For the past week or so I have been doing a lot of soul searching about my goals as a painter and the direction my paintings are heading in. I think as artist we all need time to meditate on our thoughts. It helps to put things into perspective and keeps us focused on our everyday lives.
An artist friend is always pushing me to take a more neutral approach to the scene in front of us. His persuasions have always helped ground me and keep me humble. I seem to always fight the urge to jump right into color a little of the fast side. That comes from my drive of catching the ah ha moments. I think there are more times than not to catch a scene in a rapid rate, then in studio work up from the information I got from the smaller piece. But there is also something to draw from with a slower pace of a painting. The more thought out, more planned execution forces you to be humble and second guess your own actions. Many of my plein air paintings have failed because I didn't capture the scene accurately, by not focusing on the real scene and not grounding my scene properly. This comes from not placing the accurate color notes and composition correctly and trying to force myself to paint just to say i went out to paint. If I had've spent more time being in the scene and having my eye open to the scene instead of pressed for time and rushing it I would have probably been more happy with the finished painting in the long run. If I had've taken the scene from a more neutral approach I think the scene would tell me how to approach it from the right perspective.
Also, I have found this neutral approach spills over into life in so many ways. I tend to meditate to help me become more neutral and to stay grounded and take a grounded approach with my paintings. I have found that it helps achieve a more pleasing approach in the long run.
Here is a plein air piece that I did along the harbor the other day to collect information on a larger piece to work on in studio along with other's that I have done over the past week or so. Going back and re-visiting some old paintings from the past and fixing the many issues I had with them. I hope you like!
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