Mountain House Studios

“What we have once enjoyed, we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes part of us.” -Helen Keller

Taking a moment out of my journaling time to give thanks – for my wonderful son who will be 21 on Sunday! Twenty-one! WOW!

 What a gift

Filling our home with laughter

Shared a few of his own opinions

Always smiling

Creative

Musical

This boy and this man fill my heart with gladness. My husband has always encouraged my dreams. He works hard to to provide us with all the comforts we need – a beautiful home, food on our table and he’s such an incredible dad. Thanks guys for being in my life! xxoo

“Creativity is all about seeing what everybody else is seeing and thinking what nobody else is thinking.” -Robin S. Sharma

I know I said I wasn’t going to take any more classes for awhile, but I decided at the last minute to sign-up for Judy Wise’s Art journaling workshop. I took an encaustic online workshop with her and just love her heart. She’s a wise and gentle soul and a great teacher. This workshop isn’t just about creating with mixed media, although it includes that and I am sure to learn new things. But this class also includes writing prompts and methods for opening to the creative process.

After all my intensely focussed study of acrylics and color these last few months, I need a chance to venture into my own landscape, to learn to play with my materials instead of always approaching them like a student – always just a little afraid that I will make mistakes.

This journaling workshop seems to be the perfect vehicle to just be with myself in a safe environment. I’m excited. Over my life I established a habit of expressing myself through writing in my journals. It’s always felt natural for me to tell stories, but I never thought I would be able to visually express the images in my head that go along with those stories.  At this moment in time, I’m not ready or interested in sales of my artwork. My quest is first to discover the state of mind that allows me to create from my essence – to discover and bring to life who I really am through writing and visual journaling. I need to learn to silence my mind to allow my work to express itself.

So I thought play and journal writing would be just the way to bridge the gap from focussing so on whether I’m using my materials correctly to learning how to be open to the creative process – a way to see into my own heart.

This is a month long class – so I won’t be blogging very often. My writing and painting will be in my own journal. Class starts today and ends April 6. Check out the class link above and come join me.

“Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.” -Gandhi

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” -Goethe

I met a lot of nice colors taking the online Color class. It has opened the full prism for me. It’s similar to when I took my first glaze class – a two week immersion in glaze testing at Penland one summer. My head spun at all the information. But the main thing I took away with me was a freedom from fear. I no longer felt intimated by glazes and chemicals. This online color class has done the same thing – shattered the wall that made me think I would never understand color theory. I don’t think you have to memorize these things. There are plenty of resource materials. What you need to learn is the freedom to experiment. It’s from that open mind that creativity flows.

The response to color is personal, emotional and so different for each of us. Choosing which colors to use can be influenced by what color combinations you’ve just seen or even your moods.  And for most of us, we just choose our colors based on intuition or what we like at the moment.  And intuitively reaching for a color is how I like to paint, but I now have enough tools to feel comfortable mixing the color and matching the tone, making the colors have similar values – lightness, darkness, intensity. Will I get it right every time? Probably not, but I am willing to be curious, to fail and to learn. Before my class I was too concerned with getting it right and thinking I couldn’t do it, to have much success.

It’s interesting when I started painting last year, I didn’t have a clue where to start. But each book and each class has lead me to the next step I needed. It’s been my experience though that the actual act of doing is when we figure out who we are. Plus each new painting teaches me knew techniques. All the books and classes have been fabulous, but it always seems my pieces lose their spontaneity during class times. I pay too much attention to getting the lesson correct – so I end up just painting – not thinking about telling my story.  So now after all these fabulous classes – since January 1 – I just need to get to work.

“Don’t wait until you know who you are to get started.” -Austin Kleon

“Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.” -Wayne Dyer

she had no rhythm

she danced anyway

on a perfect beat

her music 

her steps

her heart

“We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” -Goethe

“I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.” -Vincent Van Gogh

Ideas, written words

visual reaction

the dialogue with my heart

a response with my mind

fragments, thoughts

then the paint brush

filling in the vision

no way to tame it

ever changing

a brief moment of recognition

 you finish and say

‘oh – it’s you.’

 “You don’t get what you want, you get what you are.” -Wayne Dyer

“Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect.” -Alan Cohen

To learn about color, I have been studying the color wheel – not a store bought color wheel, but wheels I made with my own paint library. I made a few of them based on the yellows, blues and reds I had on hand. I made some that were with transparent colors and some from opaque colors.

This series of photos represents not only how the painting started and the various steps necessary to complete this painting but also represents lessons learned along the color wheel, using analogous, complimentary and monochromatic colors.

“Artmaking involves skills that can be learned . . . in large measure, becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself, which makes your work personal and in following your own voice make your work distinctive. Clearly these qualities can be nurtured by others. But even talent is rarely distinguishable over the long run, from perseverance and lots of hard work.” -David Bayles/Ted Orland

“The real trick to life is not to be in the know, but to be in the mystery.” -Fred Alan Wolf

Our next assignment in my Color class was to choose analogous colors on the color wheel. Those are the colors next to each other on the wheel. Generally speaking you choose one color that dominates, a second color that supports and a third color for an accent. Black, gray and white don’t count. For this piece, I blended a blue-green background, added Titan Bluff and then the yellow and a darker blue. Most of the marks are made with the same tools I made marks in clay. Wet paint and wet clay are similar. This piece is 12 x 14 and will probably be a background for another painting.

Next we needed to add a complimentary (color) line drawing to our background:

It’s so strange – adding that red made my camera focus on the blue undertones – the actual color of the painting is truer in the first image. I only added red. Weird.

