Saturday Morning

O the sun! The sun!

It never ceases to amaze me how light can be so lifting. I just hate it when it rains like it has. The world goes flat and monotone, melancholy dripping off every living thing, stifling dampness in every breath I take...

I woke up this morning in my room, my room that isn't white. It's a colour called Orchid Bloom. Like the inner curve of an orchid where colour blushes up in to the petals. The undertone is blue with a hint of red and when the sun hits it, it becomes lit from within, like I imagine a halo might be. O my, and I can breathe again.

I've been reading Irving Stone's, Lust for Life all week. I can't read a book without absorbing the spirit of it, and Van Gogh in his impassioned artistic fervour was also crazy. But completely rationally crazy, to me. Caught between the line of this world of gravel & dust and the other world of air, wind, colour & the creative spirit. Exquisitely beautiful but also deadly. Van Gogh said of himself,

“I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process."

That is the very problem of this place. It's so near the fire, it's almost impossible to not burn with it.

***

I've also learned this week, it's almost impossible to paint well without being able to draw well. I've been racked in frustration trying to paint my daughter in her prom gown. As hard as I've tried, I haven't been able to get beyond producing something that looks like a painted cartoon.

It's strange when concepts make themselves known. A good painting begins with a good drawing - lack of foundation equals simplicity. It takes layers of light and shadow to create a realistic facial curve - but it takes also understanding and observation of anatomy to get it right. And you can't get it right if you emphasis your bone in the wrong quadrant, or inadvertently shadow a triangle that should be a square. It's friggin geometry.

So now, instead of flinging colour, I'm focusing on learning the basics of drawing. I've cleared away my paints, bought a sketch pad, and spend hours trying to copy, what at first glance, seem like simple lines. But art is not simple, at it's foundation is math. My gosh, can I ever get away from math...?

***

One last thought on my friend, Vincent - as portrayed through my friend Irving...

Van Gogh, at his very centre, was a kind man, finding love, beauty and acceptance among struggling miners, sad prostitutes, lost artists & beloved family. He was misunderstood, ridiculed by most and driven wild by his passion. And yet these insightful words, lay the foundation for his life and work:

'I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”

O starry, starry night.