Friday 1 July 2011

Tweaking Colors

Rebecca at Isalos Fine Art is printing a catalog for my show Fields to the Sea. It's an interesting process, photographing the paintings so that the color matches the originals. Even adjusting the white balance on the camera, colors are very different if the photo is taken on a cloudy day versus a sunny one. The colors are even different taken in full shade on a sunny day, versus a cloudy day. As artists our eyes are fine tuned to color. Today I took the Munsell Color Acuity Test and got a perfect score. It's like having perfect pitch in the music world. It doesn't guarantee we'll be a stars, but we can tell when we're off. So we tweak and tweak and tweak again.
It's the same when I'm painting. Make the blue a bit greener, now warmer, now add a dab of black to subdue it. On and on. A painting is never finished until it's hanging on someone else's wall.
Oh, if' I'd just made that a bit brighter.

Here's a sneak preview of the catalog cover.
Unrest, oil on canvas, 20 x 20"
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Saturday 19 February 2011

Letting Go

     So,  the next lesson from the trapeze world is that in order to catch the next trapeze you have to let go of the one you're clinging to.  You just have to let go and trust that it will be there and you'll catch it.  

    A couple of weeks ago I said goodby to a gallery that just wasn't working for me,  and also took a load of clothes to the dump that  I needed for my "day job".  What's happening is that you create a void for the new (and wanted) to enter.

     Offers from two new galleries appeared and I'm much too busy painting to do my "day job."   It's all working out.

       Just let go.
    
   

Saturday 8 January 2011

Trapeze Dreams

     I love dreams where I wake up feeling wonderful.  Recently I dreamed that I was part of a group learning trapeze.  There were safety nets but I was afraid to climb up and leap.  Then another woman scrambled up to the  top and I saw I that if she could do it I could, too.   So I climbed quickly to the top and grabbed the trapeze and hung from my knees and felt the exhilaration of flying through the air effortlessly.

  Why don't we do this more often?  The net's there, and we may find bouncing off the net fun, too.

My intention for the new year is to grab that trapeze and enjoy the flight.  How about you?

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