After seeing all the wonderful "How-to's" offered online lately, I thought I'd join in by adding my very own "Scarborough's Super Easy Steps to Painting Great Art!" Today's lesson will be "How to Start a Painting": Important first steps: think about what you want to do. Then think some more. Then re-think what you thought in the first place. Now that you've got that settled, it's a good time to cogitate, nap, or stare into space. At this point it's often helpful to think about mowing the yard, or consider a change in career. The next 18,7420 or so steps call for mixing paint, choosing brushes, putting paint to canvas, scraping paint off the canvas, and doing some more thinking. Repeat as often as necessary to complete the painting.
How hard can it be? Or...contact an artist you know, and purchase something lovely from them. They know what they're doing.
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Throughout history the color black has had its ups and downs. Most recently it has meant incredible discounts on everything from soup to nuts, cars to clothes on the day after Thanksgiving. Before Madison Avenue and their accountants got a hold of black to keep our economy going, it was very useful in the art world. The very first black marks were made on cave walls. Presumably, once the marshmallows were cleaned off, cave dwelling kids found they could continue to use their sticks for decorating their rooms. Since those pre-historic days black pigment has been made from burnt sticks, roots, grapevines, bones, oily smoke residue, and more recently iron oxides or other synthetic materials. Throughout the centuries the use of black in art or fashion has meant wealth or poverty; tradition or the very latest fashion; evil or piety; silence or harmony. Sometimes all of these things at once. And just last year, artist Anish Kapoor nabbed the exclusive artistic rights to the new Vantablack which absorbs nearly all light. So I guess we can add ‘grabby’ to the list of meanings as well. Whether it is even a color at all rises to the level of debate. Physicists and colorists engage in lengthy conversations regarding the properties of black. What’s a color to do? Relax. Black Friday comes but once a year. The other 360-some days it can stay in the community of painters and sculptors. We know what to do with it. Handsome Husband and I are discombobulated. It’s time to be hungry, but we’re not. We feel slightly undone, waiting for something to happen that may – or may not, because the time isn’t quite right. Should we go yet, or are we late before we’ve even gotten started?
Daylight savings time. What on earth does that even mean? Do we save time like we save money? Is there a Time Bank somewhere I’m unaware of? I’d like to make a withdrawal please. I could use just a few more minutes. Maybe time is saved it in a bottle, stoppered up and tossed into the ocean to be washed up on shore in another time zone. Is that what causes time to warp, as the recipient squeezes our time into theirs? Or does the time get put into some cosmic junk drawer along with black holes, rubber bands and inkless pens? In six months or so, say, in March sometime, planetary time keepers will go spring cleaning, digging deep into the wonders kept in that drawer. “Oooh!” they’ll say. “We’ve been looking for this!” Whatever the time, the lights in my studio are on. My time is saved and spent there. It's been tough lately. The sky has been gorgeously blue, the sun brilliant, the shadows cool and violet-y. How's a girl supposed to get anything done inside when it's outside she needs to be?
To keep just a little of this lovely autumn atmosphere during the winter months, I've done my best to harness it in pastel. And now I'm headed out to kick some leaves. |
I've been sharing the odds and ends of my art life for the last 8 years.
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