It's Never Too Late To Seek A Creative Life by Anita Mills

Once, a friend of mine who was an emerging artist at age fifty-one expressed that she always had a sense of terror when she faced a blank sheet of watercolor paper. The weight of all the years she had desired to paint, but had put off trying, came in full force to haunt her. In a flippant reply I said, "Don't worry, no one ever died of 'watercolor.' Just DO IT!" Later, I felt badly that I had popped off like that, and I sat down to write her a long letter. Here are excerpts:

Part of the "freeing" that I feel must happen in the hearts and minds of anyone who attempts to express themselves through art (be it painting, dance, voice, whatever) is to learn that the "making of art" is no more "special" nor more "significant" than any other seriously applied human endeavor. It simply should be allowed to transpire without fanfare. It ought to be as simple and as natural as breathing, sleeping, walking.

We are raised with the unfortunate misinformation that artists must possess this thing called "genius" in order to truly be called an artist. Further, the Western art historical canon has preached that these "geniuses" were born possessing all the possible talents that are required to make "masterpieces." And need I mention that for eons and eons, the "genius" so portrayed was always male. [Or, they were such hale and hardy women that they simply couldn't be ignored-Rosa Bonheur, Georgia O'Keefe, etc.]

The truth is, even the so-called "child prodigies" of the Western historical lore (Michelangelo, Bernini, Picasso) had to learn to perform the skills of their art one step at a time. They crawled, and then they walked-perhaps their advantage was that they had earlier encouragement and were given extreme permission to do so. Have you ever looked at very early works by Picasso or other heralded masters? You should. It will make you feel much better about your own first efforts.

In my opinion, self-doubt is the single greatest killer of creativity known to humankind.

It is sad to me that so many people suffer this particular self-doubt. I hear it all the time in two phrases I'd like to banish from all human conversation: "I can't draw a straight line without a ruler." [Duh! Neither can I!] And, the other most often expressed, "I can't even draw stick people." [It's okay, people don't look like sticks anyhow!]

Many of these self-doubts came to us from our early teachers who said, "That doesn't look like a _________!" Fill in the blank with whatever was on the still-life table that day, or whichever classmate you were attempting to portray. Many of the teachers who taught my generation [perhaps even contemporary teachers, too?] said these things because they didn't know better and they didn't possess the ability to give positive, constructive criticism that our tender souls could hear with an open spirit.

These are the ghosts and demons of self-doubt, and have no place at the worktable of the creative heart. Drawing, painting, sculpting (and any other medium) are means of human expression that, had we been trained and practiced in them since childhood-as we were with reading, writing, and math-would be just as useful to us now in the expression of our ideas, feelings, and intangible thoughts. It's simply a matter of training and most of all, practice. Can you imagine a classroom where equal attention is given to drawing that is given to writing? In my dreams this classroom exists.

Here's my advice for the frightened, self-doubting beginner? Pretend you are once again a student in kindergarten. Seriously! Tie back your hair and put on one of your dad's old white dress shirts for a smock. Pick up a brush filled with paint or ink, put it to paper, and PLAY! [Don't care what others think.] Play and play some more. [Don't even think of what others think.] Play in this way with any new tools and materials for one hundred hours or more. [Don't give any attention to what others think.] Fifty hours won't do it, nor will ninety-nine. In this way, you will learn the possibilities and limitations of any creative medium. You will know the ins and outs of it. You will know how you can use it to express yourself. You will have learned that mastering a creative tool or method is actually an ongoing pursuit, albeit one you may advance at your own pace. At the very least, you will have made a wonderful new beginning.

It doesn't matter a whit when one begins one's creative life-it is always a matter of how diligently one applies oneself to the process and the play. And remember, "No one ever died of watercolor.'"

For more, terrific thoughts on the concept of "late bloomers" you will enjoy reading this article by Malcolm Gladwell: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/20/081020fa_fact_gladwell

See samples of my work. See the work of Orange Country Artist Guild members and find out about the Studio Tour for November 2009.

