Sometimes it isn't as Easy as it Looks

Crying of the Sorrows

I have set down at my desk in the studio and whipped out four or five paintings in a week. And then there are those that seem to take weeks. Admittedly not because I am painting on them all that time, but because I am staring at them wondering what to do next. The above painting was one of those. I had this mental image and a sketch, but it was something I had not done before and the emotion I wanted to convey was the governing factor. I am finally happy at where the struggle has taken me in this new work of the Dark Period.

At the same time I began Sorrows I started work on another natural bridge picture for the second time. Yes, it failed. And all attempts to rescue it only taught me what was wrong so off came the canvas and a new one stretched. I am rather happy with the final result but before we got to this point I struggled with just tossing the whole concept away.

Welcoming the Dawn/Final Version

The one that was not working. Too much competition

Scrubbing off the sky in attempt to rescue. The painting is not as noisy but I ditched it.

New beginning but the sky is better but still not right

Sometimes it makes sense to just give up. The sketch is based on a very successful painting that sold very quickly, Bridge of Enchantments, which is featured in the column to the right of this blog. I liked the composition but wanted to do a dawn version. The focus has to be the background and the rising sun so I figured a very plain sky but with the division of the arch that was not easy. The sky needed more variance to be a unified whole and not two parts.

This sky was actually a mistake, but sometimes mistakes work

My attempt to paint over the sky and unify it was frustrating and at some point I misted it with soapy water for clouds and got more than I wanted. The pink just got all splotchy. I walked away from it while I decided whether I wanted to totally ditch the painting yet again, strip off the canvas and use the stretcher bars for something totally different.

When I came back to the studio I noticed the mix of paint and soapy water had become something and with just a bit of lifting with cue tips and dry brushing I was able to create a cloud filled sky. I am considering this technique (which I wrote down when it worked) to do a stormy sky by layering blues and grays then soaping and lifting.

This painting has its own folder on my desktop titled When Things Go Wrong. And yes I would have given up long before I reached the finished painting if I had not been learning things during the entire path. This painting proved I can often learn more when things go wrong than when things go right. That was certainly true with Welcoming the Dawn.

Fabulous Foto Friday

Hang in There

I have taken a lot of photographs in the few months. In part because I have a new camera and also because I have journeyed to lands I have not visually recorded even though they are close. The picture above is one of the dozen or so of the hundreds I have taken that really stands out for me.

Who knows what makes a particular picture special of all that an avid photographer takes. First, I suppose, it has to be technically a good picture or it gets put in the digital trash very quickly. And secondly, for me at least, it has to be linked to a time and a place that held a strong memory. This was a great day in the Sand Stone Bluffs with my sister and our four fur kids. We were hanging around this one extended cliff face looking for just the right light from the setting sun.

I took several good shots that afternoon but this one has other elements like the shadows of the pines on the cliff face and that lone Ponderosa growing in the notch at the top. Life cannot be easy up there. And yet it looks like it is making it quite nicely, thank you. It becomes therefore a metaphor on life. At least my life, and my sister's life, of late. The going has been tough but we are still both hanging in there.

Because of all of that I probably will print this particular photo and mat and frame it for my wall. It will not doubt be featured in another blog.

Lost - Poetry Wednesday

Lost

Oh, what I won't give
For a Google map of locations
For missing things.

I am ordinarily so good
Can find the smallest things
Amid the clutter in my life.

But of late I seem to be missing things
The second set of keys
I keep just in case the first is lost

My favorite hoodie from Canyonlands
The book I should have written this poem in
Did I leave it on the night stand in Raton?

And then there is Kathi, Alan and Marc
I last saw Marc in Raton
But not the same time as my book.

And where is my sense of timing
My ability to reach decisions
My infallible sense of direction.

I keep walking the same paths in my house
Hoping the book will be beside the lost sunglasses
Laid neatly by my spare keys atop my hoodie

I think I am losing it.
It is as if the key to finding myself
Is in finding what I have
Lost.

J Binford-Bell
Composed on the computer because I lost my poetry journal
Oh, and my favorite pen.

The Land that Inspires Me - The Creative Process

Sandstone Bluff or Castle Wall?

 Before I painted I photographed. I have painted plein aire but the sun and sand has gotten into my eyes and into my paints. Besides with a camera I can record in a short period of time more images to paint later in my studio. This last week, in addition to a visit with my sister (also a photographer), was a search for new images to record.

The Malpais of New Mexico, the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau which has provided lots of inspiration, was my destination this last week. Being on the edge instead of in the center was a new perspective. Below tall Ponderosa pines cast shadows on the sandstone bluffs.

Light and Shadow at Play on Sandstone

The other advantage of being on the edge of this huge geological formation is the vistas. Here the lava flow of the valley butts up with the sandstone cliffs.

