(163) Not Your Grandmother's Art
Kevin Macpherson states that children have so much to teach us about art, and suggests that we schedule a day to "watch their freedom and joy as they respond to shapes and color with intense focus and intuitive direction. This is true process." So today's assignment is to celebrate these busy little hands and the lessons learned. Come on along:

Lesson # 1 The Zen of Being. The importance of seemingly doing "nothing" cannot be overlooked. In this case, my "teacher" was pretending to be asleep. A quiet moment, a respite--an excellent way to shift gears, or prepare for the transition into the creative process. And if you have a good friend like Bear to share your rest as well as your adventures, all the better.
Lesson # 2- Think Outside The Box. Notice how this "moo-cow 'ticker" looks way better stuck onto the desk rather than the paper. Coloring outside the lines is so "last year" people-I learned that now it's all about 'ticking outside the paper.
Lesson #3 Use Your Five Senses to Create Art. When was the last time you broke out the old Play-Doh? Ahh, the colors, the fragrance, the softness and pliability of the dough....absolute bliss! Endless possibilities for creative fun and rolling, molding, folding with reckless abandon. (okay, not THAT reckless, only use four senses here, no tasting the play-doh)
Lesson # 4 : Simple Pleasures are the Best. I was instructed to take my shoes off so my feet could "feel da gwass." But of course. I had forgotten that spring just hasn't arrived until you have waltzed barefoot across the cool grass. Silly me.
Lesson # 5: Shake it Up. Why are we such creatures of habit? Why do we think the way we have always done something is the only "right way"? Perhaps because it requires really looking/really seeing something as if it were for the very first time in order to shake up your brain so you can imagine new possibilities. Can't be lazy. Gotta explore with new eyes. Well, NOW I KNOW that "Pink" is actually a flavor, and it is more fun to use a spoon to scoop it right out of the cone. See what I been missing?
Lesson # 6: No Attachment, No Fear. When was the last time you sketched, painted, wrote, sculpted (fill in the blank) something just for the joy of the moment, the process, the fun?--Completely without fear that it wouldn't be "good enough"? Or as Kevin explains "without the baggage based on outside influences such as public praise or gallery demands." Another gentle reminder that all children instinctively know that the present moment is all there is, and that the journey IS the destination. Right now, baby. This is it. Change is constant, nothing remains the same. Sketch something, erase it and move on... It is what it is, and what it is is exactly what it is supposed to be, no judgment here. (pretty big lesson for such wee hands)
Lesson # 7 Do Something New--(be willing to go in a new direction if that is where your heart leads you) Drawing on the chalkboard is predictably fun, and was our aim here, but I was taught that taking the chalk out of the box, laying it all out at once so you can position the colors and shapes into a lovely design--now THAT is the true artistic adventure of the day! Who knew?
I have so much to learn about trying new things and discovering new possibilities--good thing my teacher was so patient with me. Happy "new number" baby girl. I look forward to many more lessons.
...a little child, born yesterday,
A thing on mother's milk and kisses fed...
~ from the Greek Homeric hymn "Hymn to Mercury"

(162) Tertiary Triads
Here I chose two tertiary triads for comparison. The top palette consists of Red-Orange, Yellow-Green, and Blue-Violet; and the bottom one is Yellow-Orange, Red-Violet and Blue-Green.
"Always link the word value with color. If you learn to see value, you will get color"...Everett Raymond Kinstler

(161) High Chroma vs. High Key
There are a dozen more tetrads to discover, but I will save those for another day, and move on to another challenge. In the top study, I used the primary palette of yellow, red and blue and focused on higher chroma, more intense color. In the lower one, I chose the secondary palette of orange, violet and green and lots more white making it a high key, pastel study--totally different look and feel.
"When complements are placed side by side, they accentuate each other. If I want a blue to look very blue, I put an orange next to it. In fact, it's usually essential to get the complement working somewhere near the principal color, if only because a color needs its complement in order to exist. A red is not a red without a contrasting green to explain it"...Emil Gruppe

