Resolutions

As artists, we must learn to be self nourishing. We must become alert enough to consciously replenish our creative resources as we draw on them – to restock the trout pond, so to speak. (Julia Cameron)

The end of the first 100 days of posting.

Sound of color

Every guitarist has a special quality of sound. The best ones will use a good ear, much sensitivity, and a thorough knowledge of music to prepare the nuances and colors of sound.
Andres Sergovia

Relationships

Piet Mondrian
Everything is expressed through relationships. (Piet Mondrian)

Aging

As you grow older you realize that art has an enormous effect. It's frightening sometimes to think of the effect that we can have. (Andy Goldsworthy)

Imagination

Edward Hopper
No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination. (Edward Hopper)

Emotion

Milton Avery
I try to construct a picture in which shapes, spaces, colors, form a set of unique relationships, independent of any subject matter. At the same time I try to capture and translate the excitement and emotion aroused in me by the impact with the original idea. (Milton Avery)

Staying the course

Juan Gris
You are lost the moment you know what the result will be. (Juan Gris)

Individualism

Paul Gauguin
Art = a mad search for individualism. ()

Merry Christmas

Said the night wind to the little lamb,
"Do you see what I see?
Way up in the sky, little lamb,
Do you see what I see?
A star, a star, dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite,
With a tail as big as a kite."

Peace on Earth

"I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good - will to men!
- Longfellow

Journey

Ken Campbell
If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's. (Joseph Campbell)

I think of art and painting as a journey, not simply a destination. I believe an artist needs to start by painting 100 works. Love the journey. (Ken Campbell)

Experience

Eugene Delacroix
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest. (Confucius)

Experience alone can give, even to the greatest talent, that confidence in having done all that could be done. (Eugene Delacroix)

Struggle

Francis Bacon
A picture should be a re-creation of an event rather than an illustration of an object; but there is no tension in the picture unless there is a struggle with the object. (Francis Bacon)

On painting and composition

Rauschenberg
Painting is always strongest when in spite of composition, color, etc., it appears as a fact, or an inevitability, as opposed to a souvenir or arrangement. (Robert Rauschenberg)

Strength

If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle only five. In that way the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve. (Pablo Picasso)

Some truths

benda
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge, / That myth is more potent than history, / That dreams are more powerful than facts, / That hope always triumphs over experience, / That laughter is the cure for grief. / And I believe that love is stronger than death. (Robert Fulghum)

Failure

ruhl benda
Failure is that early morning hour of darkness which precedes the dawning of the day of success. (Leigh Mitchell Hodges)
Failure is merely feedback that there is something blocking the path of the emergence and expansion of the greatest version of yourself. (Mother Teresa)

Larger than life

Mark Rothko

The reason for my painting large canvases is that I want to be intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience, to look upon an experience as a stereopticon view or with a reducing glass. However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn't something you command. (Mark Rothko)

Prayer

The word compositon moved me spiritually and I made it my aim in life to paint a composition. It affected me like a prayer and filled me with awe. (Wassily Kandinsky)

Power of Image and Words

Botticelli

Let it Be --Lennon and McCarthy
When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be. Yeah
There will be an answer, let it be.

And when the night is cloudy,
There is still a light that shines on me,
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be,
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

Finding line

Andy Goldsworthy)
The essence of drawing is the line exploring space. (Andy Goldsworthy)

Daily Musings

(Gustav Klimt)
I'm a painter who paints day in day out, from morning till evening - figure pictures and landscapes, more rarely portraits. (Gustav Klimt)

I can paint and draw. I believe this myself and a few other people say that they believe this too. But I'm not certain of whether it's true. (Gustav Klimt)

Faith

Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion. Van Gogh

Black

I've been 40 years discovering that the Queen of all colours is black.
- Auguste Renoir
Picasso "when in doubt always use black"

empty nest

Color Theory

As it is with people,so it is with colour. We change,correct or reverse our opinions about colours and this opinion may shift back and forth. Joseph Albers

Interested in color theory? Check out the book: Interaction with Color by Albers

Sharing

ruhl-benda 1998
(I did this sketch, scanned it and this is a digital print. One of the first and only digital prints I have done.)

