Guerrilla Painter Chronicles

A Bad Watercolor Day for Hitler

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:34:00 +0000

This is funny, assuming you have enough distance between you & the Third Reich:

Trail Tale

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:09:00 +0000

A friend & I went out painting last week in a "natural area" near a trail that was being used by hikers, joggers, etc. We didn't have much time, since the sun sets early this time of year, and we were engrossed, ignoring the occasional foot traffic behind us.

After quite some time, I heard a voice from the trail say, "Could you start talking?" I didn't pay any attention, but my friend said, "What?" and the voice replied, "Just say anything...so he knows that you're just people."

I looked up and saw a horse & rider on the trail. The horse was standing stock-still, head up, ears alert, nostrils flaring. I started talking in a reassuring tone. I asked if we should stand up so he could see us better, but she said, "No, he needs to get used to weird things." It must have been the silver umbrella facing into the sun that struck fear into his heart. I kept coaxing, and eventually he walked up and sniffed my outstretched hand. Brave boy! He even walked over a wooden-plank bridge when they went on their way.

There have been many books written lately about new ways to relate to horses, from learning about "prey consciousness," learning their language, to Equine Assisted Therapy, to intuitive communication and tapping into collective consciousness by listening to our horses. I think these techniques are the same things we need when we go painting - to create calm, confident energy and a clear intention, to visualize the desired outcome, try looking at things "soft-focus," to silence the inner critic, to be in the moment, be authentic, be patient (and to patient with yourself).

And to be open to the magic of a chance encounter.

Swimming with Keats

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:23:00 +0000

In the new movie "Bright Star," John Keats describes poetry in a way that could just as well refer to painting. He says, "The point of diving in a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore; it's to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out. It is an experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery."

Mmm...and the colors of our paint are at least as much fun as diving into a lake. Maybe even better. And certainly we are dealing with mystery. The mysteries of light, shadows, clouds, wind & weather. We wonder what the painting will look like, a one-of-a-kind creation under the influence of mood, muscle memory, imagination and point of view. Accept mystery.

Sketchcrawl - Saturday, September 19th

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:15:00 +0000

Here's a fun idea - a worldwide day for sketching whatever you see. Get together with cohorts, or go it alone, then post your results on the Sketchcrawl website. It will make you pay attention to your everyday surroundings, maybe see things you've never noticed before. It's funny how even a fire hydrant can become a beautiful watercolor sketch. No rules. Take 20 minutes or make a day of it. All skill levels welcome, from beginner to pro. Invite the kids. Use a pencil, pen, brush-pen, watercolors (or those new watercolor crayons), colored pencils, pastels...

Enrico Casarosa is a storyboard artist living in San Francisco, working in animation by day, publishing artbooks and comics by night. Stuck between the gravitational pulls of Italy (his home country) and Japan (a cultural passion). Inspired by a bachelor party pub-crawl in 2006, he got the idea for sketching marathons and started doing it every few months, spreading the word until now it's happening worldwide.

La Paloma

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 20:10:00 +0000

Pablo Picasso has been famously quoted as saying something like, "To paint a dove, one must first wring its neck." I always thought it must have something to do with his cubist style, but in a broader sense, we all do that when we paint. Even the most realistic, sensitive works are about taking something's essence and turning it into something else - a painting. And, in the end, the painting has to survive or fail on its own merits. Two dimensions and a limited palette (they're *all* limited) is all you get, regardless of how dynamic & fascinating the subject matter that stands in front of your easel.

The payoff is that you have an experience (probably a learning experience), a souvenir and something you can share (even down through the generations). And, of course, the ultimate payoff is your increased awareness and facility. The qualities that you see in front of you eventually become part of you.

Starry Night

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:11:00 +0000

We just got back from a trip overseas. As we were coming in for a landing, I started talking to the man next to me, and it turned out it was Paul Davids, who had written, produced and directed a movie with Universal Studios about Vincent van Gogh. Entitled Starry Night, its intriguing premise is: What if van Gogh could return to life in our century...what would he think about the fate of his paintings, all the money they had generated, and what would he do about it?

