Inspiration and Rest

Fishing on the lower Blue Lake, Breckenridge, CO

Last week, my whole family (kids and grandchildren) were given the opportunity to spend time at a cabin of some friends/clients in Breckenridge, CO. We spent the week hiking, biking, fishing and a lot of laughing (especially during endless games of Settlers of Catan). If you ever need to be recharged and inspired, the Rocky Mountains will do the trick. Awesome and severe and covered with wildflowers this time of year, we left them inspired and ready to dive back into the Asheville summer season!

I enjoy my job so much as a painter in my studio in Asheville's River Arts District. I usually am not even aware of the fact that it would be good to get a break. See, painting FEELS like my "break" and I get to do that five days a week. For those of you who have purchased my artwork...THANK YOU for giving me the privilege of doing what I love to do. It's not lost on me that I can joyfully create because people like you support and encourage me by actually purchasing what I create. 

But I can get so blissfully caught up in the creating of art that it's really easy to miss the fact I need a break, and that even with art, I need to take time to recharge and to fill my depleting creative tank. 

Well, now that creative tank is full again. I left the Rocky Mountains rested and inspired and with some new ideas I want to try. If these ideas work, then some exciting things are in the making in the next few months, and I'm really excited about that. 

Oaks on the Water

"Oaks on the Water" (34" x 36")

This painting commission was an interesting assignment. About a month ago, I got a call from one of the owners of the art gallery in Charleston, SC that carries my work (Mitchell-Hill Gallery on King Street) and Michael Mitchell asked me about a commission based on two paintings I'd previously done. The photo Michael had sent me to use for inspiration was fused together in Photoshop, the upper half being two gnarled old oak trees and the lower half had a peaceful stream of still dark water (from a completely different piece). The original "oaks" painting was more of a summer scene, with green grass and a pathway or narrow road in the foreground, but I liked the idea of going to golds and more autumnal colors and I loved the idea of adding the stream. So I tackled the assignment with excitement. 

Today, this painting is complete and will be packed up for shipment momentarily.  I absolutely love taking an older painting and examining it again after some time and deciding to rework a new priced based on that original, tweaking it and "re-mixing it" so to speak. The process is a blast and the end result is usually well worth the effort. 

Oak Tree by Bernard Shaw

I took an acorn and put it in a pot.
I then covered it with earth, not a lot.
Great pleasure was mine watching it grow.
The first budding green came ever so slow.
I watered my plant twice a week
I knew I would transplant it down by the creek.
One day it will be a giant oak, 
To shield me from the sun a sheltering cloak.
Lovers will carve their initials in the bark, 
An arrow through a heart they will leave their mark.
It will shelter those caught in a fine summers rain, 
Under its leafy bows joy will be again. 
Creatures of the wilds will claim it for their own, 
Squirrels will reside here in their own home.
Birds will build nests and raise their young, 
They will sing melodies a chorus well sung.
Under it’s branches grass will grow, 
Here and there a wild flower it’s head will show.
My oak tree for hundreds of years will live.
Perhaps the most important thing I had to give. 

Boats on the Water

One of the best things about having an art studio in Asheville's River Arts District is that I can paint mountains and trees and water (which I thoroughly enjoy), and every time I run out of subject matter to inspire a painting, I just go for a walk and I'm full of ideas agin. The only difficult thing here is that I don't get to regularly paint subject matter that is outside the typical "Blue Ridge Mountain" genre. Do NOT get me wrong. I absolutely love paintings these mountains, but sometimes, it's just really fun to paint something different.

A couple months ago, I was asked to paint a couple sea-sunset themed paintings and I had a blast. I guess my client was happy because they since asked me to paint a third piece for them. "Are you up for a challenge?" they asked. Undaunted, I of course accepted that challenge. 