I cancelled my Pinterest account after a couple of days. There was some really wonderful images, but I started hearing some disturbing things about their privacy policies and the issues of their ‘ownership’ of the photos posted. I read an interesting article about someone who had posted photos of their own artwork on Pinterest but had hired a professional photographer to take the photos. This artist ended up being sued by the photographer for illegal use of those photos.

My own artwork is all over the internet. But I started being concerned about ‘re-pinning’ images I didn’t know whether the artist wanted that image on Pinterest or not. We started this conversation in the comments on my other post about originality, but I think until some copyright issues are resolved, the internet can be a wild place to be with no protection and no rights. The Google privacy policy change (today) certainly has me thinking about how my browsing habits can be monitored. It’s so easy to just not think about the ramifications of having our every move watched. It’s an overwhelming concept that we should probably think about more.

“Every experience, no matter how bad it seems, holds within it a blessing of some kind. The goal is to find it.” -Buddha

“There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.” -Pablo Picasso

For today’s color lesson, our assignment was to make a triadic painting using three colors from the wheel. Remember in an earlier lesson I made color wheels with the paints I have on hand so I used one of those. Triadic of course means choosing colors within a triangle. I chose yellow-orange, blue and blue-violet and you can use various strengths of your chosen colors. The above piece is 8×10 on birch panel.

We also studied tints and shades (whites and blacks), so I did a quick painting using just whites, buff and blacks.

“Artists who seek perfection in everything, achieve it in nothing.”  -Eugene Delacroix

I’m so happy in my studio these days. I’ve established a regular rhythm of work. For me working means, ideas and ideas generate more ideas. In fact I like to work on more than one piece at a time. I find there’s a cross-pollination of ideas and inspiration when working on multiple pieces. It’s much easier for me to resolve my intention with what’s actually happening in the painting if I have more than one to stress about. Because even if my vision is clear when I start, each painting offers it’s own voice throughout my time with it. When one of us finally quits talking, I feel my painting is finished.

How do you like to work?

“In terms of art, the only real answer that I know of is to do it. If you don’t do it, you don’t know what might happen.” -Harry Callahan

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”  -Edgar Degas

I’ve been lost in color swatches and wheels. I’ve mentioned before that I’m taking an online class about color from Chris Cozen and Julie Pritchard. In this class we made color swatches of our paints to look at opaqueness and transparency. Then we made color wheels. Our first painting assignment was to make a monochromatic painting (above). Then for the next lesson we needed to make it complementary (below).

Then with a sheer purple glaze added:

Studying color is not very exciting. It must be a lot like the music theory classes my son groans about. Necessary work but not so entertaining – or easy. But if I want to tell stories with paint, I need to learn the language.

Speaking of my son – he came home Friday afternoon just long enough to do laundry and eat supper. His school is about two hours from us. He said he was hungry and out of quarters. It’s always good to see him. Next month he’ll be twenty-one. What a gift he has been. Where have those years gone!?

“We learn to see and speak as children primarily by imitation. The artist is merely the one who goes on learning after grown up. A good learner will finally learn the hardest thing: how to see one’s own world, how to speak one’s own words.” -Ursala K. Le Guin

“We are totally arrogant to think we alone have a totally original mind. We are carried on the backs of all writers/artists who came before us. We live in the present with all the history, ideas and soda pop of this time. It all gets mixed up in our writing/art.” -Natalie Goldberg

“All art is infested by other art.” -Leo Steinberg

Is my idea original? Am I the first person ever to make this form or paint this image? What makes what I do ‘my art.’  And should originality be the goal or be viciously defended?

I find even if two people are given the same materials and instructions to create something and go into separate rooms to make their piece, each piece would be vastly different.

I think it’s healthy to have this discussion frequently because just this week it’s come up again for me in a big way. Last spring I was accused of not making my own work in clay by another blogger and I’ve just learned this same artist is doing it again to another blogger. I think it is troublesome if someone is copying your work exactly for profit. I know this is an ongoing problem for some artists. That’s not what I’m talking about here.

Why would someone want to copy? Because if our only goal is to replicate, we end up restraining our own essence from coming through. But using inspiration as reference – giving ourselves permission to shift and change it verses copying – allows our own stories to emerge – our own unique way of interpreting what we see around us. What makes work great or powerful is that passion showing through. And it’s what artists do – recreate – interpret what they see around them.

So is an ‘authentic-original’ voice the goal? And if so how do we achieve that originality? Does just the act of learning technique and going into our studios and getting to work invite originality no matter what the inspiration? Does a disciplined work ethic keep that ‘voice’ intact? Maybe it’s a combination of inspiration and work. I do believe if you really know how to manipulate your materials, honor those materials and honor your creativity — you will make your work.

And in that finally comes confidence. Because I really believe when someone lashes out, they are suffering a lack of confidence and feel threatened that their work won’t be as good as someone else doing something similar. But I’m going to tell you if every time I paint and I only use red, can I then accuse all other artists who use the color red of copying my work? This situation is just that simple. We all use color and form successfully in lots of wonderfully different but similar ways. What then makes it original?

And in this time of the internet bringing us all closer and filling our heads with everyone else’s art and all of the workshops available – how do we stay true to ourselves? And how do we discourage folks from stealing our ideas or accusing us of stealing their ideas? Or how do we keep from inadvertently stealing others ideas?

I also read on a blog this week someone upset by having someone use an image from their blog on Pinterest. Copyright laws certainly need to change and adapt to this internet growth. It’s here to stay. One of my images was ‘pinned’ but I took it as a complement. Isn’t marketing or to have our work be seen one of the reasons we have our work online?

What do you think? And do you think any of this is even a problem? Have you been affected by any of this and how did you deal with it?

“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original; whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.” -C.S. Lewis

“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” -Albert Einstein