Online Learning

Not sure if you all remember or know that I have a blog I started with a friend when we were doing "The Artists' Way" and when that ended (read: petered out) we changed it to offer creative help during the down times. It is still there, but not terribly active. Once in awhile something comes up and I share it there. Recent posts have been about online learning or website tutorials.

I saw (too late) that Ken Auster is going to have an online course offered through Tuscon Art Academy. There are various sites that offer classes and I know some artists who offer them direct. There is a list I've started on the right column on the other blog.

I'd love to hear from any of you who have taken online art classes What is your experience? Were you motivated? Did you learn something new?

If you've read this far, you can now pop on over to The Creative Block - AND you can enter for a chance to win a free class offered on Caftsy.com. Check them out - they have a lot to offer. Second post down on the page. ;-)

p.s. - I have another idea to make the Creative Block more exciting...but I'm a little nervous about approaching other artists for help.

Deep Thoughts

On Friday, when I cleaned up my brushes and stood back from my easel, I like what I painted, but I had this sensation that it was just "fluff."
It was a museum scene and I like it, and its well painted, but I began to have doubts that it was "art." Doubts perhaps that I am not "pushing" myself.
Those doubts rather increased through the afternoon and I think some of that had to do with the fact that I spent a couple of hours with my husband at the neurologist again. His troubles seem to be increasing and there are doubts now about the toxin diagnosis. Things certainly get put into perspective fast when your loved ones are ill or unhappy. He is in for more tests early next week.

So I think I began to feel like my painting was a nice outlet, and healthy for my mental state, but is it all so important? NOW... before I start sounding like I'm having a big pity party let me go on to say that I've been reading this nice little book simply called The Impressionists (Art in Detail, by Diana Newall) and I began to reflect on the work the impressionists did. Most notably they documented scenes of ordinary life and people. They were perhaps groundbreaking at the time, but they were not trying to set the world on fire. They simply wanted to paint what they knew, what they experienced and understood first-hand.

And that made me feel so much better. I, too, like to paint what is familiar to me. And the reasons are that it is comforting. I paint the places I like to be, the things I like to experience and share. So in times of worry and doubt, I love nothing more than to sit in a quiet corner of a coffee shop, or browse for a good book, or to get together with friends for a nice dinner - to be part of the world, to be "out there." But then to work at home alone in my studio and recreate those moments of relaxation and togetherness is a gift. And its that which makes me want to paint these common scenes, and that which I hope carries forward to those who buy my work and want to look at it everyday in their homes. There is comfort in the familiar.

The good, the bad and the ugly

Since I've titled this blog as a "journal" and mean it to be an account of the painting experience, I am going to share all my recent failures or incomplete works to prove at least that I am working. I just have not had a successful painting in more than a week. Its one of those slumps that happen all too often for my tastes. It is incredibly frustrating once I fail and my mind can't let go of that experience and trying to make it work, so that failure follows me and intrudes on the next piece, and the next, and interrupts my sleep, and so on.

I still believe in many of the works shown below, they just need something. Some are just the barest beginnings, some I've reworked for days and am still unsatisfied. So I've put myself in time out... and next week is spring break here so I will not be able to work much... maybe that break will help me set these aside and begin again.



Click the image for a larger view... if you dare!