Tag: making art

There’s nothing at all to figure out … I’m just here to create

I’m reading Rick Rubin’s new book The Creative Act: A Way of Being. It’s the best book on making art & living a creative life I’ve read since reading Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland. Here’s an excerpt from Rubins new book: Freedom There…

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Against better judgment – (The worst thing a painter can do is flowers … part 3)

Rendering flowers Anthriscus sylvestris – cow parsley – Queen Anne’s lace – Hundekjeks – Wiesen-Kerbel Another vernacular name,’ Mother die’, was used to frighten children into thinking that if they picked cow parsley, their mother would die. This was intended to deter children from potentially picking deadly hemlock. The monoprint is a form of printmaking…

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The studio

Despite (or maybe because of) everything happening in the big world, my small world has felt like a sanctuary this month – I’m currently working on a series of paintings on board and paper with the working title: “Spring Cannot be Cancelled”, a series of partly abstracted still life paintings of plants & flowers from…

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I find my way by doing

I love the physicality of making art, art as craft, and the specific qualities of the materials I’m using. The creamy messiness of paint, the dry dustiness of pastels, the sharp line of a pencil, the smudgy charcoal… not to mention the substrate; paper, card board, canvas, wood – and how it allows for all…

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«Nature Loves To Hide»

my week in painting – visual brief In the beginning things look rather nice and tidy – but nice & tidy is no longer my goal After layer upon layer with collage and paint … and more paint … and all kinds of scribbling — the time comes to wrap it up. This is as…

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I like a quiet life –

Lunch dates take the heart out of the day and the spaciousness from the morning’s work  Journal of a Solitude May Sarton May Sarton   May Sarton (1912-1995) was a prolific American writer of poetry, novels and journals. She is, perhaps, best known for her nonfiction on growing older (Recovering: A Journal and Journal of a…

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A custodian of larger issues

“It is a widely accepted notion that making art is about self-expression. And it is – but that is not necessarily all it is. It may only be a passing feature of our times that validating the sense of who-you-are is held up as the major source of the need to make art. What gets…

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foremothers

I’m reading Anne Truitt’s Daybook: The Journal of an Artist. It’s a beautiful and very insightful portrayal of the artist at work. Truitt worked in several medias, and I believe her Daybook will be of interest to all people making a creative living. Through reading Truitt one actually gets access to the creative process as it unfolds….

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