Studio Reflections

Beginnings, 10 x 10″ acrylic “The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.” – Tom Clancy Here is one of the great paradoxes in life. Most people would agree that art (I think of art as a form of fiction) has to make some sense – if it’s totally random,…

Nova, 10 x 10″ Acrylic, Spackle on Illustration Board “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all sciences.” – Albert Einstein Is all beauty mysterious? What makes something mysterious? Is it just that we don’t understand it? I think there is more to…

Cosmos, 10 x 10″ Acrylic on Illustration Board “Looking is the end of a painting in my view. If you want a message, go read a novel.” – Douglas Atwill First of all, my apologies to those who read my blog for my absence over the last few weeks. I won’t go into the tedious…

Bluebells, 8 x 8″ monoprint “Goals in life as in art should be specific in order to hope to attain them.” – Raynald Murphy Do you have goals, specific or otherwise, for your art? What things in life are better served with goals and which are not, or at least do not require them? Which…

Meteoric, 8 x 7″ monoprint, ink and pastel “There is no such thing as failure. There are only results.” – Anthony Robbins We are in such a rush to judge. Perhaps artists are even more prone to this pernicious tendency because we are always trying to figure out if what we’re doing is any good.…

Cosmos, 6 x 6″ monoprint, ink and pastels “My studio begins at the art supply store. I imagine all the paintings trapped inside those tubes of paint.” – John Ferrie One thing that amazes me about art is the variety and complexity of what can be created from the simplest of elements and tools. I…

Distant Shores, 6 x 6″ monoprint “All painting is an accident. But it’s also not an accident, because one must select what part of the accident one chooses to preserve.” – Francis Bacon The process of painting is a wonderful play between unexpected results and calculated decisions. Nothing is more pleasing to the artist than…

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…