...changes of pace...

Okay...
Sorry I have not posted for TWO WHOLE MONTHS...

Last posting was the dog show in Palm Springs, which was AMAZING.

Since then, I manned my booth at the big Denver dog show.  Which was even MORE AMAZING.

After looking at the artists in Palm Springs, I thought, "Hmmmm....well, maybe the dog show crowd is too CONSERVATIVE for my art."

After all, I like to use PINK.  And other colors THAT ARE NOT BROWN.

And I could really give a flying whatever about whether the dog's conformation is correct.  I'll get it right in the painting, sure, but what's really important to me is capturing that dog's soul.

And the art I saw at the California dog show was MUCCCCH more conservative than mine.  Beautifully done, sure, but...personally, YAWN...

So I went to the Denver show in February with my new little vendor tent, with its DALMATION SPOTS and giant paintings of pink French Bulldogs and wondered if I would be drummed out of the show because my stuff was too wild for those potentially stodgy dog people to handle.

And...NOT SO!

It was totally awesome--tons of people saw my art, and EVEN BETTER, tons of people BOUGHT my art!   And people seemed TO GET what I'm trying to do--in terms of communicating the animal's soul!  And, even better, if they didn't LIKE my art, THEY DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING!

So I am making sure that the dog show people know that yes, yes, yes I want to come back and am not above resorting to bribery to do that!

Which means I am REALLY busy now!  Hooray!  I'm even painting horses!  What the hay (ha ha ha).

Okay, now that you're wishing I'd taken a permanent hiatus from this blog, let me get to the point...

One of my new clients wants me to paint her lovely (but deceased) Lhasa Apso.  She came into my booth and really seemed to like my art (which at this point is all NEW acrylics--not the old watercolors/kid art style I have been doing for years).  But when she went home, she looked at the paintings in her house--all watercolors and oils and thought, well, maybe my style is too crisp.

She even sent me photos of the art in her home and wanted to know if I'd ever worked in any other media besides acrylics.

And since I spent years and years painting watercolors, I said absolutely and I sent her a few images of pieces I'd done (including the one above, which I call "Mazatlan Floral" since I took the photo at the lighthouse in Mazatlan and there are flowers perched on AN OILCAN.  Which kind of epitomizes Mexico and its approach to environmentalism, if you ask me.)

So she went for it.

And NOW I AM FREAKING OUT.

I just tried a rough sketch using my old watercolors (which I practically needed a blowtorch and a pair of industrial bolt cutters just to OPEN) and I have to face it.

I TOTALLY SUCK AT WATERCOLORS RIGHT NOW.

Which would really throw me into the depths of despair IF I DIDN'T HAVE A BUNCH OF OTHER WORK TO DO AND I DON'T HAVE THE TIME FOR A CRISIS.

Plus...at ONE POINT, I DIDN'T SUCK.  And I can even REMEMBER not sucking at watercolors.  It wasn't all that long ago.

Clearly this is going to be a bit of a re-learning curve!

The magic point...

 

Hello again!  I have been incredibly busy painting pet portraits for holiday gifts.  While it’s awesome to have so much work, it can also be a little stressful.  Especially when you’re on the road.

For example, I have found out that the iphone photo of the little deceased Australian Shepherd that I’m working from has plumbed new depths of fuzziness.  No matter how much I use PhotoShop to try to straighten things out, there are THINGS ABOUT THIS DOG’S FACE THAT I CANNOT SEE…

Although maybe it’s my middle-aged eyes.  Or the fact that I have been painting in iffily-lit hotel rooms and guest rooms across the Southwest for the past two weeks, and not in my usual studio.  Where, I should add, I can blow up the photos to 20 times their ordinary size.

Anyhow, I’ve been VERRRY critical of my work lately.  But recently on some of these pieces, I’ve hit the MAGIC POINT. (example above...)

What, you may ask, is the magic point?

