My daughter asked me how I choose what to paint. She is twelve years old today and says yes to everything. This good question is also what she has been asking herself while considering her Christmas present from Daddy.
I gave her some small canvases, some acrylics, and all the required brushes and palette knives that I could imagine she'd need in order to paint without hangups. I was curious how she'd approach the new hobby, given that she now has in her possession all the tools.
I do take inventory of my materials and order new tubes of paint and turpentine, etcetera, but I like to remind myself that running out of something is actually okay and might possibly force me to do something creative with another neglected pigment. There's this fantasy, of organizing all of your colored pencils or pastels or whatever, every conceivable color, and marveling at their sharpened potential...but in such a way that you do not want to disturb their orderliness. It's a creative trap. Always work, instead, with less.
I watched my daughter's hand manipulate the palette knife, mixing colors for her color wheel assignment. (Yes, I actually gave her an assignment.) Her hand's movement was awkward. I'm not sure why this was surprising to me, except that I do not watch novices paint much. Her attempts at mixing, though off in accuracy, were delicate and sweet and kept her busy for over an hour quietly in my studio. I adored her efforts.
I think about my daughter while I apply paint to my own canvas. I make choices, to answer her question, that appear to be buildings or landscapes that I see nearly every day. But they're so much more.
Where I can talk to myself about life, where I can dream and love and think about my family. This I put into my paintings.
What to paint, Beah, it doesn't matter.
Thamks daddddddd 😛🥰🥰🤩🥰
Lovely. Thank you for sharing your insight and process.
Hi Christopher!
I enjoyed you blog and identified with it.
I medically retired last January, and the up side is I finally get to dip my toes into long anticipated creative space. I have loved creative pursuits my whole life, but I was a child of two very logical people who encourage medicine or teaching.
I have always set up a desk with all my collected creative potentials. I took an occasional watercolor class, a basket antler class, and longed for this expression of myself to be released. I am reading The Artist’s Way the second time around and trying to find my path. I understand this is quite the process, and I see in my grandaughter when she visits the ease at which her creative flows far easier Han mine. None the less, it is helpful, and I am making jewelry, sewing on occasion, collecting brushes and supplies and moving along on this fascinating path!
Our work from you sits in a place to inspire me and my expectations are that I will continue this path, wherever it leads, stumbles or not.
All the best to you and yours.
Be well,
Kita Scull
You, sir, are a very fine father. That was beautiful.
Well this was absolutely beautiful…
I love all the details of every aspect of painting…and I myself can see the organization of pencils, paints etc…and how one would not want to touch them…lol I’ve done that…so I suppose they are perfectly organized just as they are…but how you explained to beautiful 𝔹𝕖𝕒𝕙…why you paint what you do…well let’s just say…it made me tear up…for many reasons! Love this!!!
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