Musings on liking your own work

All the Colors & Paths #1, at Altered Aesthetics'
Straight Trippin' Juried Show
February 28-March 28, 2013

If you don't like your own work, how can you: 

1.  expect anyone else to like it -- ever; 
2.  get pleasure out of its creation; 
3.  want to do anything other than use it for kindling. 

Will you love every piece?

Don't expect to love every piece. Because making art is a journey, there will probably be some odd turns or dead ends:

1. You win inevitably make an awkward and damaging splash or drop the brush or do something that in the cold light of day makes you cringe. Learn from it, and enjoy the pleasure of making art. Forgive your child or your cat if one or both might be the culprit
2. When you get a new paintbrush or color or other piece of equipment, your first experiments might be happy accidents that you love (and sell), noodlings that you will use as reference material, or something to  recycle by painting on the back.
3. Not that this would happen to you, but in my earnest determination to get back to painting after being ill, I put a lot of brown paint in a place where, on reflection, it does not belong. Whether I can bring this painting back to where I hoped it would be, turn it into something entirely new, or trash it, is yet to be determined. What did I learn? When speaking a simple, declarative sentence is unmanageable, I should stay away from paint brushes.

Who is the SpokesArtist?

I am the SpokesArtist for my own art enterprises, each of which is dedicated to making people smile. I have no idea how artists who pour their angst onto their canvases think about liking their own work. 

Image-a-day other visions geometric magic (and a challenge)

Although I do this everyday, taking a tiny watercolor painting and creating digital magic continues to astound me.

Using Photoshop, I scanned in Puzzle Pieces #1. After posterizing it (more Photoshop magic), I created #2 and #3 by copying and flipping the image horizontally and vertically. I take great care to line up the flipped images each time because each new image builds on the previous one. Once the lines are off, I have to start all over again.

Then, the fun begins. Once a pattern is set, then I get to use Photoshop's magical tools.

Red Puzzle Pieces.

Green Puzzle Pieces

Blue Puzzle Pieces

Puzzle Pieces Invert Two

Puzzle Pieces Invert One

Puzzle Pieces One

Image-a-day and the OTHER VISIONS challenge

With nearly 300 images, the collection of digital "other visions" will comprise the the bulk of my 2012 Image-a-Day project when it is complete. I welcome suggestions for organizing and cataloging these images. 

Prizes!

The prizes: an "other vision" poster in your choice of design for the two best suggestions. Deadline: October 22, 2012.

Where are OTHER VISIONS now?

Some are at the nanoscapes website under "other visions." A small number of the designs are on products at zazzle.com, and others are on fabric and soon on wallpaper at spoonflower. Find a Puzzle Pieces Postcard at zazzle.com now.

Because I post each day, my Facebook and Pinterest friends can see all of the images in date-of-posting order.  

Beginning on October 25, 2012, "other visions" designs will begin a limited rotation on this website. I have defined three categories: fabric, tiles and stained glass, and wallpaper.

10 tips for daily (or other) painters

My 2012 Daily Painting Began with "7 hippos marching"

When one of my colleagues at the LinkedIn Daily Painters and Collectors Network suggested that everyone encourage a Daily Painter, I cheered and made this list which is good for all creative folks and for anyone with a project that is just out of reach:

1. Paint every day if you can. Sometimes, you can't. Don't fret.
2. If you can't complete an entire painting in a day, don't fret. Leonardo didn't finish the chapel in one day, either.
3. If you can't get to your paints everyday, think about something that you would like to try. Write it down or you will forget it. Keep the list in a handy place or you will lose it, or, in a fit of super-cleaning, you will send it out with recycling.
4. When you get back to your studio (or, in my case, a table in my living room), look at the list. Some of the ideas are genius. Some are not. Laugh if you must.
5. If you have lots of work in progress, hang the pieces up or you will forget them. I have too many mostly-done works on an easel. I need another easel.
6. If you can't paint everyday, sketch something. Pick up your pencil. It is a magic tool, sometimes with a mind of its own. Let it lead you to a new place.
7. In creative brain-freeze land? Pick up an art book. Go to the library or to your favorite used bookstore, both of which have hundreds of art books waiting for you.  
8. Need to get out of the house or out of your comfort zone? Go and look at public sculpture. Like it? Don't like it? Either way, a response can get you out of your creativity brain-freeze. 
9. Go to a museum. Everyone there loves art, and these are your people. If you don't live near a museum, hundreds have put substantial collections on line. Bert Christensen has posted a helpful list. 
10. Can't paint because you have no space? Clean a closet. Apply these tests: (a) Do I need to keep this? (b) Do I need to keep this here? (c) I can get rid of it if it was given to me by someone to whom I no longer speak or who will never, ever visit. (d) I can get rid of it if I don't remember how I acquired it and I have never used it.