Let me explain it to you like this.

I have this piece of canvas.  I take these crudely-wrapped bundles of bristles and I push around gobs of pigment to form different shapes on the canvas.  The shapes eventually start to take the shape of something vaguely recognizeable, like a raccoon, maybe, or (often, actually) a hedgehog.

Eventually the shapes, after I have done enough pushing and pulling, will get to the point where the pigments roughly approximate something like a cat.  Or a dog.  So then I have to keep going.

But it’s painfully clear (ha ha, the first time, I wrote this PAINTfully clear, which is totally a Freudian slip) that this is just a load of pigment on a canvas in some organic shapes.  It’s just paint.  It’s got no life.

But if I keep going, I know I’ll get rewarded.

So I keep messing around with this stuff, on and on, well past the point where a sane person would have thrown in the towel and headed to the neighborhood bar.

And then I reach the magic point.

All of a sudden, what was a bunch of random smears of paint suddenly coalesces.  I look down at what I’ve been doing, and say, 

“Ah, Fluffy, HELLO!  THERE you are!”

And they are.  There’s some essence of the animal’s spirit right there in the paint.  And I, being too stubborn or stupid to quit, have somehow captured it.

That’s the magic point.  That’s when I know I’m on the road out.  The painting may not be FINISHED (in fact, usually it ISN’T), but from that point on out, my job is mainly to NOT lose the spirit or cover it up by stupidly or carelessly slopping more paint on it.

At least that’s the way I think about it. 

But maybe I have been breathing too many paint fumes!

Trampoline no more!

Ahhhh...I FEEL MUCH BETTER NOW!

Here's the follow-up to the piece that was giving me fits two blog entries ago or so (For more information and a much CRAZIER version, please reference my blog titled "A Trampoline for Your Eyes").  Basically, I toned down the background with several translucent coats of grey/green.  Whew!  It's amazing what just a few coats of paint will do!

And now I'm sort of kicking myself for WAITING TWO WEEKS to do that!  I think I was a little afraid that it wouldn't work and that I would be out ALL the labor and time it took to lay in that tartan pattern!

Oh, well.  The way out is the way through.  I just had to grit my teeth and do it!  And the portrait is clearly all about the DOG now, instead of being about the giant red SQUARES and then the green and then sort of the dog and then...WHY do I suddenly have a craving for Walker's shortbread and a headache???

Okay, back to work!  I have a bunch more in the way of holiday portraits to work on...and travel plans in the offing as well!  So if I don't get back to another entry before the holidays, please have a happy thanksgiving!

Persistence...I haz it!

I broke what seemed like a tremendous losing streak yesterday.

You see, I finished a HUGE painting.

FINALLY.

It was the first painting I had finished in a week and a half of solid work. You can see it here, outside in my driveway, where I photographed it to get the best natural light. And you can also see my neighbor's cat, Princess, trying to decide whether she likes it or not.

(Verdict: since she did NOT try to pee on it, I assume that she likes it, but Princess has ulterior motives. She seems to want to suck up to me, take over my house and evict my OWN cats. So I'm not sure her judgement is totally based on the painting’s merits.)

It's called "Shown actual size," because the Great Dane I painted WAS actually about that size. And it IS for sale! But I should warn you--you need a pretty good-sized wall to carry something of that size and...ooomph!

So I LOVE this painting, but after the previous week, to be honest with you, I would have been happy to finish ANYTHING. I had been working like crazy and it seemed like NOTHING was getting done.

First of all, I’d thought I’d finished a commissioned painting, but the client wanted a little more work. Which is fine, but…you know how you feel when you THOUGHT you’d finished something and you STILL have to do it again? Perhaps going back all those many miles back to the drawing board?

That was the way I felt!

Then I had this experience where most people seemed TOTALLY OBLIVIOUS to my art. While approval is not THAT important to me, it’s kind of sobering when there’s almost a total lack of acknowledgement that there’s even anything on the WALL.

