Playing Around

"Morning Celebration", 12 x 16, pastel on Canson Mi-Tientes paper.

Rather then doing a specific dedicated painting, one that takes planning and focus, I have been taking an easy does it approach this summer. Creating on impulse you might say. Simply enjoying the feeling of a free for all with my pastels. If something happens while I'm doing this, something that catches hold and leads me down a specific path toward a complete painting, all the better. Many go into the burn folder but some new works are born out of this. Anyway does it matter? I'm enjoying the pure pleasure of creating.  I'm at my own summer art camp right in my own back yard.

Artist's Moods

"Moody Day", 9 x 11, pastel on Colorfix suade paper.

There are times when I get into an artist's funk. Days when I'm super critical of my work and and myself. Do you ever have these days? I'll share a secret with you sometimes these "down days" go on for a while. I was having such a day when I assembled a group of new works with newly purchased frames. It was then when I saw some of  my accomplishments of the last nine months placed in a frame, many for  the first time that I began to feel uplifted, even hopefull, maybe they weren't so bad after all. I felt a bit of recognition of my creative abilities creeping into my heart and soul. It was the nourishment I needed to restore my sense of self worth. Have you ever stopped short on a frustrating work and held a frame or mat over it? Something wonderful can happen. When I do that, I can often get a different perspective on it. I can be validated or I can see where the problem lies.  A frame or mat helps to tell me if a wip is a dw. If it is a dw then yippee, if not, then it's back to the drawing board.

Honored

Pastel painting collage of my work featured on  Soft Pastel News.

Thank you Mario Vulakic creater of Pastel News for featuring me on your website today.  This is a wonderful site to go to full of exquisite soft pastel paintings and information about pastel artists past and present. It's loaded with information such as pastel painting videos and history. Did you know that Edvard Munch created four versions of "The Scream". One of the versions is done was done in pastel? I could go on and on about how I get carried away when I visit the site. Better yet, you go there to see what discoveries you find.