(160) Tetrad # 3
Complementary pairs: Orange and Blue, Yellow and Violet
"I was in a bar and I said to a friend, 'You know, we've become those 40-year-old guys we used to look at and say, 'Isn't it sad?'...George Clooney (Today is his 47th birthday--somehow I'm betting that "sad" isn't a word that comes to mind when most of us think about George)

(159) Tetrad # 2
Yellow-orange, yellow-green and both red and blue violet--wow, I think these colors are so gorgeous together, love the earth-tones and neutrals they render. I could easily spend another month exploring color, but I think I'm almost ready to move on to something else. Almost.
""Experience does not err; it is only your judgment that errs in promising itself results which are not caused by your experiments"...Leonardo da Vinci

(158) Tetrad # 1
This combination is yellow-orange, red-orange, blue-violet and blue-green, two sets of complements, called a tetrad. I love the rich, clean teals and peachy colors from these combinations.

In honor of our 134th Kentucky Derby today, I am including a few favorite quotes from Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit:

(jockey George Woolf): That's a pretty small horse you got there, Sahim.
(Seabiscuit's jockey Red Pollard): Two bucks says he looks a lot smaller in a second.

(jockey Red Pollard): Morning.
(trainer Tom Smith): What's all this?[motions towards pile of boxes Red is sitting on]
Red Pollard: It's beer! From an admiring public, pretty good too, more in there[points toward Seabiscuit's stall]
Tom Smith: [looks in stall] Where's the horse?
Red Pollard: [amused smile] Signing autographs.

(157) Complements: Red Violet and Yellow Green
I love these colors together--just like the Redbud trees against the spring green grass we see here now.
"All of life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better" ...Ralph Waldo Emerson

(156) Complements: Red and Green
"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there"...Lewis Carroll

(155) Complements: Red Orange and Blue Green
"Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer the goal”...Elbert Hubbard

(154) Complements: Orange and Blue
Ah yes, orange and blue...a lovely duo found in a New York Mets uniform, a setting sun over an azure ocean...
"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset”...
Crowfoot saying

(153) Complements: Yellow Orange and Blue Violet
These colors work well for landscapes. Again, I added a tiny amount of the colors halfway between the complements; in this case, red and green.
"A lot of it's experimental, spontaneous. It's about knocking about in the studio and bumping into things"...Richard Prince

(152) Complements: Yellow and Violet
Complementary pairs such as these appear opposite each other on the color wheel, so if either appears too intense, it can be toned down, or neutralized by adding a small amount of the other. Added together, they make really clean neutrals. Placed next to each other in a painting, they intensify the other, and seem to vibrate.
The studies on the top and bottom left are mixtures of the two complements in varying amounts of each with white. To experiment a little further, I added a small amount of red-orange to all the mixtures in the top right study, completely altering the feeling of the day, and appearing as a late afternoon sunset. I can see how this combination would work well in a Grand Canyon painting. In the bottom right study, the small addition of blue-green offers lush greens that would work well with spring/summer trees. I chose these latter color additions because red-orange and blue-green are exactly halfway between yellow and violet on each side of the color wheel, and they too, are complimentary pairs to each other. I'm really enjoying these color discoveries--pretty cool stuff, indeed. Normally when I mix colors, it is a push/pull effort where I adjust a mixture by warming, cooling, lightening, darkening until I get what I want, but this type of mixing offers less steps which equals less muddy colors. (and did I mention it is fun?)
"Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow"...Ralph Waldo Emerson

RO,BV, YG
(151) Triad : Red Orange, Blue Violet, Yellow Green
This is the last triad, and for the next few days I will explore color combinations using only complementary colors that appear opposite each other on the color wheel.
"There are only 3 colors, 10 digits, and 7 notes; its what we do with them that's important"...Jim Rohn

