Art for Valentine’s Day

I just finished this little painting for my sweetie for Valentine’s Day.

"Valentine With Dots", Barbara J Carter, 5x7", acrylic on canvas panel, 2009

I wanted to give him something, but I’d been putting off going shopping. First of all, I hate shopping. I hate the consumerism of it all. And second, he doesn’t like candy. At least, not the usual sticky sweet stuff sold for Valentine’s Day.

When I realized that I was procrastinating the shopping because I hate it so much, I realized that I needed to come up with something else. Nothing extravagant. But not just a stupid card, either.

I thought about making him a card. But that still didn’t feel right. Just a card? That’s all? Even if it’s handmade, it’s still just a card. It’s not enough. But then the thought hit me: what about a little tiny painting, about the same size as a card? Yes, that felt right.

So I pulled out a little 5×7-inch canvas board and started painting. This felt right. It’s so much more personal than a storebought card. It’s a little part of me that I’m giving him.

Oh, and that thing I have about hearts? (I mentioned that I don’t like hearts in fine art in my post about the Los Angeles Art Show.) Well, I did use a heart in this painting. But it’s very subtle.

Does this mean I have to revise my bad attitude about hearts?

Word of the Year

The idea of a word for the year comes from Christine Kane, whose blog I enjoy reading. She explains the concept in this introductory post from December 2007. Instead of making New Year’s resolutions (which are almost guaranteed to fail) you pick a single word that exemplifies your intentions for the new year, whether it be health, clarity, love, effortlessness, focus, or whatever.

Most of the people who participate on her blog seem to be quite keen on self-improvement. Their word of the year becomes a great spiritual journey for them. For each day the entire month of December, Christine has one of her readers write an article about how their word changed their lives over the year. Many are quite touchy-feely, but all are heartfelt. People seem to be getting a lot out of their words.

Me, I’m a little more pragmatic about it all. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of choosing a word as a sort of mantra to remind you of your intentions throughout the year. But my choices tend to be rather more prosaic, and even a little uncomfortable. I want my word to push me a little.

My word for 2008 was “discipline”. It reminded me to do the uncomfortable and unpleasant things necessary for attaining my goals, whether they were running a 5K race, finishing a certain number of paintings, or putting together my portfolio. It got me up in the morning, got me running even when I didn’t feel like it, and helped get me painting. It wasn’t exactly a spiritual awakening, but it did help nudge me in the right direction whenever my motivation flagged.

For 2009, I had a long list of possible words: focus, fearless, do, explore, boldness, flourish, action. All seemed reasonable words, but none really stood out for me. I know 2009 is going to be a difficult year for selling art, but I’m determined to make it work somehow and my word for 2009 needs to reflect that determination. (Now that I think about it, “determination” would have been a pretty good word.)

Finally it struck me. My word for 2009 is “hungry”. As in “be hungry”. As in, I have to be hungrier than everyone else if I’m going to succeed as an artist during a recession (a depression?). I have to want it more. I have to be unafraid of the hard work, the long hours, the perseverance. I have to embrace it all. I have to be hungry for it.

“Hungry” also speaks to a personal goal I have for 2009. I’d like to finally shed the extra weight I slowly gained over the last 15 years. It’s not a huge amount, about 15 or 20 pounds, but 2009 is the year to finally lose it.

My word “hungry” does not mean I’m going to starve myself. Far from it! I love good food, I enjoy dining out, and I don’t shy away from rich food, sweets, and other goodies on special occasions. I subscribe to Julia Childs’ philosophy of eating: eat real food, in moderation. I use butter, not margarine. I use sugar, not synthetic chemicals. I use real cream, not that fake stuff. Just not too much at a time.

Rather than starving myself, “hungry” here means that I need to keep an eye on the amounts I eat. Just exercising doesn’t work, or at least not for me. I have to eat less. That means I have to stop eating just before I get full. In other words, I have to always be a little bit hungry. Not starving, but also never stuffed. My word “hungry” will help me remember that. (Actually it already has: I started using the word a couple weeks ago when I chose it. I’ve lost a pound in that time.)

So that’s my word of the year. How about you?

Christine Kane provides a great list of possible words to help get the wheels turning. I highly recommend it. At the very least choosing a word is less ridiculous than making yet another bunch of New Year’s resolutions that don’t even make it past the end of January.

Experimenting with Abstraction

As I mentioned in my last email newsletter (sign up for my newsletter here!) I’ve been experimenting with abstract painting. I’ve got all sorts of ideas I want to try. Some of my experiments haven’t come out quite the way I wanted, so they’ll remain hidden from view. But I’m willing to share the ones I like.

Here’s one I’m pretty happy with. I don’t know if I’ll do more like this, but it was a fun exercise.

This painting is 16×20″, acrylic on canvas. It doesn’t have a name yet – got any suggestions? Unlike my usual paintings, I did not paint the edges of the canvas, so they’re just plain white (3/4″ deep). With the staples on the back, it can be hung either as-is (for a sleek contemporary look) or framed (for a slightly more traditional look). If you want it, it’s available for $460 unframed or $530 in a frame. You can read more about how to purchase my work here.

Blank Canvas

The phrase “blank canvas” gets used a lot in everyday speech. It evokes an image of a blank white surface, waiting for the first mark, the first touch of paint.

It’s pristine, unblemished, expectant. It’s intimidating. It calls to mind Gene Fowler’s description of writing: “Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.“

Ouch!

But in fact this isn’t how you go about creating at all. No one in their right mind starts with an utterly blank canvas or blank sheet of paper. They’d just end up staring at it helplessly. Creativity doesn’t work like that.

No, first you go off by yourself, nowhere near a canvas. You think, you muse, you ponder.

You look around, go for a hike, take in a movie, riffle through your sketchbook, look at art books, magazines, photos. Ideas bubble to the surface, inspired by what you’re looking at, or maybe jarred loose by thinking about something utterly unrelated.

You scribble, sketch, jot down notes, make an outline. You play with colors, messing with paints or pastels or crayons or colored pencil. There’s no pressure at this stage. No finished product is expected. You might use scratch paper, or a scruffy sketchbook, or a private journal. There’s freedom to erase, redo, scratch out, throw away.

At some point, after all this messing about, you’ve got an idea cooking. That’s when you pull out the paper or canvas.

You start writing down the names of your novel’s main characters. You outline the main plot points. You rough in the main masses of your painting, lights and darks, basic shapes. You make sure that it looks like it’s going to work, then you proceed to refine, adding color, texture, details.

Before you know it, you’re painting or writing and that blank canvas wasn’t a hurdle at all. Quite the opposite: it was a natural part of the creative process.

Anyway, for me a blank canvas isn’t white. It’s red.

I don’t paint a canvas red until I know exactly what I’m going to do with it. Bigger ones like this one (which I just finished painting red) take longer to prepare. This delays the gratification of jumping into the actual painting process, but I think the delay is good for me. The anticipation builds my enthusiasm for the task ahead.