Davids is quoted in a review from the Edenburgh International Film Festival:

"The film is a little bit of counter-programming against the wave of edgy movies that are being made now. It's very intentionally a family film about love, second chances, hope, optimism and faith, but it does have a strong undercurrent of irony. We wanted to celebrate van Gogh's genius and to give youngsters an impression of the life of an artist."

It won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the Newport Beach Film Festival, out of 400 submitted.

Starry Night is available from Amazon and from its own site.

Pegasus

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Mon, 25 May 2009 21:15:00 +0000

Pegasus, my last remaining wolfdog, died of lymphoma recently. I knew there was nothing we could do. I'd felt the hard lumps under his jaws, but he seemed so healthy otherwise that it came as a bit of a surprise when, after a few months, he stopped eating and drinking. In the midst of a heavy spring blizzard, we said goodbye. He was ten and a half years old.

One of the things that helped ease the pain was the routine of feeding the other dogs. I'd go out to the shed as usual, pretending that he was still there with them.

Routine sometimes has a bad reputation among painters, but it's definitely part of the process. The sun comes up every morning, we breathe in, we breathe out. Part of our purpose is to avoid stereotypes, but habit can be like a tuning fork, reminding us to pay attention. Is it possible to make a habit of freshness, originality? Look at those colors, the depth, the softness. It won't always be there like it is now.

Low-Budget Travel

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 21:23:00 +0000

Painting outdoors is a relatively low-budget activity, and you can do it without going out of town. I like the idea of planting a vegetable garden and using it as a subject for painting as well as for food. Painting your pets is rewarding, whether or not you end up with a finished painting...it's the increased awareness that counts. The look in their eyes, the poise & strength, the shadings of their coat, the shape of the eyes...

But sometimes you do want to travel. It's refreshing, inspiring, enlightening, you can visit museums, friends & family or your ancestral homeland, and experience completely different food, people, art, architecture and landscapes.

There are ways to make it less expensive. Don't buy anything in an airport, go to grocery stores instead of restaurants, fly standby off-season, camp out, or go where the dollar will buy more (like South America instead of Europe).

Here are some websites that are devoted to traveling on a shoestring:
No Budget Travel is a blog with all kinds of information & recommendations.
Couch Surfing facilitates finding (and offering) a free place to stay.
The Hospitality Club has a similar purpose.
There are also sites for inexpensive rooms or apartments. Try AirBnB or Free Rentals (the rooms aren't free, but listing a rental is).
And The Simple Dollar gives lots of general advice about saving & managing money (I've used the "make your own laundry detergent" recipe, which is fun & effective).

Change

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:26:00 +0000

I recently came across this, writtin by John Stoehr in the Charleston City Paper, on the topic of the arts and the way they have changed since we all got linked up online:

"These have characteristics that challenge the old guard of established arts professionals... These characteristics include participation over presentation, collaboration over competition, amateurism (in the best sense of the word) over professionalism, and process over product."

That's as good a definition of guerrilla painting as I've heard anywhere...and since "amateurism" means doing something for the love of it rather than for the money it makes you, that's as sound a reason as any. You want to learn something, enjoy the colors, do justice to your subject and to your own perceptions & feelings, but it doesn't have anything to do with making money from it.
He continues:

"Grassroots creativity is an old idea (Walt Whitman exulted the inventive potential of diversity), but the difference now is scale.
Ninety-five million Americans are applying the ideals of Web 2.0 to the real world, including their approach to the arts."

Hmmm...makes you wonder what that might look like.
Probably something quite different from what we grew up with...

"This can be troubling to institutions like art museums, says Nina Simon, a consultant and author of Museum 2.0 (www.museumtwo.blogspot.com). In trying to serve what MIT media professor Henry Jenkins has aptly called the emergence of "convergence culture," museums are increasingly afraid of "losing control."

John Stoehr
Charleston City Paper
Charleston South Carolina

I like to think it will bring more beauty. Like the lamplighters in The Little Prince, lighting their lamps as dusk falls in different parts of the world. Like a dance.

Artist Corps

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:20:00 +0000

Artful Innovation: Obama and Arts Education
The concept of an "Artist Corps" is an interesting part of President Obama's education policy. Of course, if artists are to teach, especially in inner-city schools, they'll have to be trained in *that* job as well as being trained artists.