(150) Tertiary Triad
Using yesterday's color combinations from the yellow-orange/red-violet/blue-green triad, I added more white to lighten the values and render this little study in a higher key.
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts”...Marcus Aurelius

(149) Triad: Yellow Orange, Red Violet, Blue Green
This triad is probably my favorite so far. I thought yesterday's neutrals were gorgeous, but these teals, blues and lavenders are the best. I love the juxtaposition of the blue-greens with the peachy tones. (click to enlarge these for a better view)

"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do"...Epictectus

(148) Secondary Triad: Orange/Violet and Green
This is also not a combination I would normally reach for, but I especially like the rich neutrals that these colors produced (wow, aren't they gorgeous little grays?) It occurred to me today that once these little studies are dry, I could put them in clear plastic sleeves and transfer them to a spiral bound notebook for reference. Now how cool would that be?


You just knew I would have to paint a tree (with my limited palette) on Earth Day, right?
"If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen...
I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines"...Henry David Thoreau"
I'm off to keep my "appointment" with some of my favorite trees...Happy Earth Day, everyone!

(147) STUDY: Primary Triad
I have enjoyed my "break"-- got caught up in a flurry of stuff: spring cleaning, planting flowers; registered my son for college, hosted a tea party for dear friends, all fun stuff-- thanks to all who checked in to say hello and inquire why I was absent from the blog. I enjoyed every minute of the shift in focus, but now look forward to a painting routine again. Because this week marks my 6th month anniversary of initiating this blog,(oh yes it does!) I thought I would move in a different direction and explore new things.
During my break, I re-read Kevin Macpherson's books, and made a list of the many challenges and painting exercises he suggests. I took the list, cut it into strips and placed them in a basket where I plan to blindly choose one or more to explore. (Why didn't I just pick one from the list?--because its more fun to be surprised with each assignment-and admittedly, I feared I would get lost looking for the "perfect challenge" and waste time searching.) I plan to take a workshop with Kevin later this summer, so I hope to work through many/most of his suggestions in the coming weeks. Today's exercise consists of tiny studies using a primary palette. Just for fun, I chose colors that I normally would not pair together and noted the secondary colors and neutrals mixed from those color relationships. I tried other combinations for comparison that I will share in the days to come. One of my other favorite books is Edgar Payne's "Composition of Outdoor Painting" so some of my landscape configurations are an exploration of his suggestions for compositions. Too much information?(sorry)
"All the tube colors in the world will be useless to you if you do not properly relate them. A palette of three primary colors gives you all the relationships you need and is simpler to work with"...Kevin Macpherson

(146) Blue Hydrangeas
private collection
6 x 8, oil
Robert Henri talked about the importance of painting the spirit or essence of your subject. Eckhart Tolle explains this concept further when he suggests that we consider the wonder and awe of life, stating that a flower "silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you. This is what great artists sense and succeed in conveying in their art. Van Gogh didn't say 'That's just an old chair.' He looked, and looked, and looked. He sensed the Beingness of the chair. Then he sat in front of the canvas and took up the brush."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"An artist's studio should be a small space because small rooms discipline the mind and large ones distract it"...Leonardo da Vinci
While I see merit in da Vinci's statement, some days I feel like the "old woman who lived in a shoe" because it can become equally distracting to efficiently organize a tiny space. So, with that in mind, I'm stepping away from the easel for a few days in an attempt to do some major sorting, filing,and spring cleaning. Who knows what I'll find out there?Maybe the weather will cooperate and it will actually feel like spring!...TTFN

(145) History of Art
6 x 6, oil
As I painted this, I was thinking about how this brush cleaner is a much more inviting subject compared to "everything else" in the set-up because the wonderful reflections force me to see it as only abstract spots of color. Whereas, I tend to see the book as a preconceived idea of what a book is, which gets in the way of seeing it as a shape or a value. I've tried squinting at the subject, but it just doesn't accomplish the same goal for me. A lot of artists paint from upside-down photos for this reason, knowing that if the left brain can no longer label what is there, the shift to the right brain is easier--not possible if you are painting from life instead of a photo... So, short of standing on my head to paint, how can I reduce everything to spots of color? something to ponder...
"The airless studios grow stifling. Kick the door open--the hum of life turns into a roar!"....Feliks Topolski (one of my favorite quotes)