Encaustic Painting by Peg Bachenheimer

What it is?

Encaustic painting is a process of heating beeswax mixed with damar resin to around 200 degrees.

You can add pigment such as oil paint or purchase blocks of wax to which the pigment has been added. The hot wax mix is applied to a sturdy substrate such as a wood panel with a brush, metal tool or by dripping or pouring. Each layer is fused with a heat source such as a heat gun, iron or propane torch. It's possible to scrape and incise the wax, as well as to collage materials into it, and to paint on it with oil paints. Layers are built up and fused, scraped back and incised and built up again. Layers can be opaque or translucent. To fuse my work, I use three different kinds of propane torches, a heat gun and sometimes an iron depending on what I want to do.

The final painting is buffed with a soft cloth to bring out the shine of the wax. This ancient and durable medium has a mystery, luminosity and organic qualities that give the final pieces a spiritual feeling. This is my fourth year of working in encaustic and I discover new things about it everyday. It is unpredictable which I enjoy. As you build up layers, it's possible to scrape down when it has cooled and find something you had covered that really works with the current layer.

How to care for an encaustic painting

An encaustic painting is durable and archival. There are encaustic paintings from Greco-Roman Egypt that have survived in good condition. Encaustic paintings also need care. They will melt at 150 degrees so storage in a hot car trunk is not an option. Below freezing, the wax can crack. So, the encaustic painting needs to be kept between 35 and 120 degrees. Like most paintings, the best place for an encaustic painting, is on the wall, inside. If the surface of the painting becomes cloudy, it can be buffed with a soft cloth and it will regain its shine. The artist can make small repairs easily.

A quote about Encaustic Painting by Joanne Matera

"When I interviewed Jasper Johns in 1986, he remarked rightly of encaustic that it's an archaic medium, and few people use it. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, he was virtually its sole practitioner, and at the time we spoke, just a handful of artists had gone beyond experimenting to create a serious body of encaustic work. Yet now, a decade and a half later, thousands of artists- impelled by the zeitgeist, the luminosity, or perhaps simply by the recent availability of good tools and materials - are exploring the possibilities of expression in pigmented wax."

--Excerpt from The Art of Encaustic Painting: Contemporary Expression in the Ancient Medium of Pigmented Wax by Joanne Matera (Watson-Guptill, 2001)

To see my website, go to: http://www.pegbachenheimer.com. To see the work of all OCAG artists go to the OCAG website.

Creating a Painting in Layers by Louise Francke

The biggest challenge in painting is creating a composition which not only draws the viewers in but speaks to them. It is even more of a challenge when the painting has been commissioned.

Before Adobe Photoshop, I layered my cryptic and undecipherable sketches. There was a lot of erasing on many mylar sheets. Some compositions came together rapidly but others were difficult when both proportions and placement had to be changed. Now, the computer allows me to alter proportions and move elements to more advantageous positions, archive jpgs, and layer the work. Midway and in the last stages of the actual painting, I review a jpg of it in the computer and tweak the colors and contrasts before doing so on the canvas.

My ideas come when something I see sparks my imagination. The “Check Mate” set was an area in the client’s home and just waiting to be part of a painting. Initially this painting was to have been only a portrait of a her two Springer Spaniels. As ideas and discussion via emails progressed, her two cats were added. Then a totally different painting emerged when her son was included. I photographed all objects and figures in “Check Mate” digitally. Each item was separated out into individual layers before merging in Photoshop: Chessboard and the chess pieces on the game table plus two chairs were arranged and rendered a different color in Photoshop. (4 layers merged) The stained glass lamp was separated from its base to hang above and light the area. Its edge was used to create the framing device. (5 layers merged) The tile floor was in a different room. (1 layer with perspective adjusted) Dogs and cats were photographed separately from many different viewpoints. The paw of one Spaniel was fabricated to create the challenging pose. (5 layers)

Once everything worked spatially and led the eye around the composition, I flattened the image. Next, I worked with color adjustments: hue, saturation, curves, and finally filters to sharpen or blur certain elements. The composition was sized in the very beginning to the canvas/panel dimensions. Once a grid was superimposed the composition could be mapped out on the painting surface. No matter what the computer design, a painting on the easel dictates what it needs.

