May 15, 2007 - Welcome to our blog!
Welcome to our blog!
Kelly and I will be taking turns adding articles and tidbits. Our areas of interest are slightly different and we expect the blog will reflect just that. Kelly is attracted more to the craft arts and I gravitate to the painting/drawing workshops. Each of us has the opportunity to talk with some pretty cool people in relationship to CCP and in doing so learn things that we otherwise would not have thought about. Not all of it is worthy of a formalized article in the newsletter, but still really good stuff… definitely worthy of a more informal blog entry.
So here on a spectacular day in Oregon, made even more so because of the weeks of rain that led up to today, a new era begins for me….blogging.
Today Nicholas Simmons sent his flight information to arrive here to film his workshop. We are in the process of creating a more industrial looking background for his art instruction video. He also plans on working larger than any other watermedia artist we’ve worked with, so that is a new challenge for us as well. Jim made a trip to the scrap metal yard to find the ‘perfect solution”. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
To me Simmons seems to push the boundaries of watermedia more than our usual art instructor. He mentions ‘batiking’ as a process. This will be interesting. Although I don’t paint as often as I used to, each new approach an instructor brings to CCP adds a new layer of appreciation I have for the medium.
I once asked John Salminen how he acquired his style and design sense. He said that in large part is was trial and error. Here is a quote from an interview with John. John says, “…practice, practice, practice. Trial and error. Over the years you try everything especially when you’re finding artists who’s work you like and then you try to emulate what they do. Some effects you can do, some you can’t do. And the more you work and the more you paint, the broader your vocabulary becomes and some things you try and are successful and you concentrate on those and you develop them. Other things continue to remain a challenge. As I look at watercolor shows now. I don’t come away having looked at a painting where I go home and say ‘boy, I want to make a painting just like that. Because that’s someone else’s painting and someone else’s style, but what I do is that I’ll come home saying ‘you known that lower right hand corner, there’s where about three inches where there was a transitional passage or a an application of texture or some kind of brush work or something that I think where I ant to do that. I’ll go home and I’ll try it and practice so. I still love looking at that art, I still love looking at the watercolors and I always take something away from it, but’s always a square inch or two at time.”
Attending and entering art shows is an incredible growth opportunity.