Colour Changes

The weather outside has created a blurred vision of soft white tones. It is a far cry from the bold and vibrant tones of fall found near Lacey Brook a few years ago. We are certainly feeling the effects of winter all around in the north east. So far the Atlantic Ocean has worked in our favour moderating temperatures and limiting the snow pack. That can all change just like art. Time to get in the studio.

Art Choices

Our view changes from minute to minute making working by hand a time sensitive challenge. The fluid quality of watercolour paints used as a colour sketch tool allows quick rendering of inspirational elements encountered in a day.

The relationship between the hand, eye and heart of the artist when choosing to make a painting or taking a photograph is one that is constantly at play.  Somehow the questions arising around the choice of medium don't seem to diminish. The results of sketches vary wildly and are very different from those of photographs. Ultimately the artist will have to decide given the variables of the day.

Brooks at Springfield Lake

While painting a brook whether in the studio or sitting on a rock in the middle of the brook the sound of running water will enter the work. 

Brooks feed Springfield Lake and are one element of the landscape that first attracted my eye. Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall.

Painting at Springfield Lake

It is the calm before the storm and time to batten down the hatches. Sometimes if you are fast a painting will emerge. While a storm blew outside I worked looking out of the window and across Springfield Lake. I was using water colours on arches paper and really liked the fast feeling that came with the medium.

When I began working with acrylic paint on canvas I turned to the same view through the same window while skaters moved across the ice. 

Clear as Mud

As a child there was a story that spread through the class that caught us all off guard. The story went something like...the more you learned the more you would focus on one subject resulting in knowing less and less about everything else.

Somehow making art seems to be the same except that in making art a new balance is constantly being drawn between new and old ways of seeing. Here's hoping.