Painting and Learning

I wanted to post this painting in black and white and then I will show you in color.  I am a selft taught artist and with that comes a lot of trial and error.  That'spretty much for anything we venture into.  I am very interested in painting simplisticly and to have fun.  Fun is the most important element for me, if I'm not having it, then I put the paint brush down and walk away.  That doesn't mean I give up, it simply means taking a break and come at it a different day.   This painting to the left, "Painting the Roses Red in Elizabeth Park", is my experience of this park as a child.  We would go on Easter every year and take some family photos.  I remember feeling so special and extra pretty for my mom would always sew my sister and I new outfits.  I think she even sewed my brother his outfits.  Anyway it was a time lost in memory and a time in the park that can never be now as it was then.  So with my imagination and an idea, I came up with this.  Seeing my work in black and white I can see if my darks are against the lights and if things pop enough and flow enough.  I think it does.  I think I showed some type of experience without to much information, so you, the viewer can have and experience.  I think my eye travels around the painting.  It works for me.
The most important thing is to have fun.  Not all paintings are bought or hung in museaums.  Not all artist are "famous".  But we are all artist and all of us where kids once.  And kids love to have fun!  That's my mato!

Live Life in Color.

here's the painting in color

Tree of Me

My tree of me.  I'm on a journey as we all are.  Some connect to their journey and some do not.  Many are called but few choosen.  I know that I am choosen to bloom and then share to inspire others to bloom and grow into the perfect being they are.
As I entered the process of this painting, the theme being a tree, the tree of knowledge, I started out with a very abstract representation of what a tree felt like to me.  The feeling and results were exciting and freeing but it left me flat.  There was more for me to unveil and revisit and grow from.  I stuggled with it for some time!  I continually thought, (which is my first mistake) I should be and paint one way and turn my back on truth.  Why is it so hard to face truth?  Why am I not good enough to be strong in my truth and live in it?...Slowly I let go, and I mean slowly!  I fought and fought what was calling me and showing up right infront of me!  I find the answers are always right there for me!  Spirit is always in my work and she (me) shows me in vivid detail what it is I am to do!  How cool is that, right?!!!  It is cool when I listen, most of the time I  don't and continue on MY course of pain and believing the lies which causes more pain!
When I decide and it IS a decision, to let go and let God, or what or whom ever you want to call the higher power, then the magic happens.  Things turn and churn and teach, teach me!  The truth always comes to the surface somehow and some way.  Truth tugs and tugs, gives signs and creates opportunities for us to learn.  She never lets go until we see it and then the ahh moments come in and I laugh because it didnt have to be that difficult, it wouldn't be that difficult if I choose to see and listen in the first place.
This painting sat on my wall for about 2 weeks before I knew how it had to finish.  I looked at it everyday knowing that more needed to be said and revealed but I didnt want to see it.  I didnt want to believe it so I pushed it away.  The swan was the final peice of this lesson, and of course I wasnt going to listen to that lesson.  Here is what I have read about Swans, Grace doesn’t mean only the ability to live a balanced life, it is also being able to be at home in many planes of reality, to see that we are more than we appear to be - we are both physical and spiritual beings. We are souls having a human experience. 

Not only does the swan reveal to you your own inner beauty, but also that of others. A Swans graceful entering into your life signals a time of altered states of awareness and the development of intuitive abilities, for those with this medicine have the inherent ability to see the future, and to accept the healing and change that is starting in their lives. Accept this and it will help you go with the flow. Listen to your inner knowledge and intuitions and Swan will work through you. The Swan's voice teaches the mysteries of song and poetry, for these touch our inner child and also our inner beauty. http://www.shamanicjourney.com/article/6089/swan-power-animal-symbol-of-inner-grace-balance-commitment  You can read more on the link I pasted in.

So the lesson has appeared and now it is time to let it into my roots and come up through my trunk and shoot out from my branches!  Please pick the flowers that grow off of me, they are not mine to keep.  oxoxo

Below I attached images of my painting in process!

Passion

The word passion comes from the Latin patior, meaning to suffer or to endure. These days, losing its uncomfortable roots, passion is a feeling of unusual excitement, enthusiasm or compelling emotion toward a subject, idea, person or object. Here's how to get it:

Revisit and repossess your core dreams and fantasies.

Consider your dreams to be private, unique and sacred.

Get help from and watch the actions of the already passionate.

Indulge, honour and live in your own imagination.

Don't talk about it, do it.

See your passion manifested into action or production.

This is direct from The Painter's Key.

This got me thinking that I wanted to speak about this subject too.  I post my paintings, which are captured moments in time of my passion!  My passion towards color, shapes, line and form all combined telling either a story or showing how my imagination translates a subject.  Passion is the "permission" slip to exploration and the discovery of our true self.  To find what it is I and all of us really want.

I want to be a full time artist and give up my day job.  Passion is the key that will eventually get me there.  With my passion or anyone else's there are sacrifices.  I am usually in the studio early hours of the morning when everyone is still asleep.  My weekends consist of hours devoted to my work.  I have to give up a lot to pursue my passions.  To me it's no sacrifice for my art is my life line.  It is the fuel that keeps me alive! 

 When in the passion of process I have no idea what is going on around me!  I am beeming with excitement.  Energy is endless as though I am not even of this world.  When the passion dies down, as does the flames in a fire, I can be still and reflect and listen.

I share this passion in the form of paint because it excites me so much that I want others to feel the same excitement.  It's contagious.  

Passion is like for those who have children, we would do ANYtHINg for them.  Climb a mountain if we had to, and some of us do figuratively.  Sacrificing everything if need be for the happiness and well being of them.  This passion towards our children is the same passion we have inside us for ourselves.  The compass that will lead you to find true happiness. 

Still Keeping On

I have about 30 or so paintings in this God's Grandeur series and the more I painted the more I did learn.  The main thing for me was when I let go even in the scary parts something interesting happened with my paintings, they are more alive and something I could have never imagined.  When I would try and duplicate that process I would get nothing.  So I think the key is to let go and have fun, see what happens, be scared and then go back and refine later.  Makes for a much more interesting painting.  Going to my edge and then jumping off is where the growth is.


Live Life In Color!

Still Showing Up!

Still showing up everyday in the studio!  Still discovering my "what if's".  I'm also learning that when I bump up against fear (i dont want to mess this up) I take my biggest and fatest brush and a deep breath and go anyway!  It's only paint right? How does "it" have so much control over artist?
oxoxo

Process Showing Messy Parts

I tried to do a video but I seem to be stumped on how to make my camera do video and then post it…so I have to figure that out.  Above is a start on a primed 6"x6" board.  The "blue" is my focal point and then I put some other places which will be covered up anyway but will reintroduce it again but greyed down.  Adding my yellows and then my supporting colors, I start to play with my composition which is still meandering.  And Im still working on my God series so the theme is still constant.  All this is done with out too much thought or concern about a finished painting, just playing.  There are some really cool things happening here which I would like to keep.  I love the grey greens along the edges so I might add more of that type of color which will be great for those are more midtones and I need a few more in here.  I will go back in here today and play a little with the yellows greyed down and my pink greyed down, and bringing back a bit more of the focal color the blue.  Let's see what happens.

                                   

My Process

Another layer…so I am playing and forgetting everything but play and opening myself up to the "what if".  Everything I do in the studio is a direct reflection of me in life.  If I am willing to not be perfect here then I can allow myself the gift out in my real life.  Plus what is perfect anyway?  I think it's an illusion.  :)  Play and live life in COLOR