Delivery Door- 5x7- oil on canvasboardAvailable- $45
to purchase- be the first to contact me saying " its a doorway, but hey, i still like it"
Todays painting was more for me than anything else. it was a warmish afternoon and i had to paint this cool delivery door in the sun. this one's about practice.
remember that if you paint, you have to keep the process at the forefront of all of the energy.
dont be seduced into thinking that the end product is why we paint. we are like every other profession. practice makes perfect.
ballplayers lift weights, musicians play scales and "noodle" (fooling around making music) and artists paint, paint, paint. the more you paint the better you know how to handle your brushes, you know what the paints going to do, you can identify the values better and quicker and the whole process becomes more efficient. the more efficient, the more you can concentrate on "nailing the scene". the less you have to think about the process, the more you can paint from the left side of the brain. its that illusive quality called intuitive painting that we all strive for.
so if you want to paint better tomorrow than you did today, go paint a doorway with some afternoon sun on it. yeah its not the eiffel tower or some beautiful scene worthy of a "great painting", its the warehouse door of some abandoned building. but it'll help you paint the cool stuff better.
it'll come from out of nowhere, it'll flow out, it'll fall off the brush. you'll love the thing you painted effortlessly, and others will too. all because you painted some delivery door on a sunny afternoon knowing no one will want it. Come on... lets face it. todays painting is not a great painting!
remember,,, painting's NOT about the end product, its about the process.
now, enough of my pontifficating. only doing it because ive got some time off, i did a crappy painting today, and its a holiday. LOL
9 comments:
Hey, I like it too.
I find myself wondering what that crappy painting was.
L. Douglas Holder-
werent you nice to say that. its like, i want every painting i do to be great and i end up with so many duds. but the duds dont scare me. i understand the duds are needed to get to the great ones. takes the pressure off and makes me want to paint ALL the time. thanks for commenting today. please come by often. if you liked this one, i do lots of dull things like doorways LOL
Hi Mike...my teacher says the same thing painting is about the process and not the finished product. Her teacher used to say that painting is series of mistakes that you correct or something like that.
mikes1024
thats a good saying. heres how mine go.
it starts as nothing, looks like crap, looks less like crap as i go and hopefully it looks even less so, at the end :)
Hi Mike...I like your style in "sayings" and paintings! Have a great day.
Mike- one of the many things I like about your blog in addition to your paintings, is the thought process about painting that is easy to overlook or forget.
This idea that every one has to be gallery perfect is a very important thing to remember and seems to come to me at a very timely moment.
Your words hit home and I'm going to shake myself out of this rut of scraping, scraping and wiping that I've been in, and start to " hit the scales " and do more practice and aim not for perfect.
Pontification- works better than you may realize.
Thanks, buddy, I needed that.
You inspire- really you do.
And I like this painting.
bonnie
thanks so much.glad my "pontification" was for somebody other than me. i frequently preach to myself, God knows i need it!
if nothing else my tombstone will read " mike's favorite expression when asked about his good or bad paintings was, ""it is what it is, and no more""
i dont care that much about the final product. its a byproduct of my real goal, the physical action of painting. the thought process involved, the eye-hand coordination action, the judgement sharpening, the time use and editing skills practice.
these are the things that are important until we are "Old Masters"
trying to concentrate on turning out wonderful, sellable, masterpieces should be the last thing we should be thinking about. that kind of thinking only leads to performance anxiety and thinking more highly of our work than it is worthy of. making every piece so precious or being overly critical of it kills the creative process and desire.
so paint some crappy subject as if it was a beautiful subject. paint every day no matter what it has to be, or how it looks when we're done. i think these are the things that will make us better painters.
Hi Mike I love this painting, I would be very pleased to produce this on a good day. Yes its good to paint intuitively, if you can, I know when its kicked in because generally I am replaying old arguments in my head, only I am saying wittier lines.
simon- thanks for stopping by!
appreciate your compliment. i have the same conversations in my head. wish i was witty... LOL
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