Check out the Art-A-Whirl coming soon!

The Art a Whirl coming to Minneapolis on May 18,19, and 20 will see a group of artists at St. John's Lutheran Church at 610 Broadway St. NE.  Several Bethany artists will be involved with this event including me with paintings, Eric Ouren with musical instruments and Denice Woller with photographs.
It is an effort to bring people to the church no matter why they originally come......... there will be some great artworks for sale.

The end of summer already.

Summer is over already!

Unfortunately I noticed 2 days ago that the "peak summer" flowers are losing their blossoms. It seemed to go really fast this year. It was only July 28th and it only lasted a few weeks. Now that should be a warning?...or at least a reminder of how short life is and how fast time moves. The picture was taken yesterday and if you look closely, you can see that the flowers aren't as full and will continue to loose their color. In real life to talk about how time flies is such a cliche that it has lost it's meaning.....but paint a garden and the meaning is crystal clear. The good thing is that the park people have planted fall and late summer flowers so the garden will continue looking great. But it is still almost all over. Just yesterday.......

I made a discovery today and the discovery is that real breakthroughs are small and subtle. As much as we want to be dramatic and heroic, it is usually a small thing like an understanding, or seeing something old with fresh eyes or letting go of a personal quirk that may be holding you back.

The secrets are in the brushstrokes.

No matter what the image of a painting depicts the real secrets are in the brushstrokes. The brushstrokes give you an unique artist's view of the process of creation. The mark of the brush has it's own aesthetic. If you study the strokes you can enjoy a painting just on that level. Some old school painters whose brushstrokes are particularly helpful include: Velasquez, Manet, Rubens, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Cezanne and Matisse. It is like compiling a best movie list, it can go on and on and it changes depending on who puts the list together. Painters whose brushstrokes don't really help you understand them include Leonardo, Botticelli, sometimes Bonnard and Munch. It is always worth the effort to look into a painting to see the marks and how it was constructed.

These details are from recent paintings from Sibley Park.

Pilgrimage

For years, one of my former students comes to Mankato to paint for a few days. He is a painter but has another day job. We usually work from life and paint all day for 2 days. Whatever doesn't get done on the spot is finished from digital memory.

It is a good chance to catch up and to push to complete a painting. The flowers are nearing the peak so there is a good variety and the bugs weren't as bad as they've been. Nearly a perfect day for painting.

Painting at Sibley Park in Mankato, Minnesota.

The wages of sin is death (by mosquitoes).

This summer I set up right by the ridge of trees that usually have been featured so prominently in my park paintings. What I hadn't anticipated was the high rise apartment for a zillion mosquitoes.

I don't remember ever having a more tortuous time with the bugs. I made the mistake for the first few days of going in shorts. Since I really hate to put on bug poison, I have usually just wait and the wave of the little devils just go away. But here, they come out wave after wave. It has been a wet summer and clear bug overpopulation. One would never think about how hard it is to concentrate when there are mosquitoes on your eye lids, behind your ears and on your hands. It is hard enough just trying to figure out how to paint the light and what you are seeing let alone see and swat, and paint and swat. I may have to give in to some bug spray.

Finally back to the park!

For the sixth summer I have returned to Sibley Park to paint from life.

This is day one of painting from 8:30-12:00.

I found a spot in the shade and the light changes were noted.

This is a 30" X 40" canvas with some medium sized brushes.

It is very exhilarating to watch the light in the garden and I literally had to slow down my pace.

I've noticed that they haven't taken as good of care of the garden this year and maybe the recent severe weather has beaten down on it. July is the month to work and the flowers are coming .....

bukowskipainting.com

Landscape for Godard

Landscape for Godard

3 canvases oil on linen

(in progress)

Just for fun, I did a three panel landscape and decided to follow a famous quote by Jean-Luc Godard, "a story should have a beginning, middle and end, but not necessarily in that order". I did each panel separately from the same image. When I came closer to finishing the work, I put the panels together out of the normal order and the results were kind of interesting. It still needs the final touches and framing but the patterns and space that result reinforce a kind of abstraction (tame by cubist standards).