gail sibley

 

DAILY PAINTING

 

Earlier this year, I went to Sedona to take a class from an artist I have admired for a long time – Carol Marine.  It was from reading Carol’s blog that I first learnt about the notion of creating a small daily painting, that’s a small painting every day – not as easy as you might think! It’s a really great practice – you can learn soooo much! – and I have at times got into a run of doing them and loving it but something changes in life and the rhythm is broken and poof, no more daily painting! I have a great admiration for those artists who can produce one of these small paintings everyday as well as work on the big stuff. I am trying to get back to it, often recording the process to make videos. I am working on one now and should have it uploaded to YouTube within a few days. I’ll let you now.

 

Anyway, while in Sedona, I had one afternoon when I had some time to paint en plein air. I didn’t have to go far. We were surrounded by the glorious red rocks of the area and so, I set up right outside our classroom. Sticking with the daily painting size, I produced two small pastels of the same subject. As I painted the first one, naturally the light changed. And as the light changed, so did the values. And so I was drawn into pastelling a second version.

 

 

 

Just so you know I really have gotten into the daily painting thing once in a while, you can see a number of them at Gallery 8 on Salt Spring Island, either in person or online.

 

SEEING

 

In August I wrote a blog about the preciousness of eyesight and today I am reminded of that fact as it’s World Sight Day (who knew there was such a thing?) – a day to be celebrated by everyone who is lucky enough to have eyesight. I think artists should be particularly thankful.

 

Here are a few quotes about Seeing. Which is your favourite?

1. “What is art but a way of seeing?”

-Thomas Berger

2. “One looks, looks long, and the world comes in”

– Joseph Campbell

3. “One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, ‘What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?'”

-Rachel Carson

4. “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”

-Edgar Degas

5. “Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see.”

-Paul Klee

6. “It is our function as artists to make the spectator see the world our way – not his way.”

Mark Rothko

7. “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

-Anais Nin

8. “On the face of it, the easiest of all activities should be seeing what we see. In reality, it’s the hardest.”

-Charles Movalli

9. “Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”

Georgia O’Keeffe

10. “Seeing is a gift that comes with practice.”

-Stephanie Mills

11. “The soul is content to stay imprisoned in the human body… for through the eyes all the various things of nature are represented to the soul.”

Leonardo da Vinci

12. “No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.”

Oscar Wilde

 

Today, when you are out and about and something catches your eye, in the words of Rothko, ask yourself, “What do you see?”

 

Here’s to seeing ….and daily painting 🙂

 

~ Gail