30 x 40 glaze oil
My soul is crying blue and I mean that literally. The season of overcast grey is almost over and I can’t wait to get back into a canoe to hunt blue skies and indigo reflections with a camera. It’s too early, of course but I’m already there in my mind's eye. In the meantime I’m pinning my hopes on the tiny blue scyllas which will open everywhere in our grass in a day or two. I have never satisfactorily captured their fabulous cobalt blues but it’s always worth a try and you will find me prone in a patch of them for the next few weeks. I may even have to break down and use cobalt blue, which is laced with heavy metal. Classic argument for “Know thyself.” I know I will dip my brush in the coffee at least once.
In the meantime, I spent today sifting through digitals on a wild search to appease this hunger for blue. Seems there is a twinkle in my eye and it’s time to get pregnant with the next painting. Hours later, the eligibilty list has been narrowed down to twenty or thirty. I sense this disappoints you but for me painting involves an interminable and unpredictable gestation period punctuated with sporadic labour pains. I choose carefully where I go next. To illustrate the point, “Sweet Melody” is FINALLY finished and hanging in a show, although I just realized that there is no digital of the finished piece. I must go over and try to photograph it without getting arrested as an inept art thief.
Yes, like music, art is a prime target for theft. People come into shows and take pictures of pieces they want to reproduce for themselves. It’s a heck of a compliment but you just hope the work doesn’t show up as a giglee print in HomeSense! Actually, I was astonished, even thrilled to find six of my paintings on Pinterest. (Good luck finding them again, because there is no real search engine) Because I had either labelled the painting with titles and dimensions like a banner or chosen a small file size, there was no serious issue with piracy. All good.
And four of the six were predominantly blue. No surprise there. Nor am I the only painter with a quiver of blue arrows. The heavenly colour draws us and even intimidates us (think scylla). Oscar Wilde admitted that he found it “harder and harder every day to live up to (his) blue china.” I know the feeling.
But blue is more likely to inspire us into deeper thought: Sun-bleached bones were most wonderful against the blue - that blue that will always be there as it is now after all man’s destruction is finished. Georgia O’Keefe
Mind you, she also said, “Since I can’t sing, I paint.”
In the meantime, I spent today sifting through digitals on a wild search to appease this hunger for blue. Seems there is a twinkle in my eye and it’s time to get pregnant with the next painting. Hours later, the eligibilty list has been narrowed down to twenty or thirty. I sense this disappoints you but for me painting involves an interminable and unpredictable gestation period punctuated with sporadic labour pains. I choose carefully where I go next. To illustrate the point, “Sweet Melody” is FINALLY finished and hanging in a show, although I just realized that there is no digital of the finished piece. I must go over and try to photograph it without getting arrested as an inept art thief.
Yes, like music, art is a prime target for theft. People come into shows and take pictures of pieces they want to reproduce for themselves. It’s a heck of a compliment but you just hope the work doesn’t show up as a giglee print in HomeSense! Actually, I was astonished, even thrilled to find six of my paintings on Pinterest. (Good luck finding them again, because there is no real search engine) Because I had either labelled the painting with titles and dimensions like a banner or chosen a small file size, there was no serious issue with piracy. All good.
And four of the six were predominantly blue. No surprise there. Nor am I the only painter with a quiver of blue arrows. The heavenly colour draws us and even intimidates us (think scylla). Oscar Wilde admitted that he found it “harder and harder every day to live up to (his) blue china.” I know the feeling.
But blue is more likely to inspire us into deeper thought: Sun-bleached bones were most wonderful against the blue - that blue that will always be there as it is now after all man’s destruction is finished. Georgia O’Keefe
Mind you, she also said, “Since I can’t sing, I paint.”
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