Egg Tempera
10 x 10
When you take a walk in the woods it's easy to miss the forest for the trees. But look closely, there are a lot of little things that can be quite fascinating. For years now I've tried to find the beauty in the small things as well as the total landscape. As a result I've come up with a series of what I call "intimate landscapes." Wild flowers are the most obvious example and their quiet beauty among the dead leaves and downed trees deserve some attention.
In a couple months the wild iris will again be blooming. This particular scene is just a small part of an entire hillside that is literally covered with them. It's really pretty hard to walk there without stopping to look, but I've watched people go by without even noticing. Maybe I'm making too much out of it, or maybe I feel it's my job as an artist to open their eyes to what's around them. Either way I'll keep looking. If you like this one, stay tuned, more to come.
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4 comments:
Your work is beautiful and delightful to behold, I'm glad I "stumbled upon" your blog :)
I feel really small looking at your work and admiring your talent, as I myself enjoy drawing and sketching sporadically, having never seriously committed myself to the art (owing to my studies and such) but I would very much like to one day dedicate more of my time to it.
Your work is inspiring and the themes and the feel of your art really poetic. In a way it encourages me to work harder on my own - very amateur - works, but in another it discourages heheh as I may not reach the level of proficiency so evident in your work.
I also admire your grasp of more than one technique, that is a great talent! A friend of mine is a gifted painter and she has encouraged me to try other forms beyond simple sketching, I'll give it a try some day.
Congratulations on you art, you are extremely talented!! (^^,)
Keep up the excellent work, cheers!!
I.P.
Thank you so much and stumble back again. Tell your friends.
Don't feel small and don't think this is all a matter of talent. Yes, I went to an art school and have a degree, but it's really not worth much. Somewhere along the line I got absolutely disgusted with the art world and left, got another degree, made a living and was bored stiff. In that time I didn't so much as pick up a paint brush. Five of six years ago I started up again. I've since learned way more than I ever learned in school, but the art world can still be kind of weird, possibly more so now that I have a business background too. I guess the point is that it's never to late so keep plugging along, try different things, read, look, see.
A lot is made of talent, too much in my opinion. This stuff can be learned, it's really not that hard. That's not to say everyone can be Vermeer, but I truly believe that a good degree of competence can be achieved by anyone willing to put in the work. The really neat thing is, if you already enjoy doing it, it doesn't feel like work. I know what you're saying though. I get the same feeling when I look at a Rubens or Zorn.
Anyway, thanks for dropping by and taking the time to comment, it is greatly appreciated.
Dave
On the odd times I've actually been out in nature I love looking about to see what I can find. You certainly found a winner with this little setting.
Glad you liked these two little landscapes. Looking back at them now I think I may have to redo them. This is the better of the two and shouldn't require too much effort to improve. The other strikes me as overly contrasty and stiff now.
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