Sunday, December 11, 2011

Merry Christmas!


My best wishes to you this Christmas. I hope you will enjoy the new life that is at the heart of the season.

I thought I'd resurrect a few pictures from my archives that represent this time of year. In doing so I was impressed by the connection I have with these little landscapes. The empathy I have for these exemplifies an importance of painting from life.

Most painters that I know work from photos in the comfort and control of their studios. I do the same for some of my work, virtually all of the larger projects. So why do plein-air painters rant on about the value of working from life?

I'll use water-skiing for a comparison. You can watch others skiing on TV or play with a skiing simulator on your Playstation until you max out the levels.

It's not until you get on the water behind your crazy brother-in-law's boat, crash a few times and experience some real surface-tension at speed and then finally drink in the exhilaration of speed, spray and two-cycle fumes that you have skied.

When you get off the water to play on the simulator you surely will be even better than before but more importantly you will have experienced the sight, sound, smells and feeling of skiing.

When I look at each of these paintings I return to the exact spot where I stood before nature and grappled with the subject, trying to engage and express something true and real. I can even remember the smells and the warmth of sun and the chill of winter breezes as I leaned into a drifted hillside or sheltered beneath snow laden trees. I'm enriched by the encounters I had with deer, coyotes, fox and moose in this outdoor work.







Below is a larger studio piece that was based on a photo and executed indoors. You can see that I had time to explore with technique and being larger in scale I could also develop my ideas further than in my plein air work. I utilized some of my lessons learned from my outdoor observation. I am very happy with the result. The difference for me is that I could never find this little tree. I know exactly where all these others live. It's about spending time with them, engaged in observation.

So if you've never tried painting from life, go for it and you will see where the addiction begins.

Enough of that. Take a few minutes to watch this heart warming video. It demonstrates what this thing called "art" is about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq1xGXzr3jw&feature=email

Until next year!