Harder than one might think...

Taking a break from your work or even an activity you love can be just what you need to renew your interest or give you a totally new perspective. You can get back at it feeling refreshed and full of the vital energy needed to dedicate yourself to the tasks at hand or it can be a little more challenging...Maybe the length of the break has a lot to do with it.

Don't get me wrong, I have been busy creating, it just hasn't been with any particular purpose or goal.  My home is filled with new paintings and photographs, but now what? Some will say it's like riding a bike, but truth be known, I was never the best bike rider.

I get the distinct feeling I'm just rambling on. I am just writing whatever pops in my head. Sometimes that might be just what one needs to get those juices flowing. Of course, it could easily go the other way and just turn into crazy-maker thoughts! I'm going to go with 'creative juices"...Yup, that's what is brewing in my head. And, until a path comes in to focus, I'm just going to post and share some of the work I have been doing in the past couple of years.

Background- Painting of moon snail shell 50cm x 50cm oil on canvas 2017
Forefront- Ceramic wave with celadon glaze, bits of ceramic messages, an shells 2005

Shells, waves, rivers, oceans...It's all about nature again, only this time I'm not land-locked. I'm more water-logged. ;-)

The shell paintings were destined for a group show that I had to bow out of due to health concerns and in the end they inspired me to redecorate the living room!

This is one of the livingroom wall arrangements.

Living on the coast also had a part to play. I started observing shells, much like I did the rocks in my previous series, and noticed that although they are similar, each one has it's own identity. Each one is unique, as these photographs which I have taken in the last couple of years demonstrates.

      

Some of these photographs are framed; all of the shells are part of a growing collection; all are art in themselves. Many inspired a few oil paintings, which I will be posting in the next few weeks.

In the meantime...Namaste!

(All images and text in this blog are protected by copyright by virtue of their publication.)

To be continued....

After three exhibits in three different communities, the paintings in my series Nature's Abstracts have each found a home. The culmination of this two year project came to fruition this week. Many were sold, some were traded with other artists and some were given to family.


 

 

 



In My Studio
 

 

Of  the 34 paintings, there were only three I could not part with.

ENTOURAGE
45cm x 60cm
Oil paint and paste on canvas

REFLECTION
36cm x 36cm
Oil paint, stone and resin on canvas

IRIS

30cm x 20cm

Oil paint on raw canvas, stone and feather

 

 

And a few were very difficult to part with.

MUTATION

10 cm x 12.5 cm

Oil paint, paste and stone on canvas

 

MOSAIC
60cm x 51 cm
Oil paint and resin on canvas





LEVITATION
Oil paint on Canvas
70 cm x 27 cm

The feedback I received from the three exhibits by way of written and verbal comments was most rewarding. It seems that this series of oil paintings successfully conveyed the very message I was trying to transmit-abstract art is all around us! I'm not sure yet if I am quite done with this theme because as I developed it so many new yet related ideas emerged. I am leaving them ferment as I take care of a few slightly more mundane tasks, i.e. cleaning my studio and prepping house and home for winter.

As for my blog, what can I say - To be continued....

(Note: I have been having the hardest time putting pics in my posts that it has really reduced my entries...Soooo frustrating!)

And yet another year of promise begins...

Well it has been a while. I might even say too long if I hadn't been busy creating during these past months. And with good reason...solo show coming in April. Still, as exciting as that is for me, the creating part hasn't really been about the show. It has really been about being inspired. Frankly, I just can't get enough of it. A rock is no longer just a rock...I feel like I've connected with something bigger than me. Each rock I choose soon becomes a monument to some creative process that has me enraptured.

MAESTRO
Oil on canvas, 24" x 36" (2012)

Although the paintings may not do justice to the thousands of years that go into the creation of a rock, I have this deep hope that they may awaken the observer to become as enthralled as I find myself when admiring the natural beauty that surrounds us, even in the tiniest of stones. Truly, I marvel at the complexity of it all.

Featured are two of the paintings I've been working on. I was hoping to post many more pics but I seem to be having the same problem shared by many...I can't upload my images. Of the two paintings featured here, one is accompanied by the stone that inspired it and the other is not. In the case of the other paintings I've been working on, some have the stone embedded, some are embellished with metals such as copper mesh, while others are surrounded by wooden frames. They will not all make it to my show but I'll worry about selection later. Then decisions on framing will take place and whether or not to present the inspiration stone with them.

DECOMPOSITION
Oil on canvas, 16" x 20" (2012)

As I always say, and fervently hope, I will try to post more often for I see it as the perfect journal to keep track of my creative endeavours.

And now the time has come to catch up with those blogs which I have so enjoyed and from which I have drawn so much inspiration, and , sadly, which I have woefully neglected.

Namaste.

Speaking Natural Abstract

I started drawing and painting some thirty years ago yet in 2006 I called my first real solo exhibit "In search of a voice". Although I had been painting just as a hobby you'd think I would have found my personal style in all those years. I even completed a four year degree in visual arts...Yet only now do I feel I can speak.

I'll admit, I mumbled a few words in this language every now and again but I always fell short in the vocabulary. The syntax and grammar left a lot to be desired as well. And now, today, I feel like a babbling brook. My language of choice-Natural Abstract.

I have often created inspired by what I saw as the abstract in nature but it was always just a piece or two. In no time at all, my inspirations seemed mundane. Then a few weeks ago I held a small river rock in my hand and I really looked at it, I read ever line and crevice, I really felt it's story.

Then I held another, and another, and another...and it became evident that each stone has it's own story.

Suddenly, I have a studio full of rocks and stones, full of ideas and inspirations...And I am the story teller.

As you might tell, I treat each stone as a unique artifact. The only common denominator is that they are all oil paintings. As for the composition, I let each stone tell me how it wants to be expressed. Some want to be part of the painting, some just want to accompany it, while others just want to inspire and return to the earth from whence they came. Others I feel so connected to that they will become my personal treasures, my personal rock collection.

Recently I heard a quote on the radio that seems to fit how I've been feeling "I love ideas because ideas are always pregnant". Are they ever! I had the idea to paint what I observed in one stone and twelve paintings later, I see no end in sight.

(All images and text in this blog are protected by copyright by virtue of their publication.)