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| Click on image to learn more about Zeke and Zelda! |
Everyone loves a Bear…..Especially ‘Victoria Bear’!
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| Click on image to learn more about Victoria Bear! |
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| Click on the image to learn more about Violetta Pig! |
For sure I’ll be getting George and Janet!
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| Click on the image to learn more about George and Janet! |
Serendipity has brought this gifted person to me through a wonderful project I was invited to be a part of. See for yourself how lovely the folks at Patience Brewster are!
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| The Folks at Patience Brewster! |
WOW! That’s a big order but one I’m definitely up for so here goes……..
I had been an artist for as long as I could remember but one working in what we would call the ‘Western Style’ using every medium but primarily oils and some pastels. I was prolific and the urge to create was always there but I felt directionless and it was only when I became so overwhelmed by the need to do so that a work would feverishly be accomplished. Somehow, of all the artists of the past I felt most connected to Monet. Not even because of his inspiring work but more by Monet the man…..his life and surroundings that informed his work.
Off I went to Giverny to see the restoration of Monet’s home and garden...
and that was it!
From the moment I saw the Japanese woodblock prints in his foyer to photo’s of him strolling thru his garden with Japanese collectors the factoid became a reality. (Please let’s just overlook that hair!)
Monet, my hero, was highly influenced by Japanese art! Monet fully lived life and that was what I wanted to do.
The die was cast….and I was thrilled!
Monet loved entertaining his friends as you can see in ‘Monet’s Table’ The Cooking Journals of Claude Monet. Joie de Vivre was expressed in that bright yellow kitchen of his with its blue dinnerware and copper pots.
Monet's garden created an ambience for friends and collectors alike to share in the joy and beauty that informed his life.
In discovering Brush painting this world opened to me as it did to Monet when he discovered Japanese art in a small Van Dan grocery store in the Netherlands. He famously said “It was as if life shed something of its complications, becoming simpler, clearer, more intelligible and more beautiful”.
Once I entered the world of Brush painting I never looked back and joyfully gave away all of my oil paints and sundry supplies to artists who could use them.
You may know that Brush painting is done on thin, absorbent paper and following the ancient style of the Literati or Gentlemen Scholars in China, there is no sketching and corrections are not made. This translates to a style that is both free and expressive, seeking to convey the ‘feelings’ brought forth by the subject as compared to a Botanical likeness. What I would encourage everyone to do is to really become an observer. See how flowers are formed, how they open up and also how they decay (very wabi-sabi). Once we fully and completely absorb a rose into our consciousness we can paint the flower without looking at it and become true Impressionists by putting our ‘impressions’ rapidly onto the paper.
This is how I used to create a rose in Brush painting…..
… and this is where my journey finds me now….
I’m striving to arrive at the essence of this quote written by Louis Gillet upon seeing Monet’s ‘Nympheas’.
“Amazing painting. Without drawing and without border...
song without words…or art…without the help of forms.
Without a sketch…without a story…without a fable…without allegory...
Without body and without face…by the sole virtue of tone...
It is all lyrical effusion.
Where the heart speaks….surrenders itself…and sings its emotion."
How perfect! Gillet could be describing the essence of Brush painting!
This then is my inspiration and what I am striving for.
I wish you great inspiration and joy as you travel along your own creative journey!
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