Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Quotes for Wednesday and Thoughts on Oslo



I'll start with some quotes for today.  It is one of my favorite things to do to go to the quote randomizer and see what pops up for the day.  I can almost always find something that relates to my life currently.  The quotes that stood out to me today:


"What you are is a question only you can answer."




[info][add][mail]
Lois McMaster BujoldThe Warrior's Apprentice, 1986


"A person who trusts no one can't be trusted." -Jerome Blattner



"It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to be kind to another, without helping himself." -Bailey

"I am not a star. A star is nothing more than a ball of gas." -Elijah Wood

"It is right to be contented with what we have, never with what we are." -Sir James MacKintosh

"If you can't appreciate what you've got, then you had better get what you can appreciate." -George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)Pygmalion

What I get when I put all these quotes together is the message, be happy with what I have, trust more, and even though I'm happy with what I have...strive to become a better person each day.

We are all asking ourselves...how could someone do what they did in Oslo?  Oslo, like so many sad events before has made our jaws drop.  Our hearts sink.  I could focus on the unspeakable horror but that has already been done.  And honestly how can we not focus on something like that.  We will never understand the reasons behind acts like that...we never can understand it.  And that is a good thing because what would it say of us if something like that made sense.  
But I read an article yesterday that inspired me.  The people of Oslo and Norway in general, instead of dwelling on anger and revenge in the face of tragedy...held large peace rallies instead.  Large majorities of the population in different cities showed up.  They chose to move forward with their lives and honor the victims and loved ones with a message of peace.  
Surely this would diminish the satisfaction a perpetrator of such carnage could achieve watching these people moving forward, honoring peace.  And what can be said of someone who targets people in a country where the maximum sentence one can get in prison is...20 years?  21 years?  They were even his own people.  
I can choose to rage at this person for what he has done, this villain.  But what I should take issue with instead is extremism.  The ability to rationalize killing in the name of religion.  What I do take issue with is hate.  No one can claim to be part of any religion (for the most part) and practice hate.  I may never understand how this person's choice of victims and way of hurting them makes any sense with the religious ideals he claimed to be a part of.  But dwelling on pain seldom helped anyone.  Instead I commend Oslo for showing their true spirit with the peace gatherings and wish them great comfort.  And I thank them for inspiring us all to be better.


Completely unrelated, but here are a few new paintings I just finished since I like to include them in my blog postings as I complete them.  Since I eat, sleep, and breathe painting:



















  

  

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Taste the Color

Sometimes the biggest inspiration for a painting is feeling a color.  It's like what my friend Mr. Romo (an amazing painter) told me at his studio one day..."don't stop painting in black and white until you can taste the color".  He said his teacher had told him that.  Usually people start painting in black and white I guess.  I started right away with color myself.  If anything I want to backtrack and try painting in gray, black and white, sepia more.  Yesterday blue was calling to me though...cobalt and aqua were it and I 'needed' to paint with them.  Color is more of a feeling than a taste to me.  So I painted this butterfly.





Then I felt purple but more than purple I felt like I needed to paint a dragonfly.  So I painted this dragonfly next.




Some interesting symbolism for these paintings...both butterflies and dragonflies represent change since they are creatures of the wind.  Specifically butterflies symbolize the soul, transformation, and young love.  Dragonflies represent change, dreaming, prosperity and good luck.

With both of these paintings I was loving the ease of a small canvas.  I enjoy painting on small canvases because it feels like creating a tiny fantasy world...just a glimpse of it.  But large canvas painting is still my love, even though I can never get the pictures to capture the true essence of the painting.  So much is lost in my art behind that lens.  This is a Dandelion Delirium painting I did the other day, which I love, but even as I varnished it and looked at the rich purples and nuances of the white dandelion details I knew so much had been lost in the photograph.




I find I am craving a rainy day painting next.  I want to do a gray background with gray water and somehow hope to capture the look of clouds actually raining...that misty droplet combo that is amazing.  To capture the wet ground look.  I want to have a woman in a Victorian dress and red umbrella in the foreground, her hair blowing in the wind.  I'm working on subtleness in some of my pieces now and using color to accentuate a focus more...I want this painting to be very gray/black/white with the woman and her umbrella in red standing out.

Maybe tasting the color is something that should be tempered, like an acquired taste.  But there will still be days when I will just want a painting to be all about the vivid blue or purple.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Tuesday Thoughts of Rainbows

So lately I have seen some fabulous rainbows.  I am usually on my way to work out with Shane..and voila!  Rainbow.  We even saw a double rainbow the other day (although the second rainbow was faded, but still visible).  We took some pictures in front of said rainbows.  If you look 'very' carefully you can see the second rainbow in the second picture.








Feng Shui author Lillian Too writes that a double rainbow is a sign from the cosmic Universe that you are about to have something great fall into your lap, and that one good thing will lead to another.  Other sources say double rainbows are symbols of transformation or spiritual awakening.  One can only hope!  Lol.