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Everyone should see beauty every day.  

Perhaps that seems like a strong imperative, an impossible task, or a dream not yet realized.  Could it be that we just don't know how to see?

I'm going to come back to this thesis on days that may seem dry or lifeless, but today I want to revel in a beauty-abundant week.   

I don't get to travel to paint outs nearly as often as I'd like—pesky night vision issues keep me from some long day trips, or budget and schedule issues keep me from long distance trips, but I do get to some special places on my agenda list.  One such event happened this week in Jacksonville, NC, a place where I have connections I love. I make an effort to get to their ART BLOCK paint out each year where I am challenged and encouraged by the artsy friends I've made there. 

I had two full days to paint. I packed my paint gear, a simple lunch, drink, and snacks, insect repellent, and hope— hope that I'll really see beauty, be inspired by beauty, accurately portray beauty. 

Site selection—the first step to success.  There are many good books written on this topic  so I won't detail here except to say a bad choice can be fatal to success—wincing as I recall my second site choice: lovely white boat, bad composition, blustery weather at water's edge under willow tree that whipped me with long rope-like branches as I tried to concoct a painting with one hand on my brush and another clinging tightly to my easel and painting.  I didn't stand a chance.

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Design—another battle for success.  I went out on the second morning with a view in mind, found the perfect set up to a great view, had a toned panel perfect for the color scheme, faithfully did my little composition sketch that I normally do to help me get the placement and value patterns working on my chosen canvas.  Then I began faithfully, stroke by stroke—or not so faithfully, because when I had gotten to the point of no return, I realized something was wrong--bad  placement that killed my center of interest. 

Painting is like juggling.  You're tossing balls of design, hue, value, intensity, temperature, stroke, and mood up in the air and catching them in rhythm, but drop one—just one—and the game is up.  I dropped one and then another.  That pesky “never make any two intervals the same” rule (Greg Albert, The Simple Secret to Better Painting) glared at me.  I had unwittingly moved some lines from my composition design to the middle of the painting.  And I dropped the value ball, too.  And the temperature ball.  But I had seen beauty and I had had fun.  Moving on.

The rest of the story is where I felt the wind of enjoyment in this labored euphoria. I saw magic shapes and colors that delighted me like a visual concert.   I enjoyed every messy minute of the capture—Phthalo blue on all my clothes and pollen in my eyes—and paint taking shape on my gessoed panels.  And the memories— oh, so good.

I renewed my acquaintance with one of my favorite sites, the Pelletier House on the bank of New River. The straight lines contrasted with soft florals and the morning back light inspired me.  

I sketched and painted boats and branches on the river edge.   I was fascinated by the multi colored blades of Wilson Park palm trees with sharp tips, shadows, and sunlight. 

In my last hour and a half of the day, I was captivated by the drama of simple cattails in the  warm, late afternoon sun. This was the prize catch of the day.

Painting en plein air is, I think, the best way for me to really see beauty because I really have to take it in through all my senses but discern how what the eye sees is different from what logic or memory reconstructs.

Really seeing is the adventure that makes beauty pop out of unexpected places. 

Yesterday I read Shawn Sullivan’s blog. It resonated with me. I’ve been mulling it over, agreeing, but also thinking there is more to consider.

I’d like to spring board off of his thought, “It took me a while to realize that my ‘other’ job is as much a part of who I am as my painting is. That they have a symbiotic relationship that ultimately has shaped who I am as an artist.”

I’ve spent my life running on two tracks, language arts and visual arts, spending many hours teaching in both fields---okay, so that makes three tracks, literature, art, and teaching.   I make an income doing all three.  Would I do all three without an income from the labor? Yes.  So what does the income have to do with being “a painter” or “a writer” or “a teacher”?  The income may validate my accomplishment, proving that others feel my labors worth money.  The income also pays the bills and allows me that privilege of having work and pleasure as one, thus giving me more time for the three things I enjoy--- words, paint, teaching.

Now I find myself faced with a new challenge, a calling to serve in an area that may not allow me to make an income from my paintings.  Will I stop painting? Not likely! When the urge to sketch, doodle, draw, paint just naturally happens every time I pick up a pencil, brush, pen or pastel, I don’t think a change of circumstances will rid me of the artist within.  I may not be at the gallery reception as I would like, but I will be seeing the world from a painter’s eyes.  My new place of service will be an opportunity to grow my heart and therefore, I hope, to enrich my paintings.

Winston Churchill was an oil painter. He said , “. . .the art of the painter marches along the road which is traversed by all the greatest harmonies in thought.”   I don’t see a life calling in conflict with art. I see that the “greatest harmonies in thought” will rise as our lives are touched by more than just paint.True, being stretched for time to paint forces me to work harder to improve my skills, but artists are richer for having life experiences that sharpen their vision, not just their eyesight.  

A few days ago I received an email from  Empty Easel.  I'm always looking for good art tips and this one was particularly fun.---“Seeing Notan.”  I realized the concept was something that I had actually subconsciously begun doing for quite awhile, but I didn't know it had a name and the explanation was a good one that could be easily communicated to my students.    Last week, a young student finished a project and had some time before the class ended, so I took the simple notan explanation, demonstrated, set up a still life, and gave her a box of oil pastels.  In a short while, she had turned the sketch into a pleasant little oil pastel painting and had learned a new way to see that will strengthen her more ambitious projects. 

To see the article, go to http://EmptyEasel.com/2008/08/12/seeing-notan-how-to-make-stronger-compositions-using-lights-and-darks.  

“Curiously enough, we think we truly appreciate long before we do.  We find later we did not even see the things truly, because we had not yet arrived at the station that made true appreciation and consequent “vision” possible.  As a result, we are forced to a gradual change of mind about things that we once thought “wonderful.”  Because growth is so gradual, we are correct in suspecting the virtues of anything that comes to us “overnight.”  If divine truths could be handed down from the old to the young, we would have arrived at the omniscient perfection eons ago.”  ---John R. Carlson, Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting

A few weeks ago, a friend and  landscape painter, Scott Boyle (www.scottboyleart.com), loaned me a copy of Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting.  I  see why Scott was excited about this book.  Carlson's insights have made me see that I have not seen things clearly. I am growing to appreciate things about the landscape that had previously escaped me.  But Carlson is also a philosopher of sorts. Not only does he make me see more clearly, but he  also  makes me think more deeply about all of life. His book has been a healthy dose of reality check.