bobcornelis

Jungle Rhythms, 6 x 6″ monoprint with ink and pastel “Listening to Mozart when painting can make you believe in God.” – J.M. Brodrick I can’t paint without music playing in the background. But I’m very particular about what music it is. The music definitely informs my painting and if the wrong tunes are playing,…

Cattails, 6 x 6″ monoprint “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another.” – Anatole France I’ve been contemplating change a lot lately. Perhaps it’s the time of year to think about…

Emerging, 6 x 6″ ink, newsprint “I found that if I planned a picture beforehand, it never surprised me, and surprises are my pleasure in painting.” – Ives Tanguy “Without planning, your painting will probably be indecisive and fragmented, and you’ll try to say too much in one picture.” – Ron Ranson So which camp…

red balloon escapes the child’s grasp sunrise floats away New Day, 6 x 6″ monoprint “Poetry is good for unleashing images.” – Paula Rego I am planning on periodically adding short haiku poems I’ve written to my postings, as this is a poetic form I’ve become interested in. Traditionally the pairing of haiku with painting…

Shoji 1, 6 x 6″ monoprint “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” – Rumi I’ve always loved this quote from Rumi – actually had it on my website homepage for years. What great words for an artist to live by. We “do” beauty, which makes the word more than an…

Oriental Grunge, 10 x 15 acrylic, ink “In mathematics the complicated things are reduced to simple things. So it is in painting.” – Thomas Eakins As artists we are taught that it is better to simplify what we put in our paintings – as Robert Browning said, “less is more”. When we start to paint…

Ikebana 1, 10 x 15″ acrylic, inks “When the snake decided to go straight, he didn’t get anywhere.” – William Stafford Our artistic paths have a trajectory that is unique to each of us. About the only thing they have in common is that they are not straight, often to our dismay. It seems like…

Dreamcatcher, 11 x 15″ acrylic, ink “The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” – Robert Henri Maybe if we focus more on what this state is and how to get ourselves into it and less on making art, more art would get made. While this…

Dreamweaver, 11 x 15″ acrylic, ink “You must learn […] to manifest the wildness of an artist. This wildness has many faces. It is an amalgam of passion, vitality, rebelliousness, nonconformity, freedom from inhibitions. Think of this wildness as ‘working naked’.” – Eric Maisel Maisel recommends taking this literally –  take off your cloths to…

Graffitix, 9 x 9″ acrylics, ink “Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.” – Joseph Joubert Do you feel excited when finishing a painting? Do you feel like you are in the grip of a creative impulse? How would you compare your feelings, emotions, state of mind at the end of the painting process…