Life
“Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.” Danny Kaye
Author: Cheryl
Special Ingredient
I had a question from someone who watched my 4 Horses video on YouTube. They wanted to know what was in the spray bottle that caused the colour to move and flow so much. Well, that special ingredient was – water! Fluid acrylics are formulated to respond to water, and there was a lot of wet paint still on the canvas I was spraying. For maximum flow, you can thin the fluid acrylic paint with water in a cup, before putting it onto the canvas. Squirting the paint right out of the bottle leaves a thicker consistency that takes more spraying to move, and still some lumps will remain. The ‘lumps’ became planets in that painting! Warning – this technique is highly addictive.
Living Out Loud
I’ve come across this expression in a few different places lately. There’s something attractive about it, perhaps especially when applied to the arts. When you find the courage to come to an art class, to show someone your paintings, and eventually to hang them in an art show, you are living out loud with your art. In a way, we visual artists have it easier than those in the performance or music arts. Our creativity happens while we are on our own, and gets displayed later. The wonderful thing about living out loud with your art is, you may encourage someone else to find the strength to do the same. And when creativity is shared, the world gets a bit brighter for us all.
Attitude Check
“Our attitude or mindset is what makes us who we are. Our outer lives are a reflection of our inner lives, our thoughts and prayers.” Alfred Muma – Did you know that your heart rules your life more than your mind does? Sure, the heart can be wrong, and needs the mind to correct it sometimes. But in long term battles for who you are and what you do, the heart most often wins. What things fill your heart? Are they positive, hopeful, worthwhile things? Every once in awhile, it’s good to do an attitude check. Your attitude is who you are, and who you are becoming too.
5 Lessons from the Titanic
This is an interesting article by Sinead Duffy posted in “Great Minds – think differently”. I thought you would enjoy it too – here’s the link – “5 Lifelong Lessons that we can Learn from the Titanic“. (Find link on my homepage blog if reading this on Facebook or elsewhere.)
Art Videos
I have updated the videos that are available on the homepage blog of my website (cherylo.ca) You can now view my 3 most recent videos there: “The 4 Horses”, “Sunflower Drawing” and “Toward Abstract”. The time of each videos is short – from just over 1 minute to under 3 minutes – and this is a bit deceiving. “The 4 Horses” took several weeks to complete, the sunflower drawing about 20 minutes, and the abstract painting took 8 hours. Hope you have fun watching these!
Just had to say…
I have the most wonderful art students – and I have some numbers to prove it. At the recent art show in Grand Bend, 14 artists who had paintings there are or have been students of mine. That added up to 27 of the paintings in the show. And, in the current art show at the Aeolian Hall in London, of the 9 artists showing, 5 are my art students, plus myself – makes 6! You can arrange to see the current Aeolian Art Show by phoning the Hall at 519-672-7950 weekdays between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Or why not take in a concert and enjoy the art too? Here’s the “Aeolian Website“. (Find link on my homepage blog if reading this in Facebook or elsewhere.) –
I’m so happy to see my students doing so well – paint on!
Copyright
There is still a lot of confusion out there about copyright. Basically, the copyright laws are a good thing. They ensure that the person who did the creating stands to benefit their creation; whether a photograph, painting, drawing, sculpture, or whatever. It’s an important issue for visual artists. Specifically, if you are doing a painting based on a photograph, and you want to sell or display that painting in public, you need to either a. have taken the photo yourself, or b. make sure that you have permission from the photographer to work from it. I encourage my art students to get themselves a camera. The prices have gone waaaaay down in the past 10 years for a camera that will take great photos. I have a small one with a 10x zoom that cost under $200. You don’t even have to buy a printer. You can take your camera card into a drug store or print shop, and get prints of just your favourites to paint from. If that really doesn’t work for you, perhaps you have a friend or relative who loves to take photos and would be happy to have you base some paintings on them. The days of painting from magazine or book photos are gone once you are no longer painting simply for educational purposes. Besides, when you have taken a photo yourself it’s a lot more special – you were there, you framed it, it’s yours to be creative with!
Einstein
“I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.” Albert Einstein (thanks @iTweetArt)
I’ve been reading about Albert Einstein. You’ve gotta love a genius with a great sense of humour. He said, “If we knew what we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” He was one of the worlds most creative thinkers.
Rational thinking is step by step – a plus b equals c. Creative thinking is more playful – questions like “what happens if…?” or “I’ve never combined a with b before, let’s try it.” Creative thinking engages the imagination. It’s a delight, whether about quantum physics, or writing, or art. I just might not get the stuff about quantum physics 🙂 It’s not that I’m anti-logical. Artists need both types of thinking. Practical understanding about art materials is mostly logical thinking. Simply put – I believe that here in the westernize world too much credit is given to the logical process, to the neglect of the creative process. So, whatever your field, whatever you are working on figuring out or making, you can take a tip from Albert and try a creative approach to it. You may end up with results that are simply genius!