My other dreams...

Sometime I wish that I was living in a place like New York, surrounded by all sources of art related influences. The great historical and contemporary galleries or museums where I could visit from time to time to do my observation on masterpieces of art or keep up with latest art activities in this industry.


Last time I went to New York, I was still in school involving with art society and artsy people. My visit was quite the experience in my world of art but it was kind of overwhelming at the same time. There was not enough time to take advantage of all these beauties . My wife and I were running around all day to catch up with all the stuff was going at the museums ; lots of wall-to-wall people from all over the world come to experience the same dream and meet with all the legends Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso, Rembrandt and so on. I used to forget what was the real reason for me being there; am I looking at the paintings, the brush strokes , colors and light, the style of paintings and comparing them with my own or I am watching interesting people around me? It was little too much; my eyes used to get tired.


My other dream was to live in Italy or France where I could see the real stuff at anytime, go to visit the place that some painter like Monet sat at the sunset to paint his masterpiece or go to the old cafe where Avant Garde people used to hangout to talk about art and politics. Or visit the old streets of France where every bridge or famous building was captured the attention of some artist at some time.


My wife and I still talk about moving to Europe, to live our life there but haven't decided how. It sounds like a dream; the fantasy world that most of artists live.

Structures

As I was talking about myself and my paintings the other day, I forgot to talk about my structures and numerous steps I take to finish one painting. First thing for me is to have some version of a visual object which it could be a picture or scene from some source of view because I do landscapes. Then I sketch my own composition based on what I have on hand and my canvas size.


Composition is a crucial part of any drawing or painting. It's like you're building this house and your base is not straight so no matter what you put on this place to make it look good it's not going to work because you are having a Pisa tower on your hands. Sometimes, when I sketch, my drawing all looks good and the composition makes sense, then when I apply the color to it, I start to see the differences. This is the time that you have to make sure your colors are having a balance and are having a tonality from top to the bottom like music with the perfect harmony.

I consider myself as a self-taught painter who made lots of mistakes and try to correct them by studying other painters masterpieces. One thing that I learned about painting is that there is no such a thing as a set formula for any style of painting; things change as you apply and you have to be flexible enough to go with the flow and balance your composition. Painting requires lots of passion and patience. It needs lots of alone time to separate yourself from daily problems. You need your focus and relaxation, you can't be a angry painter, what you're producing has a lot to do with your inner thoughts and your emotions. I remember in school one of my structures use to say if you feel tense try to relax or maybe have glass of wine; that might helps you.


I am a perfectionist and sometimes this works against me. Regardless of what I said above, there is no formula in painting. I'm from the old school; I follow rules and regulations, below are some structures that orchestrates your composition:


1-unity and balance


2-similarity and contrast


3-closure


4-continuity


5-repetitions of the shapes and forms


6-anomoly


7-focal point


8-hierarchy of colors


9-Chiaroscuro, the interplay of light and shadow on surface


I always try to keep these nine items as a map to myself and where I go with my paintings.

My other thoughts

I was thinking about what Erika, my wife, said to me the other day... to walk away from painting if it's not working for you. It reminded me of a part from the movie 'Heat' when Dinero and Pacino were in the coffee shop face to face having this conversation about what is that they do and dinero said "someone told me once 'don't get yourself too attached to any thing, if you are not willing to walk out in 30 seconds flat if you spot the 'Heat' around the corner'." Now I don't feel threatend by what I do but to me is almost the same concept because I love to do it and it's what I do. There is too much attachments involved like I have toward my wife you can't walk away; it's what it is. You are what you do or the correct way to say it "you do what you are".

Another Day of Painting

Every morning for me is a brand new day, it could be an easy day like some days every thing falls in to the right direction or it could be an impossible day. My painting days are explains a lot of these days lately.

Some one asked me where I get my inspirations for painting. For me things happen in my head it could be part of my thoughts from some favorite place that I have visited lately or some scenes or view on TV. I feel these ideas and visualizing them in my head but, it’s not easy as I can explain that on a piece of paper. For me when I paint, I’m about creating a picture that has a lot do with me and my emotions , it’s about how I saw it and how I transferring that thought on a canvas; now this takes me back to the first idea of you are having a good day or bad day. My days are always starts good because of my large urge to paint most days I can’t even wait till get myself to the studio then I find out that I m having shortage on some of my mediums and is already too late to go get some Therefore, this could be a sign of very bad painting day and I try to ignore the fact that my painting is not going to be as good as other days, but I want to paint. I feel like I’m distant to do this regardless of the out come. A good day of painting is my good breathing day and I enjoy everything. It makes me happy and I feel good about myself then I leave it up to you to figure what happens to me on bad day of painting.

I like to read about my favorite painters and like to know about how they feel when they paint but I never come across this that they had a bad painting day. They always said that they feel so excited so they could walk on clouds, so happy and no frustration what so ever. Is it true? Maybe I’m doing something wrong or as my wife said I should stop painting when is going bad. After all just like anything else you do in daily basis you got to do it no matter what happening around you. Just do it!