Here’s how it happened. I put six pieces into a gallery show for a First Friday Artwalk on Santa Fe Drive (YES--it is HERE in Denver and NOT in Santa Fe itself, although I can see how you could make that mistake). It was a last-minute decision, and I was not anticipating selling anything because I had worked other First Fridays and had a realistic sense of the crowds (In case you are wondering, the people who live in the neighborhood call First Fridays "Drunk Fridays").

To demonstrate, most of the gallery-goers look like they are about middle-school age, and seem mainly interested in the availability of free alcohol. But it was a chance to get my work out beyond Facebook and Paint Club and my horrendously out-of-date website. So...I was in.

I think I wrote about zombie apocalypse nightmares a week or so back.

THIS WAS WORSE.

At least in your zombie apocalypse nightmares, the zombies PAY ATTENTION TO YOU. Sure, they have ulterior motives (e.g., brains, entrails), but at least they know you exist. A few high-functioning ones might even notice your art.

This was NOT the case, by and large, with the Drunk Friday crowd. They'd come in, check out the refreshment table, register that there was no wine, and then they'd ricochet briefly around the room and leave. And if you tried to talk to them, SOME of them would respond, but a BUNCH wanted NO interaction at all.

Honestly, I know HAMSTERS with longer attention spans and better social skills than some of these people. Definitely a number of puppies. And a few cats (but not very many—the attention spans are better, but the social skills…not so much).

I think the First Friday crowd would have been happier and more comfortable if THEY HAD JUST RENTED A DVD AND STAYED HOME. At least then they wouldn’t have to bother getting dressed or sucking in their stomachs or talking to strangers or pretending to care about...whatever they might pretend to care about.

On the upside, despite all the time I spent getting things framed and hanging the show, I just KEPT PAINTING. I kind of felt like Sisyphus with that damn rock sometimes, especially since I didn’t finish anything. But this week—voila—one of those huge monsters I’ve been working on is finished! And I finished ANOTHER painting last night, with substantial progress on two more!

At least Princess notices. And she approves.

I THINK.

The overlord does not approve...

Smokey is not impressed.

My portrait of Tripod, the three-legged Australian Shepherd who blasted past me at the Lucky Mutt Strut last week, is MUCH LESS IMPORTANT than, oh just about anything else she can think of, including spiders and the lint ball that's under the desk.

It doesn't matter that it's still in the ugly underpainting phase. Even if it were finished, it would lack her approval. It's just missing something...interesting in the way of subject matter, I suppose. Like a CAT.

Which got me to thinking about artists and approval of our work. I used to think I needed EVERYONE ELSE'S approval, OR I WASN'T AN ARTIST. This wasn't just when I was a kid or a teenager. It lasted well into my forties. I am AMAZED I got as much done as I did, given that I felt I was sneaking one over on everybody every time I touched a pencil or a paintbrush.

What a load of garbage.

So I wonder how many other artists have put off producing because they either a) didn't get the recognition they felt they deserved for their art, so they invalidated themselves (Geez, those drunken frat boys didn't notice the brilliance of the dialogue in my play, so I guess I'm not REALLY a writer) or b) had their art invalidated by somebody (Don't quit your day job.), somebody who probably considered themSELVES once a potential artist of some sort, but then gave up to become that most talentless of all professions, a CRITIC. I know that, for YEARS, I was UNBELIEVABLY critical of artists who actually had the COURAGE to be artists. All because I was pissed off at myself for being such a COWARD.

You recognize this, don't you? We've all been on the giving end or the receiving end of this at different points in time.

Somehow I got to the point where the only approval that really matters to me is my OWN. Sure, I WANT people to like my work--it's only possible to have a viable art business when your work communicates to people and they like it enough to buy it. But really, whether somebody approves of my work matters only to THAT extent. And if somebody else doesn't like it, fine. Everybody's entitled to an opinion; just don't expect me to agree with you. No matter WHO you are.