I cannot overstate how much a generous spirit contributes to good luck. Look at the luckiest people around you, the ones you envy, the ones who seem to have destiny falling habitually into their laps. If they're anything like the fortunate people I know, they're prepared, they're always working at their craft, they're alert, they involve their friends in their work, and they tend to make others feel lucky to be around them. (Twyla Tharp)

Find someone to share your artwork or the creative process with today.

Simplicity

By using patches of color and tone it is possible to capture every natural impression in the simplest way, freshly and immediately. (Paul Klee)

Thinking outside the box

Buckminster Fuller

Love

Robert Indiana
Love is metaphysical gravity. (Buckminster Fuller)

Three generations of artists

age 29, in a letter to his mother, July 26, 1911...
Treasure Island is completed! The entire set of seventeen canvases without one break in my enthusiasm and spirit. Better in every quality than anything I ever did. (N. C. Wyeth)



I surrendered to a world of my imagination, re-enacting all those wonderful tales my father would read aloud to me. I became a very active reader, especially history and Shakespeare. (Andrew Wyeth)


My interest in painting is recording things. I think of myself as almost a documentary filmmaker... I've gotten into some curious situations... (Jamie Wyeth)

For Meghan

(Louise Nevelson)

I believe in my work and the joy of it. You have to be with the work and the work has to be with you. It absorbs you totally and you absorb it totally. Everything must fall by the wayside by comparison. (Louise Nevelson)


I've taught, and the first thing I did when I taught art, was not to teach art. (Louise Nevelson)
(Louise Nevelson)

Power of painting

Jasper Johns
I am just trying to find a way to make pictures. (Jasper Johns)
Most of the power of painting comes through the manipulation of space... but I don't understand that. (Jasper Johns)

Freedom

1978 figure about 50" square


It was without thought that I painted large. I felt I was entitled to. Now, 30 years later it overwhelms me. Innocence allows for so much more freedom.

more--de Stael

All my life, I had a need to think painting, to paint in order to liberate myself from all the impressions, all the feelings, and all the anxieties of which the only solution I know is painting. Nicholas de Stael

Connections

Nicholas de Stael.
Nicholas de Stael.

You never paint what you see or think you see. You paint with a thousand vibrations the blow that has struck you: how can you be struck and not cry out in anger? (Nicholas de Stael)

Since the first time I saw his work I have always felt a strong connection to Nicholas de Stael.
There are artists that move you and artists that attract you, others who you like their work. But, there are some which get into your head with their thousand vibrations and you feel as if you have known them forever.

Creation

Hans Hoffman

Creation is dominated by three absolutely different factors: First, nature, which works upon us by its laws; second, the artist, who creates a spiritual contact with nature and his materials; third, the medium of expression through which the artist translates his inner world. Hans Hoffman

Happiness

" Of course, your definition of happiness will depend upon who you are-but do you have a sense of peace in you heart, a feeling of security about your future and a feeling of anticipation when you wake up in the morning?" Masaru Emoto

Angst

Winslow Homer
"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; . . . If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same . . . Yours is the earth and everything that's in it."Rudyard Kipling

Lessons on Art--Calder

Alexander Calder
Pay attention to these two quotes by Alexander Calder. They mean everything.
Remember you want life in your work.

"The sense of motion in painting and sculpture has long been considered as one of the primary elements of the composition."
and
"When an artist explains what he is doing he usually has to do one of two things: either scrap what he has explained, or make his subsequent work fit in with the explanation."

Too much talk about the art work leads to too much talk. Art needs to be viewed. benda

Curiosity

John Singer Sargent
You can't do sketches enough. Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh. (John Singer Sargent)
John Singer Sargent

Security/Insecurity

Mary Cassett
Sometimes it made him [Degas] furious that he could not find a chink in my armour, and there would be months when we just could not see each other, and then something I painted would bring us together again. (Mary Cassatt)

I always have a curious sort of feeling about some of my things – I hate to show them – I am perfectly inconsistent about it – I am afraid people won't understand – and I hope they won't – and am afraid they will. (Georgia O'Keeffe)

Georgia O'Keeffe

Attitude

Is blue a state of mind?
Milton Avery
Joan Mitchell
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. ~George Santayana