Hope for the flowers - part one
In a couple of weeks I'm heading off to Iceland to stay at an artist residency for one month. I'll be staying on a small island in the north of Iceland for the month of June (and then a two week driving tour of the West Fjords!) …
I've been painting away in my studio… but soon it’s time to put my brushes down…
In a couple of weeks I'm heading off to Iceland to stay at an artist residency for one month. I'll be staying on a small island in the north of Iceland for the month of June (and then a two week driving tour of the West Fjords!) …
I’ll be exploring the beautiful northern landscape for some new inspiration to create (and it won’t be trees!).
So now it’s time to put my paints away and prepare for an all new adventure…
Hope For The Flowers - work in progress
Stay tuned to hear more from the land of fire and ice!
Hope For The Flowers - detail
A Happy Mistake
I've made mistakes and I have some regrets... And if I could go back, I'd do some things differently... But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that sometimes what is thought to be a mistake, often opens up a whole new way of doing things. Sometimes a bad thing turns out to be a good thing..
Forest Floor Detail
I've made mistakes and I have some regrets... And if I could go back, I'd do some things differently... But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that sometimes what is thought to be a mistake, often opens up a whole new way of doing things. Sometimes a bad thing turns out to be a good thing (or vice versa!).
In other words, there truly is no such thing as good or bad. Mistakes are really just experiences. It's how we learn, grow and create...
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”
What I'm painting now is because of a mistake I once made. When I painted Norwegian Woods I had a deadline to have it finished and dry, so I used a fast-drying medium that I mixed with my paints. This caused the paint to be much thicker... Normally I paint a grey underpainting and then add layers of colour, but this time I couldn't do that. The paint was too thick.
So instead of wiping the paint off and starting again, I thought, how can I make this work? I took a chance and tried something new...
And it worked!
So I'm doing another :) This painting is also part of my forest series. I'm just using five tones of grey, black and white. With lots of abstract details, I'm working my way up from the bottom in one, thick layer of paint.
Creativity and new ideas come from taking chances on doing things differently. So, as it turns out, I'm quite happy with that mistake!
“Mistakes are the portals of discovery.”
And now for something (a little) different...
Every painting is an experiment. I never quite know how it will turn out...
With my most recent painting I delved deeper into the abstract. Working from a photo I took of the early morning sun shining through autumn leaves, I played with the shapes and colours until the abstraction became a whole new image...
Every painting is an experiment. I never quite know how it will turn out...
With my most recent painting, I delved deeper into the abstract. Working from a photo I took of the early morning sun shining through autumn leaves, I played with the shapes and colours until the abstraction became a whole new image.
Now I feel as though I'm looking at the drifting sea-life of an underwater world...
This painting will be part of an upcoming 3D art show (stay tuned for more information!).
Venturing into the abstract...
I'm working on a new painting. It's a little abstract...
It's fun. It's playful.
It's an adventure into the imagination.
With each shape is the hint or suggestion of a figure, a face, a story...
I'm working on a new painting. It's a little abstract...
It's fun. It's playful.
It's an adventure into the imagination.
With each shape is the hint or suggestion of a figure, a face, a story...
And so, I was thinking about the importance of imagination.
“The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.”
It's through the imagination that we create anything new. It's where ideas and dreams are born...
(excerpt from Part One in the Little Book of Big Dreams)
Life isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always fun, exciting or even comfortable...
So thank goodness for the imagination!
Using your imagination is like playing in a sandbox; you can make whatever you want…
Sand is malleable.
In your imagination you can be wherever you want to be and you can do whatever you want to do…
“There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.”
Your imagination is real.
Whatever you imagine in your mind’s eye has the potential to become real in your life. Everything is imagined into existence.
Once you have a dream or vision of what you want to create, begin imagining the details.
You don’t have to figure it all out. You need only play with it in your imagination…
Read more: 7 Steps from Ethereal to Real: Part One from the Little Book of Big Dreams