Tag Archives: landscape painting

MIND OF AN ARTIST: STUDY A BLADE OF GRASS

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My mind is a monkey mind.

I know it's my ADHD. There is a quality of my life that resembles a circus. I'm always trying to train those monkeys to perform the right way. Okay you guys get yourselves in order.

I actually become the lion tamer trying to force my creativity to perform. Not only to perform but to kick ass perform.

Here's where pressure to be a creative genius sets in. In other words here comes the artist block! I HAVE TO DO THE BEST PAINTING OR DO NOTHING! So I do nothing.

The monkeys are doing nothing so out of boredom they start to act out. Avoidance creates havoc and chaos. I end up hating myself for being unproductive. It's a great big circus ring ready to explode.

My thinking is creativity needs to be a high experience with lots of bells and whistles going off. There's no sanity. There's no peace. Every work of art has to be created from a psychedelic experience. Don't forget I come from the original hippie lifestyle. The Magical Mystery tour. But it's becoming clear that flying by the seat of exploding pants is not working.

So that is why I am choosing to study a blade of grass. Slow down get off the merry go round. Be a quiet painter. I cannot be a superhuman artist. Study a blade of grass.

Here are plein air paintings done with the mindset of "study a blade of grass ".

A PAINTING JOURNAL 

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A painting I am working on in my escape into landscapes theme. 


The original acrylic on canvas

    The iPad experiments

THE FIRST PAINTING OF 2017

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The first painting of the year is a prediction of where I am going.  After a break from painting this is what appeared.  

It was done in acrylic.  18″ x 14″


TODAY’S PAINTING-INSOMNIA AND A WORK IN PROGRESS 

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22″ x 28″ acrylic landscape.  I couldn’t sleep tonight so the canvas called to me!

 

A QUICK PAINTING SKETCH 

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I love the simplicity of the quick painting sketch. Less details .

INSPIRING ART IN RIVERDALE

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My mission to engage people in creativity is finally happening! My painting classes at the Riverdale Senior Center have now begun their 3rd session!! This post is to show the incredible art from people who never painted before.

And a new student who is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s has joined. Robert is a professional artist who studied at the Art Students League. He has a studio upstate New York. However, since his mental decline he has not done art for a long time. I told him the first day that he is still an artist and he can create just like Monet when his eyesight went bad.

My painting classes are not about skill. I do not teach technique. There is a very spiritual connection to art and one student, Margery, has exceptional talent.

So here’s to Riverdale’s emerging artists. And please do not refer to them as seniors dabbling in art. Their work is fearless and vibrant. Totally alive and ageless!

The following are by Robert who has Alzheimer’s:


STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO 

PAINTING CLOUDS

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THE CLOUD… A picture show in the sky.  Morphing into many shapes and colors.  Fantasy animal shapes I always saw as a child.  Some sweep you along in translucent sinewy ribbons darting across the sky. Some are are voluptuous and billowing castles.  But the storm cloud is in a class by itself.  A sultry samba of darkness- a feast for the eyes.  The clouds are reckless building up to a dazzling display of smoldering drama.  And then in seconds RAIN. 

So when I was learning to paint landscapes I studied clouds.  I just thought you painted clouds with Titanium White.  It looked terrible. But as I looked at my favorite landscape painters I noticed their clouds had many colors.  The colors gave depth.  

BRUSHSTROKES … Clouds I believed were easy to paint. Just blob the paint on canvas.  I realized it wasn’t as easy as I thought.  There’s a technique and since I was teaching myself I just researched brush strokes.  

I MUST BE HONEST, I DON’T UNDERSTAND MOST OF THE INSTRUCTIONS IN ART BOOKS.  SO I JUST DID MY OWN EXPERIMENTS. 

I have an ADHD brain and I have learned that too much information destroys my creativity. Here are some of my clouds over the years. 

   

    
    
 

PAINTING PLEIN AIR NEW YORK

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imageimageimage I am so grateful to my favorite instructor at the Art Students Leagu

e, Dean Hartung, for giving a weekend workshop on plein air painting.   We went upstate and it was my first time painting outdoors .  I bought special plein air easel.  It turned out to be a clumsy, cumbersome wood easel and I spent more time fussing with it than painting.  It tipped over in the wind and sent all my supplies into the Hudson River.  Never buy something that looks good at a cheap price.  I painted and cried every time the easel tipped over.  And putting wet canvas on it was a challenge.  A Monet moment it wasn’t

in spite of all this I came home with these lovelies!