Making Art Is Easy

The new day brings art into the realm of possibilities. So it has gone this summer once awake I can see how making something new and thoughtful can happen with a little bit of effort. I gather my cat and check to make sure he is ok, that he has water, dry food and that the A/C is on for him. Once that is taken care of I gather my equipment and the new fresh canvas that I put together a couple of months ago just for this quick exit purpose and I split. My car is my artbox, it has my traveling Julianne easel and paints, medium with my brushes in a box with them all. I take off.
Once out, I have a preconceived idea of some possible sites along a street I decided I should concentrate on for this summer's work. In the previous days I have driven up and down it slowly looking at the various vantage points with houses of interest in view. I think of a part of the street where there might be a house or two with interesting architectural features and so that is where I park. I get out, I walk a way looking around the whole time, seeing whatever is out their to see, I look for color and their combination, I look for shapes, roof shapes, porch shapes, items on the porches that might add color...its all important in the composition choices that I will make. If I see it, I continue to look onward just to see if there is a second site nearby that might even be of a better composition, or that I could do at a later date. And so it goes until I actually pull out my easel and take out the palette with paint already spotted upon it's surface. All those colors are stuck on the wooden surface with that tacky oil in the casein. I take out my bag with the brushes, the 30/30/30 medium in it. I set it all up to paint. Then I begin with a dark mixture of browns and blacks to start setting the image on the canvas, slowly building it up layer by layer over the next few hours. The time spent is lost in work, concentrating upon how the colors are laying and do they fit the site I am seeing in my sight of (in this case) buildings, what is their? What colors need to be applied and in what order in order to get the effect of light that I am looking at? What doesn't make it? What needs more/less? Do I need to restart anything? It all works towards a finished painting after a great amount of decisions are made and executed. It's art when it's done.