Feelings...

Awakening   watercolor   19 x 9.5

are entwined within my every brushstroke.  Tension shows.  Neurotic behavior reveals itself.  Confidence uplifts and frees.  For me, painting and feelings are inseparable.  Painting is, quite frankly, where my inner world resides.  It is rare to commune with an individual whose ego does not get in the way of the communion.  I have never enjoyed painting landscapes that much.  Part of the reason, I'm sure, has to do with a reality-based color palette that is all over the wheel, and whose disparate nature fragments the power of the work.  But artists in my classes enjoy the painting of the outdoor scape.  And so I deal with it.  For me, a limited palette is a must.  Colors were pushed.  The blue-violet of the sky was brought down to the middle ground.  And the grass green was pushed up into the sky.  The large tree was not solidified.  My response to an early spring landscape:  before the first mowing.

Whether inspiration is based on what one sees or on ideas, the artist's job is to react emotionally to what inspires him.  Be less demanding of the source of your inspiration and give more guts to the representation of your visions and ideas. 

Alex Powers

To Draw is to Feel...

Bob...a sketch

It is no secret that my feelings are completely evident in my work....Words have become nearly superfluous to me...good listeners are rare.  True communication through words is nearly impossible to me.  The paper, the canvas....now they allow me to express myself completely and unconditionally.  Bob is a feeling artist as well.  In the past several years Bob has put his heart on paper.  To call his work nostalgic would be a misnomer.  His work celebrates the momentous parts of his life....those things worth keeping, worth expressing.  Bob's drawing of baby shoes on a toned piece of paper drew admiration from the other artists in our class.  The shoes are tenderly drawn.

Very often artists consider the background to be a separate entity from the subject matter....and we are often sucked into rendering the table, the chair, the curtain....just because they are there.  Bob's very slight horizontal strokes solve the problem of weight....the necessity of having the shoes rest on something so that they do not appear to float.  Those few strokes are worth the price of admission to me.  So much power in such a simple drawing!