Wednesday, January 29, 2014

ART AND MORE


Gosh, it's another very cold day here.  This winter has been fierce.  It's not personally terrifying like last year, but the winds howl, ice coats everything, and it's bitterly cold.  Still, I'll take it over last year.  To banish the lingering dark memories of last winter, I decided to try to really focus on good things, and to help myself get there, I went to my sketch book.  I spent 15 or so minutes sketching  things that bring peace and contentment into my life.  It's set it up where I can see it often and when I look at it, I consciously relax and think good thoughts.   It's not a finished painting or even a decent drawing - it's rough in the extreme, yet it has become something important that I enjoy looking at and that gives me something I need.  Maybe this is part of  what Art Therapy is.          Art is so much more than just a decorative image hanging on your wall.  If you choose something that you love, it will give you comfort, joy, and a pleasant thought every time you look at it.  Naturally, most of my wallspace has my work hanging there, but over the years I've bought work from different artists -small originals from  friends and prints of work from the past of artists I admire, especially the Impressionists and the Pre-Raphaelites, and each piece says something to me.           
 Most of the time when I paint, I want a good, clear, clean, accurate image of my subject, I want to apply the paint carefully so that it enhances the image and is put on correctly, and I want the narrative of my painting to be clear to the viewer.  The 'feeling good' sketch I did has none of these things, yet it speaks to me, and only to me, of things I need to hear.  So the near-as-possible-to-perfect  painting (at this time) is not the only way to go to produce something that has value to me, and that has been an interesting lesson.
But now I'm back to my usual work, and loving it as much or more than I did last week. (Before the 'Revelation' :D)  I'm still painting Dreams and Dogs and Horses, but now from time to time, and just for me, I'll be painting personal emotions.  There is so much more to Art than you would think.


Cheers,
Heather
www.heatheranderson-animalart.com

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