A Painter Without Her Paint: Laos

 

I should say that I am a pretty...particular...painter. I am slow. I take months to finish a painting. I find myself spending lengths of time making the tiniest adjustments to a painting to make it just right. Just so. I love the process and I love searching for that punch in the gut that happens when you nail it (rare, by the way) but it can be frustrating to work day in and day out, for hours, and not have finished pieces to show for it more often. 

The photos above, though thought about and considered, are snapshots in comparison to how long I labor over a painting. They are awkward. Angles seem off and shapes and colors are disproportionate to what I usually create in my paintings. They are mostly vertical while my paintings are mostly horizontal in reference to the landscape. I'm thinking about this discrepancy, and trying to figure out what these, and other,  tendencies mean. 

While my paintings don't look anything like the compositions above, they are helping my painting. This attraction to things being "off" is nudging me into some new territory, where I am letting go a bit, allowing things to be as awkward in my paintings as they are in reality.

It's all really, very exciting. 

Eventually, you'll get to see the paintings that result from all of this. Just you wait...I'll wait too. 

Forever yours,

Beatrice

A Painter Without Her Paint: Thailand

I took over 4,000 photographs while away - it would have been more if I hadn't lost my camera. I wasn't drawing or painting but I was constantly taking photographs that I knew I'd use later for painting reference. About half my photos are documentation of things I experienced, the other half are more...compositional studies. Below are some that I took while in Thailand. Eventually I'll post ones from all of the countries. 

I go through my photos at least every couple of days and it makes my heart ache a little each time. I miss these places. Going through and posting and writing about them slowly has become another way for me to process the experience. I'll be posting them along with painting developments. 

Thanks for reading and looking.

Your Friend,

Bea

Artists I Love

It's been a while since an update so I thought I'd let you all in on some of my biggest sources of inspirations. To me there is almost nothing better than coming across a new artist whose aesthetic, approach, ideas, or story jive with my own and inspire me to create something. I feel the same way about travel - something that never ceases to fill my head with ideas.  Here is just a sampling of images I keep in my "inspiration" folder. 

Japanese Landscape Painting

 Leslie Vance

Sigrid Sandström

 Jane Fox Hipple

David Brewster

Paul Gauguin

All of that absorbed into my head, milled around a bit and combined with ideas that come from I don't know where, and then put down in paint makes this:

Piles in the Hallway, 16" x 20". Oil on canvas. 2011

I'd love to know what inspires you! How do you find new artists to love?