Design and color

Something about Red

it changes everything O happy day

I sometimes feel that I'd like to take the same painting and paint it 500 different ways. I'd like to change the color harmonies, change the technique, change the medium, do mixed medium, change the substrate, o my so many ways to change it up. The key, of course, is the design. Lots of style can hang on a good design. Every time I put my brush to the canvas I am keenly aware of having made a decision which ipso facto eliminates other directions I could have taken this painting.

As it happens with this one I was just messing around browsing on pinterest and saw a collection of work by Linda Arthurs who incorporates patterns everywhere in her design much like Vuillard. But that's not what I was taken by....it was the pure red....I wanted to do red with a passion after I saw her painting of a silhouetted bed frame so I took my current "design" and layed out the red side on my palette and then put down pthalo green and veridian because, of course, they are the opposite on the color wheel and went to town working on this one. I had to add some blue, too.

I tried to paste the red painting that inspired me but it wouldn't work. There must be a copyright restriction so you'll have to look her work up. It's lovely and busy and colorful.

Now let me add a caveat. There are many times when I use pure color and then notice upon drying and looking at it a few days later I find it too bold and too harsh. I think this will work because it's over a burnt sienna and also I think because it's surrounded by modulated grayer colors. We'll see.

I am absolutely loving today's technology. I've always wanted to write a book. I started a book about how I finished a certain painting a few years ago and never got back to it but recently incorporated it into a much bigger, more ambitious endeavor that incorporates a lot of my philosophy about the so called art life and the tenacity to hang on to it while still remaining a respectable, responsible parent and member of society. Anyway with Kindle being so easy, I recently uploaded it and published in the digital format. There are lots of photos of paintings and many chapters adding up to about 180 pages. Here is a link. I hope you're a kindle reader and get a chance to download it. Easy Peasy. It's incredibly easy to read on the kindle app for ipad and of course on the kindle. You can even get the kindle app from amazon for your computer to view it on a larger screen. I would love to hear what your thought and experiences are regarding the "art life," too.


Crossing over into creativity and How to sell oil paintings

Custom 30 x 30 vineyard with eucalytpus on benjamin moore Revere Pewter.  I toned the canvas with the wall color and that I think helped me make choices that would harmonize with the room.

The hallways of our memories

I reflect back on farms.  I thought everyone's grandparents lived on a farm.   We were the city folks driving home during summer vacation over the rolling hills of Kentucky turning into the side road with the little bridge over the crick adjacent to the weathered old burnt  sienna barn full of upside down hanging tobacco.  Those days are gone now and having a red barn is kind of a yuppie lofty thing.  The old "HOME PLACE" that we called grandma and grandpa's is now a subdivision.  In my childish mind, I always thought they would remain; the crick, the bridge, the gigantic tree where the tire swing hung that we cousins played with for hours.  But bulldozers rearranged the earth and diverted the creek and tree lined streets with sewers, water lines, street lamps and asphalt took their place among the houses all in a row alternating with models a b c and d.  I wonder if the street sign bears any name with which I am familiar?  I always think of my maw maw and pawpaw and the multitudes of cousins when I see a red barn, especially with clouds and hills and corn on the cob. I do so wish I could remember the LAST day I was there.  Though only 10 I think I would have been melancholy to know not only that I would grow up but that it would disappear from the face of the earth.

"The joy of art lies in the spark of truth..

the quest fulfills the mind's desire to see.

The thing we make is not the same today

as lingers in the hallways of our minds."