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No pressure for Sunday fishers

Actually, if one is a professional fisherman, he can't really call it fishing if he doesn't consistently come back with a catch. Likewise with professional painters. Sunday painters and Sunday fishermen, on the other hand, are liberated from the pressure to produce and free to enjoy the process and while away the hours lost in the journey that is painting… or fishing. Sometimes the journey is more rewarding than the destination, even those destinations that are never quite reached.

New location awakens

I agree. Visiting a new location, whether abroad or close to home is a great way to
Memory of Taipei
mixed media
20 x 30 inches awaken the creative spirit. Foreign countries present intriguing colour palettes, peculiar artscape features that we artists could not possibly conjure up from our own imaginings. I experienced this on a recent trip to Taiwan. On returning home I was eager to put onto paper and canvas my experiences of this beautiful island. We need to get out of our comfort zone at least once a year!

Childhood in a fly-over

I just recently experienced the place I grew up in, but in a completely different and
Shawn Sage
sketch inspiring way. I flew over it in a two-seat ultra-light plane, basically a hang-glider with a propeller on it. It was simply amazing, no windows, and five hundred feet in the air. It was peaceful and breathtaking. It was like someone had made an h/o scale model of the place where I had my first steps as a boy.

Inspiration for all

A complex effort reminded me of a quote in Philip Roth's latest novel Everyman. "Amateurs look for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work." (Chuck Close) But what about those of us who are not professional painters? Could you say something encouraging to the amateurs in your audience who sometimes find it hard to "get up and go to work" especially when they believe they are not making the progress they think they should be making? How important is it to just "do it" compared to looking for "inspiration?"

(RG note) Thanks, Mike. Both amateurs and professionals need to try for excellence. And when amateurs try to put on the feathers of the pro, they become better artists and this gives them more joy. And as for inspiration, don't kid yourself, pros need to look for and find it every day. But they do, as you suggest, have a little secret: Inspiration comes by "doing it."

Painting as a foil for writing

I am a medical transcriptionist. I just basically type what I am told with a little quick editing at a rate of 1,000 to 1400 lines per day. We get foreign dictators to whom conversational English is a chore. It is my job to straighten out sentences like "Throw the cow over the fence some hay," and "Throw mother down the stairs the old bag," and such. That is an example of Penn Dutch, but you get the idea. Otherwise, I like to do watercolor plein air sitting in my '03 silver Chrysler Sebring LX 4 door, 4-cylinder, at Long Lake Boat Launch.

Despoiling the environment

What are you doing despoiling the world's diminishing fish populations by taking part in the blood sport of so-called sport fishing? It shows disregard for the environment when you could be out using your considerable ability to help the world to behold its own beauty. You have merely joined the ranks of the 'captains of industry' who have a need to carry their capitalist aggression and competitive attitude into what should remain spiritual places.

The highway of the open mind

As a young woman I traveled from Winnipeg to Vancouver Island and stayed on the west coast for three weeks. I traveled with my best friend and her family in their family van. We were eighteen and seventeen. We felt we were butterflies inside that van, flapping our wings mightily with our dreams and our observations of the Canadian scenery. I deliberately decided not to strain myself to capture photographs or too many sketches, although it was hard to resist. I wanted to let Canada capture me and record itself in my pliable soul. I am not too much older now than I was then, but I do feel a bit distanced from that young girl who then traveled unknown lands. I long for the memories to pour out of me and make their way onto a canvas. I vividly see a patch of wild flowers growing on a hilly corner of Nanaimo. I can actually feel the sunlight on my back as I leaned over to collect a variety of small, brightly coloured beauties, forget-me-nots, daisies, and many unnameable pink, purple and red wonders. My legs can actually feel the prickle of the dry wild grasses and branches as I made my way through the patch. As I recall those sensory memories, others come to mind as well and make me ache for the long vistas of the prairies, the wilderness of Alberta and the salty smell of Tofino. Even the smoke-drenched highway as we drove in the middle of August in an especially dry year. I ache for those memories and resent the balmy heat of the city. It's not that the grass is greener, it's that the colours are brighter when the mind is open.

Honour

In Solitude
acrylic painting on canvas
30 x 40 inches Honor Life and all its timing
Honor journeys of personal truth
Honor opportunities of private reflection
Honor discretion and solitude
Honor such freedom on wings to fly
Honor Mother Nature to the ends of the skies.