(144) Strike a Pose
6 x 8, oil
"Without the studio, however humble, the room where the imagination can enter cannot exist"...Anna Hansen

(143) Mannequin
6 x 8, oil
"Room service? Send up a larger room"...Groucho Marx

(142) Tools of the Trade
6 x 6, oil
"The studio, a room to which the artist consigns himself for life, is naturally important, not only as a workplace, but as a source of inspiration. And it usually manages, one way or another, to turn up in his product"...Grace Glueck

(141) Daffodils
6 x 8, oil
"We can do no great things; only small things with great love"...Mother Teresa

(140) White Roses
8 x 10, oil
In today's painting, my focus was in pre-mixing the shadow and light colors, as suggested by my friend Frank Gardner. To see how he organizes his palette, click here. One of the reasons artists choose to pre-mix colors is because once the decisions have been made, the artist can switch from thinking to doing, from planning to spontaneously placing the paint on the canvas. Ken Auster calls this the dance between "intellect and passion."
"All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness"...Eckhart Tolle

(139) Pruning
6 x 8, oil
“A single rose can be my garden...a single friend, my world"... Leo F. Buscaglia

(138) La Vie en Rose
6 x 6, oil
“I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall"...Eleanor Roosevelt

(137) For Carson
6 x 6, oil
private collection
"There was a star danced, and under that was I born"... William Shakespeare

(136) Rose Garden
6 x 6, oil
"If the rose puzzled its mind over the question of how it grew, it would not have been the miracle that it is"... Yeats

(135) Guitar
6 x 6, oil
"I look at the world and I notice it's turning
while my guitar gently weeps,
with every mistake we must surely be learning"...George Harrison

(134) Primavera
6 x 6, oil
My long weekend turned into a little more as I got "caught up in catching up" with the business side of art: filing, framing, etc. So, it is good to be back painting today.
Happy Spring everyone, and Happy Birthday to Mimi, a wonderful artist and friend.
"There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so, he has to forget all the roses that were ever painted"...Henry Matisse

(133) Welcome!
9 x 12, oil
private collection
As soon as I heard about the "door" challenge for today, I knew this was the door I wanted to paint-- a work of art in and of itself. It belongs to lovely friends who live on a street lined with Victorian homes built in the 1800s. As I painted this, I pondered what life may have been like during an era that was wrought with the absolute best and brightest, including artists Sargeant, Monet, Cassatt, Beaux, Manet, Pissarro, Degas, Sisley, Hawthorne, Henri, and Chase--just to name a few! Some of them were friends who encouraged each other and sometimes painted together. I have to wonder what ideas they could have shared with internet "door projects" as we are doing today!
For instance, would Sargeant have asked his friends' opinion of his painting Madame X before he entered it in the 1884 Paris Salon where it was deemed an outrageous scandal? (and more importantly (giggle), would his artist friends have suggested he paint her strap up or down?)
“Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open” Alexander Graham Bell (another notable during this era, he invented the phone in 1876, at the age of 29)
Don't forget to visit all the other links posted on yesterday's blog entry to see the rest of our worldwide exhibit! Ta-ta for now, I'm stepping away from the easel for a long weekend with loved ones. Blessings to all!
fcp

(132) The Hill
6 x 6, oil
In order to get the "snowflakes" I thinned the paint with medium (Gamsol, linseed oil and stand oil) and then dipped an old toothbrush in it. Next, I thumbed through the bristles to flick the paint onto the canvas (you thought painting was "work"?)
"The flute of the infinite is played without ceasing and its sound is love"...Kabir

