Blog

The Last Days

It seems that the longer I am on this journey as an artist, the slower I go.  I've come to learn that we are all filled with moments of self doubt and frustration.  Lately, however, everyone is telling me that frustration is my friend.....    REALLY?

Well, in a way they are right.  Frustration is far better than stagnation.  And as slow as I seem to be going, at least I'm still going.  -- After all -- the turtle won the race, didn't he?

Today as I look over the various paintings of the last month -- those painted during the convention and since then, I say...  hey not bad!  Maybe not as good as I'd like to be but still good and growing.  What more could I ask?

Boot Camp -- Thank you, Eric Rhoads!
During the last two days of the conference, we continued to learn and enjoy friends and other artists.  Dorene White, my friend and roommate, and I got up early again to go to Eric Rhoads' Boot Camp.   Again we were treated to good advice and reminders about improving our art careers.   Some quotes were:

• Take 10 minutes before going to bed each night to focus on what needs to be solved
• When you awake focus on the solutions and write it all down.... don't judge, -just write
• Make goals and break them down weekly or daily -- don't let yourself off the hook
• Gather a "mastermind" group to share ideas with -- be around people who will lift you up -- not tear you down
• It takes time
• Define your life -- brush time and marketing time
• Build "brand" awareness
• You are "gardening" -- get the weeds out
• Repetition not only sells products it sells yourself
• A goal without a plan is a wish
• Brush time is critical
• Your brain and your subconscious is the most important part of all of this -- DAYDREAM!
• Intention, Focus, Relentlessness

And probably the most lasting reminder for us was to do as Willie Nelson suggested, "Once you replace your negative thoughts with positive thoughts, your life will improve."   The Bob Newhart video called "Stop It" totally cemented that for us all.    If you watch it you will probably never forget it.... but will it change the way you think about yourself?

                                                                 

LEN CHMIEL
I love Len Chmiel's work and am often amazed at how he manages to use such wonderful abstract designs while creating beautiful "traditional realistic" landscapes.  His demonstration was unique, humorous, intelligent, totally "out of the box" and instructional.
He brought some of his work in to share and talked briefly about some of the pieces.   There were several I loved and but couldn't find images of them online.  Some I found in his book, (which is a total "must have") but.. there is nothing like seeing paintings in person to gather in their essence.   Here are a few among my favorite Chmiel images I grabbed from the web:

A few of Chmiel's influences were Gustav Klimpt and Richard Deibenkorn so you can see that just painting the things he sees in front of him is not his goal.

He loves to do "on-the-spotters" (don't you love that term?) but uses many things including these to do his studio work.  Chmiel talked about "thinking inside the box."  Meaning that the artist needs to learn about how things are -- geology, plants, etc.   He also said we need to use our imaginations -- ALWAYS ask "what if".  "Don't mindlessly whack away at the canvas when you don't know what you are doing."  Paint and paint and paint more.  He said that he keys all of his paintings to "mud".  He uses light as a design element.  Try not to copy.  He breaks the canvas into large masses.  You get to alter a landscape and make it what you want it to be.   "When you look out there and you can't identify the color -- it's grey."  He tries to make shadows into interesting shapes using negative and positive shapes.  He says he "wastes" a lot of paint.

There were so many great thoughts that he shared -- too many to list.  I thought his demo was hilarious.  I have NEVER seen anyone do a landscape demo quite that way.  Instead of using one of his "on-the-spotters" or a photo, he created a landscape with a "still life set-up."  He brought rocks and stacked them onto a lipped cookie sheet to make a cliff.  He brought a turquoise blue side of a cereal box for the sky and put it up in back of the rocks [the cliff] and then had some pieces of sage which he stood up in front of the "cliff" like a tree.  Then he poured water into the cookie sheet tray for the river.  TOTALLY unique!

I loved it! 

QUANG HO

I didn't know as much about Quang Ho's work as I had about Chmiel's and Carlson's but I was very impressed by his presence, his presentation and the examples of his work which he shared.  Here are a few points he made:

• There comes a point in your life as an artist where you stop seeing things as things and you begin to think about light and pattern.
• There is no such thing as "mud"
• You can't do a great work of art in just a couple of hours
• You must see the connectedness
• You can't make any intelligent decision without an understanding of the world around us
• There is no "negative space" -- the figure is just a starting point -- at some point it becomes part of something else
• "Every time I scrape a painting off it looks better
• Learn how few edges are needed
• Allow your painting to go away
• Everything in a painting is either in the light or in the shadow
• Pretend you are driving past the landscape [you are painting] at 130 miles per hour
• The whole point of doing a larger painting from a smaller painting is so you can have fun with it
• Don't mind getting "lost"
• Don't worry about color - only about relative warm and cool
• Painting is like driving -- sometimes you speed up, other times you slow down
• One shape is not finished until you finish the other shapes around it
• The sun that rakes across a field is going to dance as it touches the landscape and that becomes another beautiful piece of rhythm
• He used all sorts of tools as he worked on the demo... from soft brushes to stiff brushes to palette knives to credit cards
• The whole point is to try to learn something about paint ..... What you can get away with and how you can get into trouble
• Think of the painting as a mindful exercise
• Beautiful passages take time

In the afternoon we all drove to different places in Carmel to paint.  There just were no bad places to paint.  Beauty was everywhere!

Friday

On Friday there were no demos, presentations or things to buy in the convention center.   We all walked down to the wharf and painted.  I enjoyed chatting with new friends and seeing what other people were doing.  My friend Christopher Cook and I settled in to an area to the side of the harbor to paint and enjoyed the warm sun.

Soon it was time for me to leave, but I am happy to feel that I took a whole lot home with me.