Sunday, June 16, 2013

San Gimignano CC Vignette Approach

I am posting two paintings -- one done using a traditional approach and painted prior to visiting San Gimignano, and this one painted during Karlyn Holman's workshop with a method taught by Australian artist, Pauline Hailwood. I like both for different reasons ... what do you think?

Being away from home, visiting new places, immersing oneself in different cultures, taking new workshops, learning new approaches, all can be incredible stimulating, spark new ideas, methods, colors and more.

In the weeks of my time away, all of this newness kept me thinking and dreaming and clicking away with my camera as I tried to internalize what I was seeing and experiencing. The result was that I found it mighty difficult to paint while all of the experiences slowly worked their way through the process of things to try, things to reject, things to emulate ...

I painted some and I'll be posting these as I catch up ... but I find the process of assimilation still going on. I spent several hours downloading my photographs -- all 6,000 of them!! LOL -- and finding that each image of a particular experience seemed so long ago ... and yet remains so vivid in my psyche ...

Further, all of this 'newness' requires, at least for me, a bit of time to make my own ... to learn how to adapt new painting techniques and ideas into my own 'voice' ... and so for a while yet, the weeks ahead will be a time of incubation, trial and error, while I become comfortable again with my own way of working.

I'd love to hear of your experiences too after you've been exposed to new ideas and methods ...

1 comment:

Joan Tavolott said...

Welcome home!!! It seems like you have been gone for an eternity! I thought I was gone a long time, but you left me in the dust. lol It looks like you had one wonderful trip...and the photos and paintings you have posted were a joy to see.

As for assimilating what is learned in workshops...I'm still trying to figure out how to do that. I don't think I would do well doing workshops too close together because I wouldn't know what to do first. I need to get "into" a style for a while before I can think of doing something else. I guess that is one of the reasons I don't do too many workshops.

Anyway it is great to see that you are back and I am looking forward to seeing some of your new work. I know it takes a long time to come back, get organized, and post things. I just finished posting all my paintings and sketches from Ireland...and it was exhausting. I'm sure you will get into the groove quickly.