Symbolic colours

In the traditional Ghanaian societies, the art of body painting plays en essential role during entertainment, war, religion, politics, medicine, etc. Different types of materials are used to decorate the body: dyes, earth colours, cosmetics, etc. During certain ceremonies, women paint their bodies with white and green patterns during festivals like the annual "Homowo" festivals among the Ga. Birthday celebration for twins among the Fante and Ga, twins at one point painted their bodies with white clay. Indigenous herbalist, priests and priestesses in the Southern Ghana, Volta Region, and Ashanti also decorate their bodies with white clay during certain rites. Green colour stands for growth, white colour stands for joy, victory and happiness. Both colours combined signify a bountiful harvest. Blue and white tinted with red, yellow and black stands for total sanctity or cleanliness. A suicide corpse is painted with grey (ash) to "disgrace" the body for a shameful act. Warriors or "asafo" group paint themselves with black and red during war, celebrations and rites. As black colour is for the spirit of the death and red is for blood relations. Those colours reflect the violet, aggressive, war-like behavior of the group. A person suffering from a strange sickness is painted with red and yellow patterns to symbolize the body's life and its power over sickness. A combination of colours can be applied to a young girl going through puberty initiation rites and also during entertainments.

Keeping the buckets filled with chum

As we age, fewer and fewer things in the world around us lend themselves to inspiration.
French Creek in Autumn
oil painting on canvas
16 x 20 inches Some of us continue to toss in the chum anyway, and hope for a hit. Many aging artists eventually give up the fight as the eyes lose their clarity and the joints ache with the effort of assembling a French easel. In Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea, the old man refused to give up the hope of getting the big one in spite of the odds. Most artists understand how days of dearth can deplete the psyche of even the able-bodied young and talented artists, and would recognize that the old man's heart was truely centered on his craft. Hemingway's hero was a true artist. As a person who began painting late in life, most days I'd be happy with just a nibble.

Keeping track of art

I was wondering if you document each painting you do--as in, take a 35 mm slide of the piece. Or do you only document certain pieces? With the huge inventory of paintings you have done, I can imagine the immense catalogue of slides you have. I'd like to know your documentation process.


card file system (RG note) Thanks, Tammy. For many years we have been documenting every delivered painting in an old fashioned card file. Each card shows a painting's gallery history and other info. When the painting is sold the card gets transferred to a 'sold' file. I've gone through periods of documenting works by photo as well, but these efforts tended to peter out for one reason or another. If I had it to do all over again I would have made an excellent slide or high resolution jpeg of everything but everything. At the present time, computerized systems such as Gallerysoft are becoming popular with some artists.

The acrylic struggle

I'm a painter and teacher and love both. I'm recently getting into acrylic, especially for
4th Street
oil painting on canvas
34 x 38 inches underpainting, but find it a somewhat vexing medium. The best thing about it is the worst thing about it. I'm wondering if you have any advice on using acrylics. My difficulties are in the paint drying too fast, drying a significant value darker, and storage of unused paint at the end of the day. Are there any books that helped you and any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated!

(RG note) Thanks, Alexander. Books that I currently recommend are:

Acrylic Painting: A Complete Guide by Wendon Blake,
An Introduction to Acrylics (DK Art School) by Ray Campbell Smith
The Acrylic Painter's Book of Styles & Techniques by Rachel Rubin Wolf
The North Light Book of Acrylic Painting Techniques by Earl Grenville Killeen. Also, any of Stephen Quiller's books on Acrylics are worthwhile.

The Golden website is a valuable source of knowledge. If you ask the Golden folks they'll send you 'Just Paint,' a periodical with up to date info. See also clickbacks such as: Golden Girl, Maxfield Parrish, Creativity Methods and others, findable by our search facility. A demo of my own acrylic technique can be seen in the Ramparts painting slide show.

Online gallery opportunities

What do you know about Saatchi Gallery and their efforts at online recruitment? I'm
Barry Kleider attaching a copy of their email below. I've received this same invitation several times--each from a different woman. And several of my friends have had the same experience.

(RG note) Thanks, Barry. It's an online gallery offered by one of the "enfant terrible" art collectors, Charles Saatchi, who happens to run a prestigious bricks-and-mortar gallery in the UK. We get lots of inquiries about this one, so they must be doing some marketing. The site is quite professionally done but I'm not sure if they have as many visitors as our Painter's Keys Artist Directory. You might give it a try and let us know if it is useful to you.

Mentors and mentoring

I would love to hear what you have to say on mentors and being mentored. I am 45 and started painting when I was 30. I have had some mild success, one-man shows and occasional sales. I work full time in the insurance industry and want to take my art to the next level. I've been blessed with great mentors early in my art days in California but now live in Chicago. I feel a real connectedness at times with other artists and I'm wondering how it equates to personal success.

(RG note) Thanks, Drew. Lately I've been reviewing my ideas about mentoring. Perhaps it's best if potential mentees go out and grab onto others that they truly admire. Asking specific questions and getting into the space of the mentor may be valuable. But too much mentoring creates dependency and diminishes precious ego-force. You have to feel when it's right for you to paddle your own canoe. The best thing a mentor can teach is "rugged individualism." Some useful stuff on this site is at:

Secrets of mentoring
Turning pro
Art director
Two guys in the same boat

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