Personal note: I am in my second year of Daily Painting, and I post an image-a-day to Facebook. This is cross-posted to the small friends blog.

New art in 5 days: nanoscapes neighborhoods

Welcome to nanoscapes neighborhoods, an original watercolor which I painted in five days. It was an extraordinary pleasure to draw and paint tiny details which, when finished, have movement and energy, depth, and almost three dimensions.

.

nanoscapes neighborhoods
Day 1 - Davy's Gray Outline 

5 days later
nanoscapes neighborhoods
December 6, 2011
7-15/16" x  4-3/4"
$250 - unframed

Click here to see the previous days' work.

Chain Links: a new nano-D

Chain Link 2011

I have a worktable which has been a bad storage solution for so long that I feared what might turn up after excavation. Recycling an old tv, which took up a third of the tabletop, opened the door for a Domestic Archaeological Expedition.

I found long-forgotten treasures.

Among them was "Chain Link Fence," an original postcard painting from 2006. Cropped, copied, flipped, reversed, and inverted, it is magic for the morning.

It is part of a group of nanoscapes called nano-D, for work created at the intersection of geometric abstract watercolors and the magic of the technology of Photoshop.

Signed Limited Edition of 20. Chain Link 2011: 10w x 7h. Archival matt. $75. 
Available through the nanoscapes website under nano-D in Portfolio.

Inspiration: a beautiful balustrade

Interior stairwell
Comfort Suites
Atlanta Downtown
Convention Center

Eyes wide open, I wandered past the elevator on the lobby level of the Comfort Suites Atlanta Downtown Convention Center, and saw a beautiful marble stairway with an elegant balustrade. Photo op. Inspiration piece.

Interior stairwell
Comfort Suites
Atlanta Downtown
Convention Center

Google was completely unhelpful in my search for the history of this building, which was converted, redesigned, refurbished for either Comfort Suites or a previous owner. I'd be curious to know more...

Thanks to Vickie Brown, Ray English, and Marvette Colbert, the wonderful and talented staff at the career office at Georgia State University College of Law for inviting me to speak to part-time students on "2nd Career Law Students" and for selecting this hotel with its inspiration pieces.

Creativity: Have paint, will travel

The Great Leafy Bunny
of New Hampshire

Whether you are planning a winter vacation or plotting your summer 2012 adventures, I hope that you are inspired by my friend Rachel Zelkind, who inspires me every time art and travel come together. Bring your gear!

Tall Silo of Iowa

Because I travel often for work and always take paint and paper, I have named my painting kit "The Rachel" in her honor. It  consists of three Daniel Smith Travel Kolinsky brushes, an Arches Paper block (postcard, 7x10 or 9x12), 4 or 5 tiny tubes of watercolor, a small pencil, an eraser, and a pencil sharpener, and it fits nicely into my carry-on. Also, it goes right through TSA security.

It helps that I will only paint indoors and know how to ask the hotel concierge nicely for better light in my room by saying: "I am a painter and a reader, and the only good light for either activity is in the bathroom. Can you help me?" That strategy has not failed yet.

Rachel, on the other hand, paints outside and she is always prepared:

In her car:

"I have in the car a chair of some sort at all times." She also has a three-legged camp stool that can attach a day pack, which can be used for sitting and can also act as a little table. Not surprisingly, she always has a paper palette pad and a spray bottle for water. The rest, she says, "is just a few tubes of paint." The chair, she emphasizes, is a must, and the camp stool can go on walks, which is good, because she hikes.

