Pages

I think i am about to decide that my greatest joy (a.k.a. thrill) from art comes from my sketch books. There is something about the challenge of the blank page. no matter what I do to it I have changed it. it is no longer blank, or without. Null. Void. Empty. Whatever I put there is a creation of mine own hand. Is it a power trip? nine It is a place for ideas to appear as visual manifestations of some cerebral activity. My books are not drawn images only although that is the bulk there off. I also have rubbings such as the rubbing of a Frank Lloyd Wright signature tile. or perhaps a sticker fro a piece of fruit I had for lunch. Sometimes there is verse. or recipes or lyrics. There are the sketches of places and people and things I have seen. And things not seen by any eyes except my mind's eye. Sketches are sometimes developed into well thought out designs or studies for paintings. Sometimes they may illustrate the workings of a grist mill. indeed, my sketchbooks are an extension of me and a chronicle of my life.

pix&...

Sometimes I don't know what to put on this blog. Sometimes I feel like crap and sometimes I don't! Sometimes i feel like everything i create is a failure and sometimes I feel as though I have a spark of genius. The chaos above is where most of it comes from. Or does it. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if the inkjet monoprints are a viable medium or not. i have won small prizes with them, but i don't know if it is worth pursuing. The for mat is so small. And things don't always work out. The has about a 50% success rate or half of the attempts are failures. Recently I saw an advertisement in print that looked like this technique although I believe that it was a computer generated image.

I think I will ride this horse for awhile and do my next painting for a show in this medium. I can't seem to get the brilliant colors I like except this way. I need to find out how to use various resists in this technique to make it more versatile.


I continue to enjoy working with my photographs and videos. I will be converting some vhs tapes to dvd in the near future.
Attendum: I added the the combination of graphite drawing and computer generated image to depict the southwest folk life.

2day's work

Here is the day's art. it is a small watercolor based on a photo I took in the Rocky Mountains national Park.

flashbacks

There is a rare beauty that wildflowers have. We were fortunate in our travels to see such a proliferation of wild flowers blooming. From the shores of Lake Superior to the shores of the Pacific ocean they bloomed. It amazes me the way that in the most hostile areas if there is a small amount of soil the beautiful fragile flower blooms forth. As a painter I attempt to capture but in vain the beauty of natures most delicate visions. The painting on the left was done neat International Falls Minnesota. I'm not a great plein aire painter but I gave it my best shot. I don't remember exactly where the photo was taken.

I think some classes in outdoor painting are in order. I have been seriously looking at creation of art lately. I get the biggest kick out of sketching and recently I have begun to design my sketchbook pages. Perhaps that's because I have always loved books. Pages of word and images can take you away. Sometimes into your own world.

reflections on the recent past

It was a grand view, a picture of the battle of the elements. Water versus soil and rock and wind and so on. The shoreline of Lake Superior near the mouth of the Temperence River. We had pitched our tent in the Great north woods with easy access to the lake shore and the river. We were surprised with the lack of flying vermin. Minnesota is famous for its mosquitoes. There was lots of stuff to paint. I couldn't do it justice.