Sketches - Row Boat

Sketch of Rowboat

8 x 10, oil on Raymar board

I've been so busy lately, my eyes spin in my sockets...ever have that kind of busy - I'm sure you have.

And so I've not be able to paint...aaaarrrrggggghhhhhhh!!!

I've listed a good number of my paintings on Ebay because I wanted to clean out my inventory and it was a good success! I usually don't varnish my paintings until I'm ready to exhibit it or it's ready to sell. Many of the paintings had never been exhibited so they needed that one extra step before preparing to pack. I have a special way of packing the paintings that Filomena Booth, my mentor who taught me how to sell on Ebay, showed me. And though I'd used this method before - to have to package 15 was a little bit of a challenge. I noticed though that by the eighth or so package, I'd finally gotten the rhythm of wrapping and my folds were neater, I didn't cut too much of the wrapping paper off, I had a sort of a handle on it...it felt comfortable and I was making the packages a whole lot neater.

Isn't that the way it is with a lot of things? Repetition, persistence, getting back on the horse again and again, exercise, habits...whatever it is, the more you do it, the easier it comes to you?

Tony Saladino who leads an Art Critique class here in the DFW Metroplex asked the critique attendees a few months ago - what do you do to improve?

Well you learn to do it. Then you do it....it doesn't feel right at first, it might not even turn out anywhere you'd expect it to, it might even be horrid or lopsided (my first clay turning experience....omg!!), but you do some more, and you learn from your mistakes and you might have to start from the beginning again, but you do it. (Ok, I'll admit, I didn't go back to clay classes, sorry, Kim!! of Norris Pottery)

Well I don't have too much time right now to paint but last week I did have a wee bit of time to visit with friends and paint at the same time so I did a couple of quick studies. The row boat is one that I did and might make it to some larger painting in the future.

Palette Knife Painting of Rowboat - "Solitude"

"Solitude"

14 x 14 x 3/4 inches, Oil on Canvas

I woke up this morning and opened the window - there is a thick fog and the sun tries to shine through it. The fog makes the morning whisper.

A couple of days ago when I started this painting, my thoughts were in a fog and this painting is of that feeling. I didn't know whether to title this "Adrift" or "Solitude" but this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson just seemed appropriate for it that I settled on "Solitude". I sketched this out using a brown pencil and when I didn't like it I wiped it off but the color that remained on the canvas after a few sketch attempts was a quiet sepia which I liked so I did this painting in a somber sepia monotone with just a touch of blue in the rowboat.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote:

"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great person is one who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."