When traveling in San Miguel, her chair-substitute was an upside down bucket. "It's portable and stuff can be put in and carried. It really makes sense," she says, and it is not uncomfortable. To her, "It looks more natural on the street than sitting in a chair."

Wherever you go, and whatever your art -- Bring Your Gear!!!!

Ohio-Tennessee Glaze: new nano and new tool

Tiny Tines Work in Progress

Trilobite: Four by Five

In the spirit of cooks and their knives, carpenters their hammers, and gardeners and their tools, I find that Photoshop is my new favorite creative tool.

Roller Coaster Work in Progress 1

Roller Coaster Work in Progress 2

During the past few weeks I have begun to explore Photoshop C-4, taking a single image and playing with colors and spaces, making small friend Theresa Trilobite into  Trilobite: Four by Five. I spent time in Photoshop yesterday with Roller Coaster, an unfinished watercolor that creates beautiful patterns, and with Tiny Tines, a work in progress based on part of a large salad fork.

O-T Glaze #1

O-T Glaze #2 (flipped)

O-T Glaze #3 (rotation 1)

I face a dilemma now.

Ohio-Tennessee Glaze, the new nanoscape which I began on a Pass the Baton trip to University of Akron and Vanderbilt law schools, is finished in its life as a watercolor. It now presents a delicious Photoshop challenge: which way does it look best? Let me know what you think.

O-T Glaze #4 (rotation 2)

Admittedly, this is not a bad problem to have.

But between you and me and the mouse, O-T Glaze has not yet really begun its Photoshop journey. In these four images I simply (I can say that now) flipped and rotated the original without changing any of the colors. Options: color, no color, textures, posterizing, and much, much more...Can't wait.

Commerce Note: Prints of Trilobite Four by Five are available through imagekind.com your choice of sizes and framing options.

The Last 5 Pencils and Crayons

Some favorite things

I posted the the last five Pencils and Crayons this morning. Creating an image-a-day began as a lark with last October's pumpkins, and quickly became a commitment, a discipline, and a joy.

Some of the months' images were obvious (leaves/November; Hanukah candles & snowflakes/December; basketballs/March; raindrops/April; corn/July; heirloom tomatoes/August), and other months were a creative leap (lost left-handed gloves/January; missing socks/February).

THE LLLAMAS  To introduce the LLLama Families in May, I needed to sit down and write their stories. This was fair. For more than two years the 30+ LLLamas had been nagging me to take them off the shelf and get them out into the world. After being posted to Facebook, they embarked on a world tour, leaving behind SpokesLLLama Rainbow. They will return to the small friends' site in January 2012.

Glenda Diva Gecko
Undersea LLLama
Celebration Rhea

SMALL FRIENDS  When it was clear that the LLLamas would have their day in the sun, the other small friends who had been lurking on the nanoscapes website and in my studio finally put down their collective feet, and demanded both a month (June) and a website of their own. The nanoscapes and small friends had an amicable divorce in early June, and the small friends have their own website, blog, and The Small Friends Research Institute.

It's been quite a year, or with a tip of the hat to one of my favorite songs, The Grateful Dead's "Truckin,"  --- What a long, strange, and extraordinarily fun trip it's been. 

Balloon Sampler 2011: miracles of Photoshop

Balloon Sampler 2011

5x7" Balloon Post Card Painting

I have been using Photoshop primarily for storage and organization for my watercolors for the past few years, but this afternoon, I stumbled into the 21st century and began to explore its astonishing capabilities.

A quilt with sampler blocks

As someone who spent half a lifetime looking at samplers in which quilters and needleworkers practiced stitches and alphabets, and created ever-more complex quilt patterns, I felt a kinship with their energy and gratitude for this amazing tool.

