So I have just spent the last two hours panting for the first time in, if I remember correctly, probably a year now. I should really start dating my paintings. I love painting so incredibly much, the thing is though I am absolutely terrible at it – in fact I am sure without a doubt some of my paintings would be worthy of Pinterest fails. But like I said I really enjoy it and that is the main thing.
One of tonight’s work in progresses. A little bit rusty.
Since a young age I have always enjoyed art, in particular drawing. When I was in primary school I even had aspirations to be an animator, my dad even made me one of those light boxes that animators use. For a long period though I didn’t draw, not until after school when I was in tafe, when the classes were on the particularly dry side I took to drawing in the back of my notebook. In particular I developed a fascination with drawing castles and moonscapes, incidentally one of the projects in which we had to run at tafe was an art class out of a local PCYC – which introduced me to painting. Our group teamed up with a local artist and taught local youth how to paint. So then, some days later I bought home some cheap acrylics and canvas and gave it a go.
Around the same time a good close friend of mine was also tinkering with drawing, though he was experimenting with texter drawings, (he though unlike me has some genuine and incredible talent, with texter alone he was already producing legitimate high quality art – present day he is now a fully-fledged artist having exhibited award winning work and has also been sold to private buyers). So from time to time we got together and had an art off until one day he suggested we go to an art class. And so we did, he managed to track down a local artist that ran art classes a couple of times a week and before you knew it my friend and I were attending alongside a wonderful group of retirees and semi-retired. Our art teacher specialised in Australian landscapes in which I was instructed in, but he was also incredibly adept at portraits in which my friend was interested in.
Probably the first painting I produced in class in under the guidance/instruction of my art teacher.
What he would get us to do was choose from a photo from a large selection in which he had taken from his travels and paint it according to the style in which we were taught.
it was an incredible experience and he was amazing to watch when he did a demo for us.
One of the paintings I produced in class under the guidance of my painting instructor.
And so here I am today. Still painting from time to time. As I mentioned I was instructed in Australian landscapes yet am inspired by fantasy and space so I try to take what I was taught and incorporate it into my paintings, but as I mentioned before what generally results are nothing more than Pinterest fails. That being said though practice equals progress and progress leads to mastery, my dream is to be able to blend Australian landscapes with fantasy.
Our teacher taught us that all you need is roughly four to five colours and from that you can make any colour and that is what leads to genuine looking landscapers and portraits. As you can see from time to time I cheat and whip out a viridian hue, yellow ochre or sap green, and let’s not forget the cardinal sin of using an actual black rather than making your own. But it is good to experiment from time to time and given that I am aspiring to create fantasy-scapes such experimentation is sound.
One of my first paintings produced in class under the guidance/instruction of my art class teacher.
As you can see I had difficulty taking a decent photo without my shadow in it and poor lighting.
Painting though, is an incredible outlet. I always feel that when the pen or the keyboard fails you there is always the brush. For writing is like an intellectual, mental and emotional catharsis, it is a thoughtful catharsis, it is and this might sound strange – abstract and less tangible. Even though you have produced something, have outputted something, it represents thought coupled with feeling. It is dynamic in that it can be deep or can be shallow. Sometime I even feel that when one uses a computer to write it is almost less cathartic than if one were to write on the page. The catharsis is still there but perhaps it carries less weight that is why to do this day I still attempt to write on the page first before typing on the screen, for the words on the page are far rawer than the text on the screen. It is so easy to edit or to change a line and steal from the immediate ideas , thoughts and feelings and yet it is not without its merits. For those very pitfalls are also advantages.
Painting though much like writing is incredibly cathartic, and while it too can be intellectual, mental and emotional I feel that at the end of the day it is what is and that is purely visual. That is the beauty of landscapes. The construction and catharsis of painting is more tangible less abstract – in the sense that it is right there before you, it is visual (not to confuse with abstract paintings). You take it all in at once and then perhaps look at its individual features, writing is to be digested slowly, mindfully; paintings are to be observed and mulled over in tranquillity and meditation, they are purely aesthetic – regardless of agenda, be it political or simply artistic. Even the act of painting can be considered a form of meditation, for all you have is a vague image in mind in which you wish to see on the canvas. Even if what results is not quite what you envisioned, the process, the act of painting is a purely visual and physically constructive catharsis and mediation. That is the beauty of painting, even our Pinterest fails are good for the soul.
J.
An attempt at a more abstract style of painting.
Work in progress form last year.
Undecided as to whether or not this one is finished yet. Initially it was a work in progress, at present I am happy with the way it is.
One of my Pinterest fails. Inspired by space/fantasy.
Here again I was experimenting with a brighter colour scheme. Generally I am inspired by dark fantasy scapes, here though in order to break away from those colours I looked to desert style landscapes.
At one point I was feeling like as though I was trapping my myself within a certain colour scheme, and so in this painting and the next I was experimenting with breaking away from that colour scheme while still maintaining the processes that I was taught when painting landscapes.
Jotunn Symposium 