“Aviator Jack" was born into a family of pilots. Knowing this, it influenced how I saw Jack, my red headed grandson. Every element was a different layer: Jack’s gesture on the diapering table was rotated to a vertical. Snoopy was changed into our Dalmatian with her spots and the helmet and goggles from an old photo were added with a scarf. This head gear was used and manipulated to fit Jack. His quilt with biplanes was photographed and later readjusted to simulate a cockpit and aerial landscape view with hills and valleys. The biplane was a toy. Although tempted, I chose not to make it hang from a wire in the painting. Sky was created in photoshop and enhanced when painted. Colors were saturated and darkened more to emphasize the shadows.

So a composition is created when ideas are gathered and the sum of all the parts contributes to the finished visual experience. Finally, I commit it to oil.

For an evenings entertainment, please visit my web site and let me see you smile: http://www.franckearts.com. To see the work of all OCAG artists, go to the OCAG site.

Painting from Memory by Lindesay Harkness

As those of you who have attempted it and I will attest, landscape painting en plein air is a lot harder than it looks. Many of us experience disappointment when we bring our paintings home: we find them dull and grey compared with the glorious richness we experienced outside. Photographs don't help us, because they too don't seem to capture what we experienced. One of the major problems is the huge disparity between outside and inside light: sunlight is a thousand times more intense than indoor light.

Pigments displayed in indoor light cannot literally represent the sensations we experience outside, any more than photographs can.

The impressionists' great contribution was to discover a transformation that could convey the visual sensation of sunlight. They represented the most fundamental color relationships characterizing a scene outside and subordinated everything else to this underlying relationship. In order to do this effectively, they found they had to use the purest color of highest chroma . I knew this, intellectually, but was still unable to get my paintings looking how I wanted them to look...conveying the feeling I have outside on a brilliant North Carolina fall day.

My trusted teacher and friend in New Hampshire, Paul Ingbretson, suggested I try memory painting. The results were quite startling. The first thing I discovered, much to my chagrin, was that I was not seeing, correctly, the big,underlying color relationships outside. Learning how to work from memory forces your brain to learn how to do this. Once I could see this fundamental relationship, I learned, with time and much experimentation, to find a combination of pigments in the studio that would convey this relationship in small studio color sketches.

Using the knowledge gleaned from working from memory, I am trying to figure out how to paint on location, in very high light levels, and still have the painting hold up when it is viewed by inside light. I can't do this consistently yet, but I have come pretty close on at least one occasion, so I am encouraged to keep trying.

Feel free to visit my website to read and see more. To see the work of all OCAG artists, go to the OCAG site.

Don’t Refuse to Refuse by Trudy Thomson

I started making glass about ten years ago setting aside a large chunk of time to make and break glass. The first year was great. In fact, most of my favorite pieces were fresh in concept, intricate, and remain my favorites. I worked at the process eight hours a day and learned a lot.

Then suddenly everything broke down. Every piece I made cracked because it had thermal stress. I would be upstairs and suddenly I could hear a ping. I ran downstairs and my latest treasure (three months after I made it) split down the center. It nearly broke my heart. But I am stubborn. I called and emailed anybody I could and finally figured out I should ignore the advice of the manufacturer of my kiln and slow everything way down.

Now I get to “refuse”; I cut little pieces out of the broken glass and rearrange it and it becomes even more intricate than when I started the project. I have programmed my computer control on the kiln to let it go through a process for a long time—like 13 hours, then never open the lid until 24 hours. That rewards my obsessive behavior, but “better safe than sorry”.

If you want to know more about how to do this because you are a beginner, contact me at t-thomson@nc.rr.com or to take a peek at my work see my website at http://www.fernsandfancy.com.