on board, 2015. Milkweed still standing in the warm winter field, or maybe dancing with the trees. 

$300 total (frame, shipping, and all taxes included).

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Err on the Side of Fun

I wish every painting would work, but it doesn’t of course, even when I pull out every stop and throw everything I have at it. I use lots of mental talk/tricks to create a state of mind where I feel free to risk, to try anything, even to ruin something good for the chance of making something better, often not knowing if that state of mind is even helpful in a particular circumstance. I’m almost always trying to push myself to go faster and not get stuck in one area; to make a mark and not look back; to work with joy.

That last—work with joy/do what’s fun—may be the best injunction. Sometimes you may be feeling: this is serious; I need to express grandeur/Beauty/respect/awe—and there’s a place for all those emotions/expressions in any painting. But I think playfulness/fun trumps them all in importance, because of the joy that is at the heart of fun—it’s powerful enough to overcome the inevitable frustration of trying to get something “right,” to lift your spirits through the moments of fatigue and difficulty, and to somehow let you participate in the beauty around you. Experiencing beauty IS joyful, beauty IS joy, so to work with joy is to use what’s flowing through you if you’re open to it (the beauty around you). It’s a “high,” and that spirit can be reflected in what you do—and to see that spirit reflected in paint also creates a “high.”

If you’re working and struggling, wondering how to save yourself and your painting or even how to approach something at all, err on the side of fun: go forward with a light heart and a sense of exploration/experimentation—not trying to get it right, but to play.

“Exuberance is beauty.” – William Blake

Dark Trees and Snow

11 x 11 inches, oil on board, 2016. Spooky trees looming as the snow melts and warm colors reappear. Please see my post from yesterday for a video of how it was painted.

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Plein Air Painting Demo - Dark Trees and Snow

Beautiful day as the snow melted and the warm colors came back. Let me know what you think of the speed, captions, and music!

Cattails and Ice

10 x 12 inches, oil on board, 2016. This was the last of the ice on the pond—the next day it was gone. I loved the smoky color of the ice and the green reflections.

$300 total (frame, shipping, and all taxes included).

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An easy, green, solvent-free way to clean oil paint brushes!

Queen Anne's Lace in Rain and Snow

12 x 10 inches, oil on board, 2016. Beautiful painting conditions in the fog, rain, and snow. My umbrella kept the rain off for a little while. Loved this tangle of flowers and stems.

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