cav, Elora seems like a good spot. However, Ive gotta be nearer the ocean , even if i get periodic blocks.
My block is working out, I drew a bit today and did a quick sketch of a donkey engine that 's used for net drying.
Joe Nation wrote:Do anything counter-intuitive.
Paint the pink petals blue and the sea pink. The shadows are pale green. The walls of the houses are translucent. You can see the yellow mountains in the distance
Find the wrong angle for your subject, the backside of the house.
Screw up the angles so everything is out of focus, out of balance, out of time. No two shadows are the same length nor the same direction.
Play.
Seriousness is for when their is blood somehow involved.
If you've been painting landscapes, paint a close-up of your left ear. If you have been painting portraits, leave pieces of the faces out. One nostril. No left eye. A lip that only goes half way across.
Look at one of your old paintings through a three by three inch square, paint everything in that square in perfect detail. Then look at that painting through a three by three inch square. Continue to the subatomic level
Lay on your back and sketch cloud shapes.... hurry.... on a wind swept day the shapes last about three minutes. concentrate on how the clouds look, not what they look like. Draw only the ones that look like clouds. Paint them in blue on a white sky, on a green sky, on a black, star-filled sky.
Paint the waterfall pumping the sky full of stars
Sketch the outline for a new piece. Turn the canvas sideways and paint.
Or turn the canvas a quarter turn every fifteen minutes and continue to paint.
Stop seeing what you see.
Feel what you see.
Joe
You're such a goddman hippie
Actually, I like Joe's take, and if it is not apropo for this occasion it is for loosening up in general.
Reminds me of this class, Advanced Drawing Techniques. (I think it was drawing, maybe it was painting, I took whole bunches of those classes). This one was different. First class, the teacher, whom I had had as an instructor before, picked up the big metal trash can and upended it midfloor and said draw that, you have ten minutes.
And that was the start. Mostly I hated the assignments and thought the class was past silly. But it was expanding for me, opened m'little mind and eye.
er, that's apropo...
Quote:You're such a goddman hippie
There is only one D in godman, but thanks anyway.
J
Goddman...I used to love that band.
Joe Nation wrote:Quote:You're such a goddman hippie
There is only one D in godman, but thanks anyway.
J
You're good'n'funny godman!
Farmer, you've gotten a lot of good advice (I willl remember it for myself), but I suspect that you temporarily could not paint because YOU TEMPORARILY DID NOT (REALLY) WANT TO PAINT. Years ago in my university career I thought I wanted to write a particular book. I had the data from my own research; I had the general layout in mind, etc. But I procrastinated month after month and then year after year. Coming to my wit's end, I went to a psychologist friend specializing in hypnotherapy. Under the spell, I realized that I did not REALLY want to write the book. In fact I REALLY wanted not to write the damn thing. I didn't ever get the urge to write it, so I didn't. I focused on other writing projects instead. If this is not similar to your TEMPORARY situation, the advice given (and perhaps that in Anna Held Audette's fine little book, The Blank Canvas: Inviting the Muse) might help.
Damn, are you talking about my piazza book?
You too, Osso? I suspect that procrastination (including writer's and painter's block) is largely a function of ambivalence: not wanting to work, but wanting to want to work (unconscious resistance), and that usually it is a temporary phenomenon, nothing to fret about UNLESS one is a professional who must generate a steady output.
When I do not feel like painting, I spend more time reading and playing music. Feeling dried up creatively might also have something to do with self-esteeem (also a temporary matter). Right now I'm seeing virtually all my paintings as lacking in intrinsic value; other days I'm far more positive. Could it be chemical, a form of artistic PMS (painters' misery syndrome)?
Part of my problemo is I put out all sorts of drawing and thinking production during my work week and don't like a whole lot more 'I shoulds' in my life. After enough time goes by I start to crave painting again.
JL, I have thought so many times when I am not by a computer to ask you how you are feeling about exhibiting your work... have you been enjoying it?
Well, Osso. The paintings are hanging in a gallery of another town. I went once to see how they were organized. It WAS an ego-trip (not a good thing for a Buddhist, but delightful anyway). If I ever get larger paintings put up a our local very popular book store THAT will be a thrill, I expect. I keep putting off the process. Could it be the procrastination syndrome I mentioned above? Could it be a FEAR that no-one will like them? Nah.
Thanks for asking. You're a bona fide sweetheart.
There's a fine line, isn;'t there Nobody. between
what you really want to do and needing a swift kick?! (Myself included, naturally!)
rotfl
Gmornin all. Went down to Southwest Harbour, did some sketches of rocks in a Sanford gifford style. They had a neat little art show in the harbour town. Lots of very fine artists in MAine. bought a neat watercolor of a hay wagon in early light. (like we need another painting in the house-somebody needs to start a thread about why we buy paintings , and where do we keep emeven though weve run out of wall space)
JL, I suppose that was the most , right to the point, oservation. I was on an artistics time-out. BUT, i was also worried that it had gone on quite long enough
shepaints wrote:There's a fine line, isn;'t there Nobody. between
what you really want to do and needing a swift kick?! (Myself included, naturally!)
rotfl
so true - that's me right now!
the ego bit was very true and to the point jln - when my ego is bruised I don't feel so much like painting and doubt what i do.
Farmer sounds good ..... how about posting what you've done when you get home?
Ive been doing a number of paintings this week, my mind is relaxed and Im in no hurry to be anywhere . I get into these theme ruts also. Ive been doing abstract studies of rock piles and the lobster boats. Its very satisfying to let the scene determine the subject, rather than my usual way of tightly cotnrolling everything.
next week we will be out on the ocean a few days trying to fish, so Ill draw and paint till Monday
I'm green with envy <sigh>
Farmer, now I'M in the dump. I've been here at my desert get-a-way, where I usually have no trouble beginning abstract paintings, and I've been putting off applying any paint to canvas (from Thursday through Saturday). This morning, Sunday, I attacked two canvases out of desperation. Not too happy with the results, not happy in the sense that they do not stimulate further applications of paint. Let's see if time is on my side.
p.s., I know it's on my side (that is my religious faith), but I don't know when it will come to my side.