Beginning with a 300 dpi scan of a 5x7" watercolor on 140# paper, I copied the image over and over again, experimenting with posterizing, gradients, channels, filters, curves and more. I created a 22x22 blank square and then dropped in each of the copies, re-arranging, adding, and deleting. When I ended up with a 3x4 row image, I deleted the excess blank canvas, added a signature, and I was finished.

Making a quilt or a piece of needlepoint can take weeks or months. Beginning with a finished painting, which, admittedly took about six hours to paint, the Photoshop exercise took about an hour.

This was way too much fun, and I look forward to learning a lot more about Photoshop, and multiplying and manipulating the color and energy inherent in original nanoscapes.

Balloon Sampler 2011 is available in two limited editions of five each, signed and numbered through the nanoscapes website:

• 20x20 inches, matted:          $75.00 
• 10x10 inches, matted           $50.00

Fresh artist's palette: sign of the new school year

My watercolors

Signs of the new school year are everywhere.

Minnesota State Fair opening day --  Hooray!

Relentless tv ads for school supplies – Make them stop!

Artists’ fresh palettes – Huzzah!

The Biggest Crayon Box
from My Childhood

Although I am no longer a student, the school calendar appears to be part of my DNA. Perhaps it harks back to getting the biggest box of Crayola™ crayons that my parents could be persuaded to buy, but re-setting my palette just before school starts seems like the right thing to do.

Artists are lucky because we can mark a new year or a new project by setting up a fresh palette. Washing out the old colors, introducing new colors, and bringing back standards and favorites are a group of unalloyed pleasures. A fresh palette celebrates possibilities and sparks creativity.

NEED FOR COMPACT STORAGE  Because I travel to around the country to present Pass the Baton lectures to law students and lawyers, I need a portable watercolor infrastructure that takes up minimal space and slides through airport security. At home, I have a relatively small worktable, and need to keep my colors within easy reach. Just as I used to organize crayons by color, I set my palettes by color groups: yellow, green, blue, orange, pink, red, purple, brown-black-gray, and metallic.

LOADED WITH COLOR  With seven Dick Blick small folding plastic palettes loaded with 150 small blobs of individual watercolors packed in a plastic makeup bag, I am ready to go. Three Daniel Smith Autograph Kolinsky Travel Brushes, a 6H pencil, an eraser, and a small pencil sharpener fit into the bag. Although one set of screeners looked closely at the travel brushes which unscrew to reveal the brush inside, I have never had a security-screening issue with this kit.

FRESH PAINT and FRESH IDEAS  I paint every day and can’t wait to bring fresh ideas to works in progress and to start on entirely new projects. Reset your palette and go!

Banish Blank Pages With Solid Geometry Inspiration

Spaces With Stripes 1

In the beginning...

It is one thing to paint every day (which I do), but quite another thing to imagine that I might have a Great Inspiration every time I pick up a paintbrush.

Spaces With Stripes 2

Instead of gazing endlessly at a blank sheet of paper, I often pick up a pencil and begin with a doodle sparked by a memory of Solid Geometry which creates an opportunity to explore of light, intricate spaces, and color.  Solid Geometry was my only beloved area of mathematics, and I am never surprised that while filling in the spaces that I both learn and have fun. 

Spaces With Stripes 3

While starting with random spaces may not be an inspiration for plein air painters or artists who focus on pristine and precise  representational work, I find is useful for experimenting with new colors, papers, brushes and techniques. 

I learned this technique from Russ Dittmar, who also taught me how to coax brilliant colors out of watercolor when he suggested: "lots of pigment, not a lot of water." When I taught this to a group of young students at the R.H. Stafford Library in Woodbury, MN, they jumped in with enthusiasm. Leaving no blank paper in their wake, they filled in the spaces and the space around the spaces.


Spaces With Stripes 1, 2 and 3 These three paintings took me through a "break" during July 2011 when I left the search for Great Inspiration to the rest of the world.  

Each Spaces With Stripes is painted on 7-3/4 x 7-3/4 inch Arches 140# hot press paper.  Each original: $200.  A signed and numbered limited edition matted print called Three-in-a-Row is $100.  (Matt size is 36x14 inches.) Find them all at the nanoscapes' website.