Elizabeth from Marrakesh and Frank from Mexico have invited me to participate in a celebration of DOORS. As Frank explained "There is something intriguing about doors. Doors are all over the world. Doors lead somewhere. They keep things in, they keep things out. Doors have histories, stories, mystery. Let's share some."
So, on Wednesday, March 12th, I will join participants from the U.K., Canada, Australia, Scotland, the U.S.A. and Finland in celebrating doors in paint, words, drawings, photographs, poems, etc. In order to make it easy for you to view this "worldwide exhibit" I am including links to the other participants' websites in today's email (because tomorrow I will be busy painting my door!).
When I first began this blog, my intention was to share what I am doing with friends and family, but I could never have anticipated the many "doors" that would be opened to me as I am welcomed by new friends around the world.
"May you have warm words on a cold evening, a full moon on a dark night and a smooth road all the way to your door.” (Irish blessing)

Jack Riddle, Maine, USA
Mary Sheehan Winn, Florida, USA
Terry Rafferty, New Mexico, USA
Constance Muller
Jennifer Thermes Connecticut USA
Joanne Giesbrecht, Alberta, Canada
Eric Orchard, Nova Scotia Canada
Christine Mercer Vernon, Pennsylvania, USA
Britt Arnhild Norway
Kate and Roger Skophammers Virginia, USA
Barbara London, UK
Pam Aries South Carolina, USA
some Pink flowers, Florida, USA
Rima, Scotland
Merisa, Austria
Paz, New York, USA
Dale, Australia
Aesthete, USA
Mari/Kameravena, Finland
Lea Harris, USA
Maryam, Morroco
Willow, California, USA
Ari, Finland
Stephanie
Madelyn, Canada
Leslie, Pennsylvania, USA
Karen Cole, Pennsylvania, USA
Barrie, California, USA
Sherry/Cherie, Toronto, Canada
Claudia Schmid, London, United Kingdom
Sue, Bristol, United Kingdom
Gemma Wiseman, Australia
Neulekirppu, Finland
Laura Fortune,California, USA
Sara Lorayne, California, USA

(131) The Nonconformist
6 x 6, oil
Ever observe a child and see yourself ? This little girl grabbed my eye with her complimentary colors of periwinkle and orange, but it was her comfort in choosing to slide down the entire hill sideways that kept my attention. Love that!
Congrats to another nonconformist, John Mellencamp, who is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tomorrow:
"Be careful with your heart and what you love
Make sure that it was sent from above
It's what you do and not what you say
If you're not part of the future, then get out of the way"...( from "Peaceful World" by JM)

(130) Snow!
8 x 16, oil
To all my friends to the north who are sick of snow, please accept my apology, but we were thrilled to see it arrive here yesterday! It was our first and only snow of the winter, the only "significant" snowfall in ten years, so children (young and old) were out enjoying the day. I didn't attempt to paint from life since the children (and the sun) were in and out, up and down at rapid speeds. Instead, I photographed at a favorite sledding spot that became more heavily populated as the day went on. I made a conscious effort to close my eyes and memorize the sounds of joy, laughter, and shrieks of delight all around me. Some of the children there had never seen snow--priceless.
“Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottery”...Bill Watterson, creator of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes (I miss seeing C&H in the daily newspaper; Calvin's "snow art" was a favorite series)

(129) Balancing Act
6 x 8, oil
"Pretend you are dancing or singing a picture. A worker or painter should enjoy his work, else the observer will not enjoy it"...Robert Henri

(128) Celebration of Red
6 x 6, oil
"Every answer asks a more beautiful question"...e.e.cummings

(127) Red Plums
6 x 8, oil
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes but in having new eyes"...Proust

(126) Life is...
6 x 8, oil
"Life is a bowl of cherries, don't take it serious, it's mysterious-so live and laugh, and laugh and love"...Bob Fosse

(125) Jubilant Cherries
private collection
5 x 7, oil
"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer"...Albert Camus