It would certainly help to keep kids interested & engaged at school, and this interest might overflow into their other classes. Their awareness would be enhanced, they might create mental connections that they otherwise wouldn't and see solutions & possibilities that they hadn't thought of before. A real open-ended endeavor, likely to pay dividends on down the road. Sort of a jump-start to teach kids they can make things happen, take criticism, change things, express themselves and their world, make effective decisions, interact, concentrate, participate...and that sometimes there are no wrong answers.

Yes we can.

Waltz of the Colors

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:25:00 +0000

Last month we had a benefit sale for 1+1, the charity that the Guerrilla Painter started for rural development in Latin America. There were all kinds of things from Bolivia & Peru for sale. One of my friends, who had been to Bolivia, was commenting about how she liked the oddball things: antique aguayos (hand-woven woolen pack-cloths) and a lantern from the silver mines in Potosi, where she had actually been inside a mine. She remembered how amazing it was to see the miners, working hard and smoking cigarettes inside the mines and using these lanterns, which burned up oxygen which was already scarce enough at over 13,000’ altitude. Obviously, when she looked at this little lantern, she saw something different from what most people saw.

This is what happens when we look at our surroundings for things to paint…we see things differently from anyone else. Sometimes we end up looking for subject matter similar to what we’ve seen other people paint, but this conventional wisdom can often result in uninteresting paintings and frustrating experiences. It’s more work to see things with fresh eyes, and it’s hard to value our own vision sometimes, but isn’t that what painting is all about?

I happened to be in Denver yesterday, standing in a parking lot near a highway, waiting for a few minutes. I focused on a highway sign and the cars going by. I wondered how I would paint such a mundane scene, and then I noticed how colorful it really was. Blocks of bright colors interacting, like a dance.

One palette, many visions. You choose. Austere or rich, or a combination of the two...traditional or edgy, ambiguous or vivid...

"In self-trust all virtues are comprehended." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Plein-car, plein-van, plein-camper

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 21:13:00 +0000

Sometimes your best painting buddy is your vehicle. If the weather turns chilly or breezy (or even if it’s just too sunny) all you have to do is find a place to park where you can paint out the window. If you have a hatchback (or a camper shell), you have more options for finding a view. The Guerrilla Painter does this all the time, and he finds that listening to the radio helps him concentrate (of course, I’d want to avoid the news, which has been way too interesting lately).

Often, it’s while I’m driving that I’ll notice something worth painting, so it’s easy enough to just find a place to pull over. It’s a good habit to keep your gear in your car, ready for any opportunity. It only takes a few minutes to shift into "right-brain" mode and notice colors, shapes, lines, value contrasts. Maybe you find yourself waiting for someone, or there’s just a few more minutes of daylight with the sky turning colors, or you notice an intriguing architectural detail...

Sitting in a car can also help you focus by protecting your privacy & keeping annoying onlookers at a distance.

Keep Them Wild

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:07:00 +0000

We recently had to kill a mountain lion who had been preying on our lambs and hens. It turned out that he was missing one of his canine teeth and had a gum infection, so he might have been having trouble bringing down deer.

This really got my attention, because the Guerrilla Painter has been living here for 30 years and cougars have only been seen twice (up in trees). This one was coming around the buildings, sometimes in the daytime.

I did some reading, and it appears that the cougar population has been increasing at the same time that people have been moving into their habitat. They are by nature reclusive, but they will follow the deer (and raccoons). Sometimes people allow deer in their neighborhood, or raccoons may be attracted to dumpsters, and if a cougar follows them there, it can become habituated to humans and possibly become a threat to pets and people.

I used to live in a foothills neighborhood with its own year-round resident herd of mule deer, and they were so much fun to watch. It never occurred to us to chase them away. Cougars (and their tracks) were seen only occasionally, and we expected that they would remain aloof. But that isn’t always what happens.

Keep Me Wild is a program that California has implemented to reduce wildlife/human conflict. There's no place to relocate problem predators in California, so prevention is the only good solution. Sometimes it's counter-intuitive to chase deer off your property, but it keeps them (and the rest of the food chain) wild. If you see a predator, you might be saving its life if you blast it with bear spray, an air horn or rubber buckshot.