Sandstone bluffs

Sandstone Arch or cathedral?

 I have told people that I paint the adobe missions of New Mexico because they remind me of the canyon walls I so love. Here the canyon walls remind me of a mission church. The light and shadow captured in this photograph will probably be used in paintings of both.

Vista of the bluffs to the East

I am looking for a long narrow composition to paint horizontally. This photograph and the one of the sandstone bluffs may furnish the basis for one or more such paintings.

And people that view my paintings often ask about the water in them. Water in the west is a gift and often a surprise like in the photographs below. I include water in canyon pictures almost as a magical charm, but in my recent exhibition into the Zuni mountains it surprised me in this hidden canyon.

Water protected in the rocks

The slot canyon

 In the water starved land of the New Mexico Malpais it is often the rocks that protect and shape the water but the water also has its effects on the rocks. In another picture I have of this canyon face there are images that can be developed. I will surprise you.

Art Sunday - Friends and Neighbors

Sylvia Ford mixed media street scene

I was reading in the last few days about the Impressionists. What I have read many times before but which had not impressed upon me with quite the impact as before was that they knew each other. Many of them were friends. Lived and painted in the same areas and exhibited at the same salon. No doubt they influenced each other and their work.

That got me thinking of my circle of friends here in the Angel Fire/Black Lake area. Most of us have been in numerous fairs and exhibits with each other. And our works are displayed side by side in the Angel Fire Artspace Gallery. Sylvia Ford, above, is one of my favorite artists there. I like her as a person and love her work. We have talked about trades in our future.

Katherine McDermott started Artspace Gallery and works in many media including promotion. Not all artists are good at that. She has given us a space to display our work and sell it against some formidable odds like the economy. I particularly love and admire Katherine's pastels. The one below was in the 34th International Show in Raton, New Mexico.

Foggy Fall Morning by Katherine McDermott

I don't even attempt pastels. Does that increase my admiration of those that do the well? Yes, no doubt. And while I do string beads I do not form metal. Jessica Duke, my good friend, and one of the first of the artists at Artspace is a star at it. And yes, I do believe a painter can be inspired by sculpture and jewelry or any other media which is executed well. Jessica sculpts in silver, and paints in stone.

Turquoise and silver Necklace by Jessica Duke

Jessica likes my paintings and I like her jewelry. We have traded work before and no doubt will again.

And in any group of artists/friends there is always the one we follow, hoping all the time to reach their level. Jennifer Cavan, also one of the first artist exhibited at Artspace, is our benchmark of achievement. I just never want to be on the road as much as she is.

Crisp and Cool Morning, oil pastel by Jennifer Cavan

It is so wonderful to know that when I seem to have reached an impasse in new ideas I only have to stroll through Artspace and be challenged and inspired. Over the years I have watched them grow and improve and have worked to do the same.

Bridge of Enchantments by Jacqui Binford-Bell

BTW I believe all of us, except Sylvia, are on Facebook with our own profiles and fan pages so we are also ether friends.

Poetry Wednesday - Time

Time

Time that fickle wave

Washing over us

Constantly changing flow

Creeping forward

Keeping awaited days

Just beyond our reach

Rushing forward

When we wish to savor

The Moment.

Tim that so fickle song

Doing the Minute Waltz

On decades of memories

Replaying a fleeting smile

In three part harmony

Launching us forward

Pushing us back

Today

Yesterday

Uptempo.

Time so fickle and so familiar

Haven't we been here before

I went to bed today

And awoke in yesterday

My love still alive

Beside me in bed

Forever gone

Lost in time

Come again

Oh so fickle time

Let's begin again

Once more with feeling

Just those moments 

I thought so unimportant

Forever etched

In instant replay

At the most ackward

Moments

Time moving against the flow.

Time oh fickle river

Moving us ever forward

Along life's river bed

Dancing on the surface

Eddies of memory

Backwaters of impatience

Don't leave me here

Adrift

In memories

Of shorelines past.

J. Binford-Bell, September 2010

Artistic Vistas and Treasures Labor Day Tour

Studio looking natural

There is another Artistic Vistas and Treasures Art Tour this Labor Day weekend. I should be in a flurry of cleaning up and making snacks for the event. But I did that for the previous tour and only one couple showed up. So this weekend whoever comes gets a working studio. I am spending this Friday on the garden and not my studio.

I do plan to bake some cookies, have cheese and crackers, and some iced tea for whoever does drop in but no special fuss. I will be painting so at least the time is not wasted. I have several works I am anxious to get back to which I have shoved to the side to do gardening - which is an artistic venture of another sort.

Three new works

And my new garden creation in progress. I thought of doing the garden when people were expected at the studio but I get really, really messy. Not that I don't get messy painting. Hopefully this weekend proves me wrong and I have loads of visitors and some sales.