Painting as an act of faith...oh, and zombies

There's a good part and a bad part to this, and they're connected, at least in my mind. My painting here, called "Dappled Night," is part of the good part.

But to get there, you have to start with the bad part. Here it is.

What I remember of my morning started at dusk.

I found myself rushing down a dark alley searching out a hiding place. At last, I located an unlocked door and dashed in, to find I was in a supermarket. Sure, it was a burnt-out, Third-World-looking supermarket with a lot of empty shelves, and there were a bunch of other, raggedly-dressed people in there with the same idea I had.

But compared to getting eaten by zombies in the streets, this was AWESOME! We could just hole up, grab the remaining twinkies and a pint and wait for this whole thing to blow over. How's THAT for a slice of fried gold?

Then I realized the walls and all the shelves were made out of CORRUGATED CARDBOARD, old bend-y cardboard that's been left out in the rain and almost the consistency of porridge.

I don't know what your zombie apocalypse nightmares are like, but mine SUCK.

They usually go like this:

I've FINALLY found a place to hide, but it's ALREADY occupied, usually by some scary little-girl zombie that looks like a cross between the Olsen Twins and Gollum.

So I bar the door. And I look around for something to take off the zombie's head. And, MIRACLE OF MIRACLES, there's a GIANT BATTLE AXE. With a really long handle. I grab it and feel the comforting heft of it in my hand. It's SO much better than I had expected.

Maybe there is a kind, loving God after all!

I feel hope and joy and regain my faith that life is full of promise!

It's EXCELLENT!

Of course, during the split-second that all of this takes, Mary-Kate/Ashley/Gollum/Smeagol easily shoves aside the giant bureau that I used to bar the door and pounds into the room. I notice, as I shift the battle axe from hand to hand, getting ready to swing, that she's also five feet taller and three hundred pounds heavier than she was when I last saw her.

Then I realize that my battle axe has turned into a Twizzler.

Yes, you read that right. A TWIZZLER. Or a Red Vine. Really, does it matter which? Can you get any LESS threatening than a Twizzler? You can't even poke someone's EYE out with it. Plus, although they are very tasty and chewy and red, Twizzlers are likely to be less appetizing for zombies than my intestines. As I'm about to find out.

So that's usually where I wake up.

This is NOT a happy start to the day. How can I trust ANYTHING? My battle axe turned into a FREAKING TWIZZLER on me!

But there was a point to this (besides the rather obvious conclusion that you should NOT eat an entire box of Twizzlers all by yourself late at night while watching "The Walking Dead"). And it has to do with the artistic process.

At some point in the past, I lost my faith in my ability to create artistic beauty. When I started a painting or a sculpture or a written piece, I would be fine for awhile, all caught up in the initial excitement of making it. Then, somewhere in the middle of the process, I would look at it and it seemed UGLY. POINTLESS. USELESS.

Like a Twizzler, when what you needed was a battle axe.

So I'd stop making whatever creative thing I was working on. And, in the nature of inanimate things (and something which I HATE about them), the piece did NOT finish itself. It stayed ugly, pointless, and useless, until I tossed it out or stuffed it under the crawl space (incidentally cluttering up the ONLY zombie-proof room in our house).

Sometime in the past year, I got my faith back. And I did it by painting. Just by painting through the OHMYGOD WHAT THE HELL IS THIS MISBEGOTTEN SORRY-ASS HIDEOUS IDEA, LET'S GO AWAY AND DRINK OURSELVES INTO OBLIVION AND FORGET IT stage. And amazingly, I came out on the other side, with images that even exceed my imagination.

It happens every single time.

It's not always easy, but there is an unasked-for grace that emerges through the artistic process. I know that, if I put in the time and what my brother calls "pencil mileage," I will come out the other side with a thing of beauty.

It's nice to be awake!