Medicine Bow Mountains

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:10:00 +0000

Often, it seems that a painting experience turns into a story. That’s what happened when we went up to Saratoga Wyoming for the weekend.
On the way there, we took a shortcut through the Medicine Bow National Forest and stopped to paint. There were aspen trees, distant mountains, and some old ranch buildings, but I settled on a hillside of sagebrush. There was an interesting pattern of amber-colored tall grass, blue-green sage and lavender clouds.

About halfway through, when we’d been sitting quietly for maybe an hour, a young mule deer buck wandered into view. His antlers were in velvet, so it was hard to tell if he had one or two points. He browsed for awhile, less than 50 feet away. Then off to my right I heard something that sounded like a house cat. “Meow...” But what appeared was not a cat but a fawn, walking toward the buck. When it reached him, they sniffed each other, and the buck, wide-eyed, snorted and bolted away. It was like a teenager being approached by a baby sibling while he was busy being cool.

The fawn went off in another direction to find its mom. A case of mistaken identity, I guess.

Sketches

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:47:00 +0000

Sometimes a "sketch" is a very involved drawing used as a preliminary study for a painting, but I like to think of it as a minimalist composition, just the essence of something.

I've started to "go sketching" instead of going painting, packing just a pencil & eraser instead of water, paint & brushes. I'm not sure it's always quicker or easier, but it does give you more of a feeling of freedom. You can erase, you can make it small & simple. You know it's not supposed to be a finished product. And if you happen to be in a crowded environment (or anyplace public) you can be unobtrusisve.

It's especially effective when doing animals, since they're liable to turn or walk away. You can capture the outline of their head or their back. Even flowers can move, too, if it's breezy or if they're the kind that folds up at night.

You can still get the same quality of focus as when you're painting, maybe even moreso, since there's not so much standing between you and your subject.

Work From Home

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 03:57:00 +0000

The price of gas being what it is, and what it's likely to be in the future, it's a good thing you don't need to drive anywhere to go painting.

The Guerrilla Painter is especially adept at making paintings out of the simplest things. Once he painted a salt block. Once, we were driving home from California and we stopped just east of Sacramento to paint. I thought, "There's nothing here...There's a dirt road, some telephone poles...what's to paint?" His painting turned out beautifully, lots of depth & texture.

Maybe there's nothing around except trees. Try to use them in a composition that has rhythm & life, in a relationship you've never seen before. It's like what the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance told his writing students. What makes this thing unique? Part of what makes it unique is your point of view, your vision.

Think globally, paint locally.

Artist Trading Cards

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:45:00 +0000

Artist Trading Cards have been around since at least 1997. A simple concept...artists use any medium (paint, print, sketching, collage etc.) on a 2.5"X3.5" card (cardstock or any other thin support). They put their name & contact info on the back, trade with each other and collect them. There are trading shows and websites, or maybe the art students in a school will trade with each other when they graduate so they can remember each other ("...I knew her when...")

Some people might sell them, but the concept isn't about making money. It's about creating links.

This seems perfectly adapted to painting outdoors: using a lightweight, conveniently sized support to make something specific to your own neighborhood & landscape and then trading with others around the country or world.

A Lot Like Work

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Sat, 10 May 2008 02:06:00 +0000

Sometimes it seems that painting outdoors is an awful lot like work.

Recently we were on the west coast, and we went painting on the seashore. The weather was perfect (northern California, breezy, sunny and mild) and we were in a state park, so it was picturesque and not too crowded. What could be easier than doing a watercolor of some small, windblown eucalyptus trees with bright iceplant blooming on the sand next to a fallen log? Well...
I started off in the routine way, framing the scene in my composition finder, marking divisions on the side of the paper, sketching in the trees, log and foreground grass. Then I looked more closely at the tangle of branches, and the "monkey mind" started in with its complaints:
"Look! There's some little birds swimming on the water...wouldn't it be more fun to watch them?"
"Ouch. What's that? My finger is bleeding. Bleeding!"
"Listen to those people having fun. Wouldn't it be more fun to just go wading? You're just an outsider, sitting here trying to paint these trees."
"Um...there's a truck on the beach with big numbers '911' on its side. Something must be wrong." "Are you sure you have enough water? You're going to get thirsty."
"This concrete ledge is starting to feel awfully hard..."

