Art History and Other Stuff

First of all I want to share with you this link that was posted to Facebook this morning.  It reduces Janson's History of Art to some very simple illustrations.  I particularly love Van Eyck, Monet, Renoir and Manet.

http://www.boredpanda.com/how-to-recognize-painters-by-their-work/

Now that I have done that and you have a smile on your face - I would like to talk about getting back into the swing of things (painting wise, that is).

Transitions are hard - When you take on a project than have to switch gears to an entirely different project it is difficult.  It is for me, at least.  For me, an absence from painting for a week or two, makes it that much harder to start again.  The longer the absence the harder it is to get motivated.  The seasonal change which starts to limit the ability to head outside to paint is one of those obstacles.  

I am back up North and the weather has vacillated between freezing #$% cold and quite mild.  For a number of reasons I haven't been able to head outside to paint - Thanksgiving, travel to Chicago, rain, then there is the inertia factor.  Now I am looking at an arctic chill that will drop our temperatures by 50 degrees.

So, yesterday I tried working from a photo reference.  It just didn't turn out they way I had hoped - I would show you  a picture but I would be embarrassed.  So, today I will scrape most of it down and try again.  My evil twin is telling me that it is "unfixable" and keep playing on the computer or start working on Christmas Cards or vacuum, dust, shop - anything to avoid the inevitable coming face to face with my failure to bring yesterday's painting to completion.  A sort of crazy subconscious fear sets in, "What if I can't fix it?".  Or rationalizations occur 1.  the picture wasn't a good one  2.  I wasn't in the mood, 3. I didn't move in close enough  4.  I was painting on too small of a surface.  You get the picture............no pun intended.

So, hopefully today I can overcome this mental dawdle and try to push some paint around, scrape some paint off and fix the darn thing.  If I do, I promise you I will show you a picture of the "bad" painting and the "fixed" painting in my next blog.  

Enough for now - I think I will get the vacuum out.