Well, I missed my April deadline for posting a blog, and now I missed it in May, also. This is not so much intentional as it is careless. For this blog, my intent was to primarily write about plein air painting, or more appropriately, write about the process of painting. I know a lot of people tend to make painting videos about the process, but to be honest, making videos is much more time consuming than writing a blog, so I shouldn’t be missing my deadlines, which is around the beginning of each month.
Much of my problem is putting too many irons in the fire. Unfortunately, that process motivates me more than does sticking to one thing at a time. Besides writing this blog, I paint, and I have a podcast I write, record and maintain. There have also been subjects that rattle around in my head that I intend to discuss in this blog, but when the spring time hits, I become much more concerned, and impatient about getting out to paint. So, this entry will be about the irons in my fire.
When spring hits, I really want to get out and paint. Unfortunately, we had a cold spring, as well as a cloudy one. We maintained highs in the 30s much longer than we should have. We did have one very warm week, but during that time, my wife and I worked on the lawn, and I started to wait for the trees and bushes to warm up, but that really didn’t happen. This kind of variability guarantees a number of half finished paintings, and soon the bottom dropped out of the thermometer. We even experienced several days of snow.
With weather like this, I end up spending my time working on the podcast. the podcast is a chronological history of the movies and I am still in the beginning years of the industry. Research is probably where I put in the most work, as I try to maintain a balance between different subjects, such as the development of the process into an industry, stories about the first films, the movies in different cultures, and how the movies and our culture reaction to each other. For the record, if anyone is interested, its called Matinees On Main Street, and it can be found wherever you look for podcasts.
As for topics I might discuss in this blog, I want to talk about the process of painting, and I think that will be the subject of my next blog entry at the beginning of June. I have also become aware of a lot of chatter about AI in art. I find this to be more smoke and mirrors than it is a real threat, at least as it concerns serious art, but maybe when I can actually get my ire up over the subject, I’ll discuss it.
Anyway, I’ve just started painting again. The two works I’ve started have only been outlined and washed with a bit of color. These two works are rather near my home. One is an image I saw last year of violets on a hill with trees behind them. The violets bloom before the trees leaf, so I’ve started painting the grass and will get to the trees later. The other painting is primarily of a sunset, nothing overly romantic. We don’t have the glorious sunsets that you can find out west. Our air is humid, and the color is usually muted and somewhat filtered by the air. Still, my wife had inferred that I need to do a few sky paintings. We’ll see how that goes. I already have painted one painting this year where the sky ruins it for me. This is obviously an area of observation I need to improved upon.
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