Plein Air Painting

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“Break a leg” is a well-known saying in theatre which means “good luck”.

July 11, 2009 in Plein Air Painting | Permalink

In popular literature, the artist is an ethereal being, unconcerned with the crass and material world.  Last Sunday, this illusion was rudely shattered, along with my ankle (in three places).

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I was innocently showering, in preparation for departing on a journey of artistic discovery including, I hoped visits to numerous museums and much time spent with my beloved brushes, when a slippery floor and gravity transformed the museums into Delray Medical Center and the brushes into the full panoply of the surgical suite.broken leg bear

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Now, I’m hopping about with a walker and riding in a wheelchair… and still in Delray Beach.  Fortunately, I still have my reading and am drawing inspiration from one on Monet.  You see, Monet found his artistic calling during a period of medical convalescence.  The then lawyer Monet was given a present of painting materials from his mother while he was recovering from appendicitis, and the world lost a lawyer and gained an artist….  a double gain in most people’s view of society.

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Maybe I’ll find my muse amid the continual frustrations of being a one-legged woman in the land of the fully-abled.

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While Monet made a huge change in his life, I don’t feel that I’m really making a big one in mine,.  I’ve always found beauty in things like gardening and cooking, the science of the recipe and the art of the multifaceted presentation.  The connections, the parallels, are there for anyone to feel.

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I’ve been pondering more and more the fusion of art and science and wondering why for most of my life I’ve seen my course to be mainly within the sciences.  I don’t view this with regret, only with a kind of bemused realization as the connections fall together.

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My inspiration is Leonardo da Vinci, the true master of combining art and science.  He was the one who changed concept of “artist” from “mere craftsman” to “genius.”  However, the process was a gradual one, changing only as brilliant historians, capable of thinking out-of-the-box, came to realize his notebooks contained scientific as well as artistic musings.

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This sets me wondering, in The Great Scheme of Things, what is the relationship of art to science?  Leonardo’s paintings don’t overtly trumpet scientific principles.  They are Art; they are Beautiful; they nourish the Soul.  However, I wonder if I can find a way to make scientific principles more “real” to those who simply experience it rather than formally study it, in much the way they experience gravity in much the same way I experienced it in my shower.

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I have an intuitive, gut feeling that it can be done.  I think that art can illuminate what it is that our world is manifesting.   Art reflects more than the society and culture of which it is part.  I see it reflecting all of the elements of its era and world.

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I’m struggling with this concept, but some images have come to me, and as I struggle to translate them into my work, I hope I’ll be able to bring some clarity to you… and to me.

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What I learned from a six year old about painting

July 2, 2009 in Plein Air Painting | Permalink

Recently, I had the opportunity to look after my great-niece for a week.   Since she likes to paint, we made a Father’s Day gift for her dad, my nephew.  While I had my own ideas about what she should paint, I soon discovered that she had her own ideas.

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She was insistent that she wanted to visit an art museum; however, in talking with her, I soon discovered that she thought the museum was a place where she’d get to display her own art, sort of a brick-and-mortar public-access cable channel.  After I showed her a video of an actual art museum, she was disabused of this notion and decided that such a trip could wait until later in her career.

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Lessons:               You have to believe in yourself.

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Don’t let the “common wisdom” deter you from your artistic freedom.

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Yielding to her six-year-old force majeure, I gave her some paints and paper and she immediately set out following her own vision.   When I asked what she was creating, she replied that it was a picture of the ocean and some fish, a topic with which she is very familiar having an avid fisherman for a father who enjoys her company on his expeditions.  She was amazingly accurate in showing the physical details of the various aquatic species.

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When I asked her about the colors she was using, she replied that she likes turquoise because “it has all the colors in the ocean.”  It was quite impressive to see in one so young that she could convey “the experience of the ocean” as she perceived it.

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Lesson:

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Don’t be afraid to use bold colors.

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She was using watercolors from my set, but I also gave her some gouache paint because it was an opaque paint that gave her the ability to paint over previous strokes.  Her style, it seemed, was to use bold colors with an overpainting.  It was a revitalizing experience to see her enthusiasm and uninhibited style.

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Lesson:                 Don’t let a canvas limit you.

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Instead of living with the frustration of running out of room, this mini-Matisse, presented me with the unfinished work and demanded that I append another sheet of paper to the edge of the one she had filled in.  This yielded a panoramic view of the ocean and fish that was 22 inches wide.  Some of the fish were shown swimming freely and others could only be glimpsed behind camouflaging seaweed.

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She had seen that many of my pictures had been framed by my husband, John, and asked if he would make one for her picture.  Naturally, he concurred.  What man can resist a six-year-old’s pleading eyes?

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That was my final lesson:            Promote yourself as best you can and make the work as appealing as possible.

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The overall thing that I learned from this experience was to be free… just be free.  Your spirit, desire and voice will come through.

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Painting on Cape Cod

July 19, 2007 in Plein Air Painting | 1 comment

Brought my paints with me up to the Cape and painted the hydrangea blossoms outside behind the condo.  It was a long process because I was trying very hard to make it as realistic as possible, especially the colors.  I was reasonable pleased with the color but the depth was lacking and the whole thing still looks rather flat.  At least when my cousin looked at it, she recognized it as a hydrangea. I feel like I want to paint freer but that I am holding myself back.  What is up with that.  I’m fearful that I will just buy lots of supplies in preparation for painting, but never actually do it.

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OK, I Bought Some Paints

September 20, 2005 in Plein Air Painting | Permalink

Well I bought some acrylic paints and a few other supplies.  Gee, one can spend a lot of $$$ on these materials.  I wonder if it really makes a difference.  Part of me wants to go out, buy the best supplies so I have no excuse of the materials not being of adequate quality.  But then there is the part of me that is loathe to put even  drop of paint on a canvas in fear of getting it wrong.   I’m not sure one can get it wrong but it does seem like wearing your heart and soul on your sleeve to allow what is inside to flow out onto the canvas.  It’s one thing to paint but quite another to let others see my work.  What I need once again is the confidence of a child when I never worried about the if I was wasting paper or paint.  I recall once in grade shcool I was chosen, along with three or fou other kids  to draw to music in one of the store front windows.   I can still feel what I felt like as I was sitting in front of that easel of what seemed like endless paper and drawing freely as the music was piped over our heads.  I was so absorbed in my at taht i was unaware that we were in a store front window and people passing by were stopping to look at us.  OK, maybe I was little aware of them.

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