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Sunday, January 25, 2015

Why I love Being a Painter

'Back to Iceland'      11x14          pastel            ©Karen Margulis
purchase painting on Etsy $150
 There is nothing else like it. Imagine traveling between Iceland and Maine and back to Iceland without ever leaving the house. Such is the life of an artist. We get to perform magic every time we pick up a brush or stick of pastel. We can go anywhere we want. We can create any reality we wish. We don't have to wait for perfect weather or great light. We can invent our own.  We can make meadows bloom. We can move mountains. We can even change trees into mountains.

I love being a painter.  This weekend was one of those fun magical weekend of painting. On Friday night I got into a mini marathon of painting from my Iceland photos. (I'll share them soon).  I was on a roll and was trying to choose my next subject when this Maine Lupine painting caught my eye. I had painted it in September but all of the sudden it spoke to me. It said it needed to be Iceland.

The original Maine Lupine painting
 That would be an easy swipe of the magic wand. It looked a lot like Iceland and some of the places we painted. All I needed to do was change the treeline into a distant headland and remove the trees on the left. I also decided to crop the painting to 11x14.  I like it better. There is nothing like being a painter!

There is a P.S. to this story. When I was writing this blog post I had to find the photo of the original painting. I went back to the September blog post and saw that the painting actually started life as an Iceland landscape. I didn't like how it turned out so I had turned it into a Maine landscape. No wonder it wanted to be Iceland!

The original original painting when it was Iceland!

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8 comments:

  1. Sue Marrazzo Fine Art10:25 PM

    TOO awesome for words.
    Your love of ART shows in your work = )

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  2. WhiteSpace6:51 AM

    I couldn't agree more--I love the freedom and the power of creating images. I learn a lot from your posts. Thank you for your fantastic blog. P.S. Thought for today . . . Proofreading--a necessary nuisance.

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  3. Karen8:13 AM

    Thank you Sue! I appreciate your comment!

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  4. Karen8:15 AM

    Thank you Chris. I corrected the errors. Sometimes I really shouldn't bother to post because I don't have enough time. Last night I rushed my post. Sometimes that happens and I apologize for making grammar and spelling errors.

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  5. PaintingWrite8:29 AM

    I recently discovered you on Pinterest when searching for vibrant landscape art to put into my 'art that colours me happy' pin board. I'm an acrylic artist and a big fan of vibrant colour and I absolutely love your work. I started following your blog posts last week and keep meaning to leave a comment and now I've finally managed to find the time to do so! I love your tutorials and how you explain how a painting comes to be and today's post really resonated with me as I only just explained my work recently as starting life from a real scene I may have photographed but then my imagination and colourful palette take over where real life leaves off - that's it exactly - being able to improve upon nature (which is no easy task!)by adding or taking away certain components or colours to make a scene uniquely your own interpretation. I recently won a load of pastels and pastel paper and while I've never been a fan (as the chalkiness on my fingers sets my teeth on edge!)you have motivated me to want to learn how to create vibrant landscapes with pastel as well as acrylic now. So much so that I've signed up for a one day workshop in March to learn how to use them properly. Thank you for being such a great motivator!

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  6. robertsloan2art12:45 PM

    Oh wow! That is so cool! Laughing at the changes along the way, your first Iceland version had much more mountains in the scene, they were nearer. The final version is lyrical and they're distant, the lupines still draw attention, the whole thing is balanced better. In between it became a Maine hedgerow! Too cool!

    Don't think I'll be doing that with my cats turning into dogs, but could see one going from bobcat to house cat and back pretty easily!

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  7. robertsloan2art12:48 PM

    Nic McLean, congratulations on winning a load of pastels and pastel paper. Welcome to Instant Gratification.

    One tip has always helped me. I keep a large cotton towel or rag nearby while painting. A third of it I get wet and let it drop down next to my chair. As I paint I wipe off my hands on the wet end and dry them on the dry end.

    I discovered this as a street painter doing pastel portraits. It's a serious convenience, cheap or free depending on whether you already have suitable towels. Sometimes I used terry cloth ones but the woven tag towel kind of towels are even better.

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  8. Anonymous1:08 PM

    I have been following your worK for almost a year now. I find the daily paintings so consistent that I am always able to recognize your paintings on Pintrest.
    An a...ha moment. Now I get it. Your style is who you are right now. And collectors of fine art will gravitate to what you are up to.
    You are so generous with your work as well as your words and offerings to improve. So, for Christmas I got Terry Ludwig's landscape set. And I got some Sonnet ( White Night connection from Russia ) pastels, they were on EBay for 23$ for a good amount of sticks.
    They are very small but can not wait to do some mini's.
    Because of their size I think I may have a better chance for improvement. Tonight I am cutting up some UArt...is it ok to cut with scissors ?

    ReplyDelete

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