It's been a while since I've written a blog post. I'm a little busy with life right now. I moved from Philadelphia, PA to Summerville, SC. Started a teaching job, teaching art to 6-12 grade, which has been extremely fun.
Unfortunately, I've put my art practice to the side so I could focus on lesson planning, recovering from tiring work weeks, taking care of myself overall, organizing my life, and everything that gets in the way with the day-to-day.
A few days ago, I got back into my studio and I feel so inspired. I haven't picked up a paint brush in far too many months, so it was about time.
I have a few photographs of sunsets on Hilton Head Island that I was excited to explore. They all have their own unique, dramatic color palettes with many patterns in the clouds, water, sea grass, wood...which one to start with?
Pastels, pinks, purples. greys...
I remember in a painting class a few years ago, we had to go around and say what our favorite color was. While, historically, my favorite color is purple, I ended up telling the class mine was grey. Which in a way it is. A purple-ish grey. The professor responded saying, so you just take all the colors left on your palette, mix it all together and add some white, right?
Such a fun approach to creating grey. Grey in the natural world is not just black mixed with white. Our world is made up of a million colors. Reflections of light bouncing across every knick and corner to create beautiful refracted colors.
I went to some art galleries in Charleston over the holidays and saw some beautiful pieces. These pieces were especially intriguing to me, for formal and conceptual reasons.

Joshua Flint

Colin Page

Colin Page

Joseph Bradley
I also was introduced to the tv show "Portrait Artist of the Year" on BBC and have fallen in love. The commentary from the judges, painters, models...it was reminding me of the painting vocabulary I know and need to use more often in my classroom. It's one thing to know a subject matter, but knowing how to articulate it to others is an entirely different skill. I'm a work in progress. I also love that all of the painters had such unique individual styles. It reminded me that we all see the world differently. How we choose our color palettes, how we approach drawing someone, the psychological state we approach with portraiture...we are all so unique as art makers. Great show. Highly recommend.
Here is a song I've been listening to a lot lately. I'm pulling it from the archives, it was released in 1998 haha. I was 4. I was introduced to the goo goo dolls in Middle School. Their music and this song specifically has such a beautiful blend of melancholy and joy, which, maybe is something I'm going for in my work. Drama, sadness, hope. Those are heavy emotions to bottle up into a landscape piece. And everyone is going to experience their own feelings looking at a work. Alas, that is how I feel day to day, why not try to put that in my work if my work is an extension of myself.
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