Finally, the voice quieted down and even went away as I kept focusing on the scene. I was feeling grateful that I wasn't a professional painter. It wasn't easy to paint it, but I did manage to cover the paper and even make it resemble what I was looking at. It took three hours altogether (and the concrete was indeed feeling very hard), but it was rewarding work. Maybe that's a good thing to say to the monkey mind's complaints: "Don't worry, nobody has to look at this, and eventually hard work will pay off."

Versions of Truth

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:04:00 +0000

When you're painting from life, there's a funny kind of dual reality happening. You're painting a scene, but it's a *painting* ...you look at your trees, your telephone pole, your outhouse, whatever, and you try to sketch them out accurately, but at the same time, you're creating something altogether original.
Recently there was an article in The New Yorker called "Just the Facts, Ma'am" comparing history and fiction. They each have their own kind of "truth," and the facts of history can be as misleading as fantasy if they aren't understood in context. Every historian has a point of view, historical sources are incomplete and were written by people who were not under oath and cannot be cross-examined.

It reminds me of the difference between a painting and a photo of the same scene; the photo might be factual, but the colors might be off, the dark values might conceal subtleties, the details might overwhelm the view, and even the perspective can be distorted by the camera lens. The artist brings his/her imagination and judgments to the work, creating a more meaningful version of "reality."

Or, it's like the difference between a realistic painting and a more expressive version. Like Wolf Kahn here, who gives color a life of its own. He probably has a head start since he uses pastels, and all the colors are there for the choosing, no need to mix the color you want. You can try any color just by holding it up to the painting. Let's see, lavender and...lime green? ...and...coral!

Artistic License

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 22:14:00 +0000

Artistic License for Guerrilla Painters

This is to certify that___________________________________________________________________________
is entitled to operate an artistic vehicle and to participate in creative pursuits including, but not limited to, sketching, drawing, painting, collage, color mixing & charts, visiting galleries & museums, reading books and studying nature.

The imagination may be fully engaged. Ideas & concepts may evolve & change. New brain cells are a possibility. It is important to maintain awareness, whether the eyes are squinting or wide open. Lines may be crossed or become blurry. Perspective may not always exist.

The holder is entitled to make friends with the Mysterious, the Ambiguous, & the Unfamiliar, and acknowledge unexpected Juxtapositions.

The work deserves your wholehearted attention. It is entitled to its own individual character. It may be criticized but not humiliated, neglected or abused. It is best to play with your work (if you don’t, it will go to someone who will). Please spend time regularly. Listen & look. Entertain Spontaneity.

Baggage

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 06:10:00 +0000

Here’s an example of what I call the “baggage” that surrounds the concept of art. Impedimenta. Something for a guerrilla painter to be wary of...in this case, official opinions.

Recently, ArtReview magazine published its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the art world. They include not just artists but also dealers, critics, museum directors, collectors, curators and art-fair organizers. When the Wall Street Journal (yes) published excerpts, it trumpeted: "The people who make or break art." "The top players." "Who rules the art world?" Oh, please.

ArtReview is based in London, but its view is global. The editors mention some of the things that might affect the ranking: blockbuster exhibitions, new commissions, the value of the dollar, taste of Russian buyers, locations of auction activity, or symbiosis of curator and donor.

The editors make the comment, “...if artists have always lived in the shadow of their patrons, it’s the artwork that ultimately endures.” I’d like to make the observation that the artwork endures as long as someone cares enough to take care of it. Sometimes even bronze statues are stolen and melted down for the value of the metal. Private collections might be housed in private museums, but museums, whether public or private, depend on funding, which can shift with the political, economic or cultural winds.

I suppose it’s only human to want to rank things & people. But the whole point of what we broadly refer to as art is its meaning. And meaning is always personal and individual. We just have to take the time to become aware of it, to discover or create it for ourselves.

Encore

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 03:38:00 +0000

Awhile back, I overheard an artist giving advice to a friend who paints. The only part I could hear clearly was, "Paint it, wipe it off, paint it, wipe it off..."

