Steel Bridge and Cherry Blossoms

I can hardly believe it, but I finished a painting. What's funny about the evolution of this painting is something that always seems to happen - I begin with something light, airy and pretty and end with something of a darker persuasion. It almost feels like a fall painting, although the subject is so clearly spring with those cherry blossoms. The Steel Bridge in spring, with it's heavy iron girders and timeless boxcar train running through:

Steel Bridge and Cherry Blossoms, 2013, oils on canvas, Fiona D. 

I've been thinking about Edward Hopper recently, and how all of his paintings contain such loneliness. I believe I heard him say in an interview once that he was a bit puzzled by the loneliness that came out in each painting. Then I see something like this and wonder what we 're all hiding from ourselves that only art can tease to the surface: http://www.edwardhopper.net/newyork-movie.jsp

It feels good to finally see what's been ebbing. I'm a happy person, but constantly in silent awe of the depth and complexity of the world around me. I don't find it overwhelming me with sadness anymore. I've finally learned to just let it flow through me and I'm finding that the contrast of the darkness makes my life that much richer.

While I stood on the waterfront getting the sketches that were the skeleton of this painting, I was passed and slightly surrounded by homeless people. When I looked to the left, there was a homeless encampment, like a modern-day hooverville, just under the Burnside bridge. When I looked down into the water, I could see floating hypodermic needles, empty beer bottles and other trash. So, I just looked ahead, at the dripping cherry blossoms and the peaceful river running under the bridge. Perhaps that explains the brooding feeling.

In any case, with this painting finally complete, I can finally breath a sigh of relief and take in a breath of inspiration as I look towards my next project...

Tiny Self Portrait in Oils

"Here form, here colours, here the character of every part of the universe are concentrated to a point; and that point is so marvellous a thing..." (pg. 19)

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci are thick with knowledge and exercises for artists. I've been on Vol.1 for longer than I care to admit. I keep stopping because I want to experiment with these suggestions he supplies. For example:

"Experiment [showing] the dilatation and contraction of the pupil, from the motion of the sun and other luminaries...The pupil of the eye, in the open air, changes in size with every degree of motion from the sun; and at every degree of its changes one and the same object seen by it will appear of a different size..." (pg.23-24)

I began with the idea that I would just paint the eyes over and over again, changing the light each time but I got wrapped up in just finishing a portrait instead. It was the right thing to do for the composition on this tiny canvas, even though I'm told I'm not this "pointy." 4"x6", oils, wet-on-wet.

Music to Paint to

There are two artists that I've been painting to lately. They're addictive, their albums are very long and they seem to get more interesting the more I listen to them.

Cotton Jones:



Moon and Moon has this incredible album, that's really just a singular piece of art in itself. I don't know how it will translate as just one snippet, but here you go:

Excerpts From The Art Spirit

My mother gave me the book The Art Spirit this past spring to replace the Gloria Steinham book that I lost while visiting. Not only did it quickly take hold after losing a book that I was already engrossed in, it opened up so much inspiration and creativity for me. It literally cleansed my brain of all the criticisms I felt wounded by from my last art teacher. I was free again to paint from my heart and away from some intellectualized way of approaching the craft. I really want to share some amazing advice that I gathered from it:

"It is not enough to have thought great things before doing the work. The brush stroke at the moment of contact carries inevitably the exact state of being of the artist at that exact moment into the work, and there it is, to be seen and read by those who can read such signs, and to be read later by the artist himself, with perhaps some surprise, as a revelation of himself."

"He who has contemplated has met with himself, is in a state to see into the realities beyond the surfaces of this subject. Nature reveals to him, and, seeing and feeling intensely, he paints..."

"Don't try to paint good landscapes. Try to paint canvases that will show how interesting the landscape looks to you - your pleasure in the thing. Wit."

"We are instinctly blind to what is not relative."

"There are moments in our lives...when we seem to see beyond the usual - become clairvoyant. We reach then into reality."

"A tree growing out of the ground is as wonderful today as it always was. It does not need to adopt new and startling methods."

"The individual says 'My crowd doesn't run that way.' I say don't run with crowds."

"The individual passes, living his life, and the things he touches receive his kind of impress, and they afterwards bear the trace of his passing. They give evidence of the quality of this growth."

"Don't worry about your originality. You could not get rid of it if you wanted to."

"We have little interest in the material person or the material thing. All our valuation of them is based on the sensations their presence and existence arouse in us."

More later, or you can read the whole thing on Google using the link above.