Stagnant

I am feeling stagnant! Stagnant in my production of visual art! I am going nowhere….just painting pretty pictures! Such as the one included here.


This is not what I want my art to portray. It’s a pretty forest stream in autumn, I’m certain you can see that. But….it does not say what I intended.

I remember the day well – a beautiful sunlit autumn day. The temperature was perfect, the air so clear and clean. The bubbling brook just sang, the autumn colours were magnificent, the day was glorious and the remote location a dream come true. No one for miles … just me, the glorious silence of the moment, the wonder of an undisturbed scene, the ‘take you breath away’ feeling when viewing perfection. This painting was supposed to translate my feelings of the day – to be a representation of the heightened emotions of the moment – a representation which others could feel and recognize – one which would cause the viewer to take a deep breath and say ‘ah!’.

I look at it and cannot identify the exhilaration I felt the moment I sat to sketch the scene. Perhaps I lost the moment relying on a photograph of the scene for colour – I just don’t know.

I believe it is my duty as an artist to take a moment and ‘capture’ it in all its splendor on canvas – to translate the feeling of the storm, the whisper of the rain, the torrent of a storm, the tranquility of a forest surrounding. To recognize and paint the light, the dark … the joy, the sadness, the exhilaration – whatever moved ‘me’ onto the canvas.

I have two other such canvases in my studio to finish up; then perhaps in order to grow as an artist I need to do some serious ‘thinking’ about my work as a visual artist.