To be honest, when I was given the photo to be used for this commission, I was nervous. The main subject of the photo were two shrimp boats (I think that's what they were) but the photo was really dark and I could see very little detail in the boats. So the trick was to suggest the detail I saw in the photo (the detail you'd see as silhouetted against a blazing sunset) and leave it at that. And a new challenge for me: how to suggest all the ropes and lines you'd see on shrimp boats without getting too much into the detail of it. Understand, the goal is to LOOK detailed without BEING detailed. If this painting looks right to you, then I figured it out, so...let me know. :)

A Paumanok Picture
by Walt Whitman

TWO boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still, 
Ten fishermen waiting--they discover a thick school of mossbonkers-- 
they drop the join'd seine-ends in the water, 
The boats separate and row off, each on its rounding course to the
beach, enclosing the mossbonkers, 
The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore, 
Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats, others stand ankle-deep
in the water, pois'd on strong legs, 
The boats partly drawn up, the water slapping against them, 
Strew'd on the sand in heaps and windrows, well out from the water, 
the green-back'd spotted mossbonkers.

Glacial Fractures

"Glacial Fractures"  (45" x 70")

About a month ago ago, I was asked to work on a commission. They requested an abstract painting based on the general idea of some other abstracts I've done in the past but they (very helpfully) requested I use the colors in Degas' "The Green Dancer" (shown below).

The reason I loved this assignment was, well, there were two reasons...First, I didn't have to search for colors that would work and second, it was so much fun color matching one of Degas' most famous pieces. 

So my River Arts District art studio has been full of this really large painting now for about a month. It is scheduled to get its first layer of resin in the next couple of days (as soon as I get the gold leaf on the edges), and then it ships to Chicago. Honestly, I am going to miss looking at this one. 

I named this piece "Glacial Fractures" because it when I stand back and ask what it wanted to be called, the night time image of towering glaciers in Antarctica came to mind. Of course, the glaciers are lit from within (probably due to the aliens trapped in the ice). Ha ha. Don't you go rolling your eyes at me. I'm an X-Files geek. I can't help myself. 

Winter in the Summer!

"Top of the Mountain" (18" x 22")

I have the tendency of being plagued with constant restlessness..."I'm too cold. I can't wait for summer"..."I'm too hot. I can't wait for winter". I have to remind myself to fully enjoy and appreciate where I am in the year, you know? I mean, each season has incredible beauty. I have learned two things living in a part of the country that gets four bonafide seasons:

1) Each season is a delight.

2) As an artist, winter always sells. 

I have no idea why my second point is true. I would have thought a winter themed painting would be a "slow mover" when it comes to sales but my winter paintings are still selling in the summer so...being the keen entrepreneur that I am, I will continue to paint winter themes as longs as they sell. This painting in particular gives me great joy. It is called "Top of the Mountain" and features a stand of balsam trees heavily laden will snow. And as in most winter paintings, it is almost monochromatic. I think reducing a composition to nearly black and white (as you do in a winter scene) is really challenging and if pulled off right (hopefully!) is really dramatic. 

So this summer, as you're about to enjoy a long weekend of inhaling bar-b-qued hot dogs, hamburgers and enjoying home made ice cream, remember...there are less than six months till Christmas. 

Woods in Winter
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When winter winds are piercing chill, 
And through the hawthorn blows the gale, 
With solemn feet I tread the hill, 
That overbrows the lonely vale. 

O'er the bare upland, and away
Through the long reach of desert woods, 
The embracing sunbeams chastely play, 
And gladden these deep solitudes. 

Where, twisted round the barren oak, 
The summer vine in beauty clung, 
And summer winds the stillness broke, 
The crystal icicle is hung. 

Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs
Pour out the river's gradual tide, 
Shrilly the skater's iron rings, 
And voices fill the woodland side. 

Alas! how changed from the fair scene, 
When birds sang out their mellow lay, 
And winds were soft, and woods were green, 
And the song ceased not with the day! 

But still wild music is abroad, 
Pale, desert woods! within your crowd; 
And gathering winds, in hoarse accord, 
Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud. 

Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear
Has grown familiar with your song; 
I hear it in the opening year, 
I listen, and it cheers me long.