At first, this sounded like a recipe for frustration. But then I remembered when I'd done a face on watercolor canvas and I kept making "improvements." What I had at first was okay, but I wanted it better, so I kept making changes. I came to a point where I had to erase most of it (you can do that on watercolor canvas) and start over. To my surprise, it wasn't really like starting over, because the face had been created in my mind as well as on the canvas. Very few visual cues were left in place, but they were more than enough for me to re-create the whole thing.

Of course, you can't do this on watercolor paper, but if you've ever thought of painting the same scene repetedly, that would have the same effect. Try different styles, different times of day, different weather, different brightness of colors...or maybe just do it the same way. It will sink in to your consciousness and become much easier to do.

Distant Vistas

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:12:00 +0000

We didn’t go into town to see the fireworks on July 4th, even though Fort Collins puts on a great show. It’s just way too crowded, whether you try to go to City Park or watch from above on the ridges of the foothills. Instead, we drove up 287 to the Wyoming line. We saw the Virginia Dale stage station (home of the infamous Jack Slade) where Lincoln’s Vice President Colfax stopped on his tour of western mining towns.

When we turned around to go back, the scenery was spectacular. Broad, distant vistas, stormy skies, rainbows (three, or one and a half, depending on how you count them) dramatic shadows and bright sunlit bluffs. It was the kind of thing that makes a painter think, “Wow, I’d love to paint that,” and “I could never paint that” at the same time. The kind of thing that makes painting conventions like point of interest, balance, perspective and depth just seem irrelevant. Charles Hawthorne actually came right out and said, “Avoid distant views.” Just looking at the vast distance can be intimidating. Makes you wonder where you fit in.

If you use watercolor, it’s especially challenging, because you can’t just keep messing with it until it works.

But there are people who do make it work, using all different mediums. D.F. Gray is one who uses pastels (see image above). Living on the seacoast, he has the advantage of interesting skies and reflections in the water. Here in the western foothills, there’s not much atmospheric perspective, and the sky can be pure blue. This is where abstraction comes to the rescue. Call it “color field” painting, and let it be about the shapes, textures and colors and how they relate. You are hereby authorized to make your own landscape, or to make the landscape your own.

Mission Creep

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 16:09:00 +0000

I've been resisting going out to paint for awhile, even though the weather's been just fine. I think it has to do with "mission creep."

Last year, I'd come up with a few paintings that were good enough to frame, and it influenced my expectations. You start with a healthy, reasonable goal of having fun, learning a bit or making a souvenir sketch, and then you start to think maybe you'll do something brand new that's never been done before or make a beautiful painting, or make something that will sell, and there you go, skidding right off the edge of reality.

Being hopeful is a good thing, but sometimes if you aim for less, you actually accomplish more.
Last week I finally went outside to paint. I had some watercolor paper that had a purple wash on 2/3rds of it, and I knew that this painting would be strictly for fun. I could scrub away parts of it, but on the whole it would be an experiment in purple & green. No pressure, no apprehension.
A limiting factor can actually be a source of inspiration. Chose one... small size, simple subject, limited palette, a textured surface or an unusual background color, a complete lack of detail, very limited light, a series of the same view, doing only trees, or only roads...

Of course, as long as you're THINKING about painting, (shapes, movement, negative space, patterns, colors and the way they interact with each other and with light & shadow, mood...) you're still on your mission.

Art Class

noreply@blogger.com (lady guerrilla painter) — Wed, 16 May 2007 17:50:00 +0000

We did a demo at the Jerry's Artarama store on South Broadway in Denver (Englewood, to be precise) a few weeks ago. They're thinking of offering classes in their large basement area. One of their employees actually used to be an art teacher in the public schools, and when she said that no one visited her classroom on parent's night, it reminded me of the movie Freedom Writers. I don't mean to make a comparison, but it does seem like art classes have been separated from the mainstream.

In their newsletter that day at Jerry's, I read about a recent experiment in Boston at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Students who participated in art activities at the museum performed better in all their other classes as well.

Maybe we need to create "stealth" art classes, to get past the idea that it's just a frill... call it visual development, creative skills, effective perception, observation resources, cognitive rebalancing...

Whatever it takes to regain its rightful place in the schools.