daily-ish notes…

  • of human perspective.

    Your point of view is more important than your equipment.

    When I spent more time doing photography than painting, I had lots of friends who were more interested in the technical specs of my camera than the photos I took. Those cameras are long gone, but the best of the photos are still cherished pieces.

    Anyone with enough money can buy equipment, supplies, paper, paint, lenses, megapixels, whatever.

    But it’s really your human perspective that has the most actual value.

  • of personal style.

    Style can be defined many ways, but I think to me it denotes the notion of a personal or distinctive collection of choices that make you… you, and determine how you present yourself to the world.

    The fashion your choose. Manners you convey. Your attitude to others. The words you say and write. The music you listen to. The food you eat. The drink you choose from a menu. All these things add up to you.

    For an artist, I think style is similarly granular. The medium in which you do your work. The subject you depict. The colours you pick. The shape and size and texture you employ. The message you convey.

    I’ve been thinking a lot about my personal style as an artist this week, not because I think I have a well-formed style but rather because I think I can sense it starting to form. That’s a good thing.

  • on burnout.

    Lately, I click on nearly every article I see that mentions burnout.

    If I’m being honest with myself, and having a moment of clarity, I am either (optimistically) recovering from burnout or (pessimistically) in a waning-phase of burnout. I hope it’s the former.

    I read yet another personal account article about burnout this morning, and in it the author talks about change resulting from burnout, and how burnout seems to literally burn out a piece of who you were.

    Recovery, like a forest after a fire, seems then like a process of new growth, new trees and plants, new life filling in the spaces that burnt out and turned to ash and char.

    For me that new growth has been art, something that may have grown there anyways if there had been a space for it and enough light to shine though. Now a fresh space exists and I’ve filled it with creativity and expression through paint.

    It’s still young and tender and delicate, but someday it will be a mighty forest.

  • re:valentine’s day.

    It was almost exactly a year ago today that I discovered one of the perks of learning watercolour painting: As it turns out, and if you are so inclined, you can make your own greeting cards.

    That’s right.

    I’ve never needed to buy a greeting card since learning to watercolour paint.

    Paper. Paint. Water. Brush. And a whole bunch of pretty little flowers on a page with some abstract patterns mixed in. A string of lights for Christmas. A few random egg shapes for Easter. Some skinny candles with little yellow flames atop for a birthday card. And, of course, a smattering of hearts for Valentine’s day.

    I made my Valentine’s Day cards last night, two of them, one for my wife and one for my daughter.

    Take that Hallmark.

  • in support of journaling.

    Though I sometimes fall out of the habit, I find that when I do make a few minutes in my day — each day — to write down a few thoughts, either on paper or into the digital ether the result is cathartic.

    It’s like free therapy, a receptacle for pent up thoughts and feelings to be etched into a space that can be as personal or public as I want it to be.

    Have you tried writing it down?

    And since this is an art blog, I’m finding sketch journaling to be similarly cathartic, though in a way that I haven’t quite put my finger on yet. It’s therapeutic… but also creatively fulfilling… but also like putting a pin into the week and saying here’s where I am mentally and visually, enjoy.

    You should try writing it down.