STAYING LOOSE AND LEAVING IT ALONE
It seems to me like something happens when we are forced to paint from life in less than perfect conditions.The weather looked bad , than got worse and I never could finish this painting because of the rain, it had rain drops on it and all over my palette. I just left it cause it was how I felt that week in less than ideal conditions (loose and shifting) after teaching a workshop to some brave artists in Provence the week before.
WORKSHOP STUDENTS STAYING LIGHTHEARTED
They were really challenged but what growth. It never ceases to amaze if you are inspired, happy and upbeat you rise to challenges, each artist performed unbelievably and I believe partly because of the ability to remain lighthearted. Cranking down on yourself seems to be restrictive.
AWARENESS OF CHANGE
Admittedly it is easy to fall back on what you know but it gets boring and stale. Awareness may allow us to shift to new more creative ways of painting. Admittedly it is a struggle and hard not to whip yourself, but in painting for the gallery my paintings had shifted to different types of lighting. This resulted in paintings like above. Another gallery saw these images and forwarded to a collector that wants paintings from their incredible properties. It is amazing to me that by being aware of change and going with it, things worked out better than if I had tightly controlled everything. It is like Joseph Campbell describes in "The Power of Myth."
TAKING YOURSELF TOO SERIOUSLY
I really like my artists friends, and the art world because most are not too egotistical. It is great to want to achieve at a very high level, the new psychological studies are supporting that real risk takers are lighthearted which allows for failures. They go from one failure to another without much of loss of enthusiasm, exactly how Winston Churchill described success. I like teaching my workshops in a lighthearted manner. Artists crank down on themselves enough without any help, they actually need some relief.
