I'll Need Several Couches, Maybe Dozens.

Can I ask you a personal question? What do you have hanging over your living room couch? I have my great grandmother's large hand stitched filet crochet piece depicting The Last Supper. (apologies for the terrible photography, my camera leaves something to be desired, for serious.)

Yes, it is an interesting conversation piece, to say the least. Normally I wouldn't have a religious artifact so centrally located in my home but this is a family heirloom and also incredibly beautiful and intricate. Also, I live in an apartment and unless I want to put it over my bed, I kind of don't have a large enough wall except above the sofa. So I was reflecting opon my lack of space as I was perusing the growing "Art file" on my macbook. A disturbing little thought formed...

Where the heck am I going to put all the art I want to own?

I can at least plan to sell some of the works I might create (assuming they're at all good). But I'm gonna need dozens of couches/sofas with space above them or several houses made up of just walls to display all the pieces I want. I have eclectic taste and I get distracted by shiny things easily. Ok, my friends are all laughing now. :o) If it's colorful and somehow speaks to me, I'm in love. The styles don't have to go together at all. I like both Worhol and Monet. What I have tried to do lately, though, is find pieces that might inspire me.

When I see color I gravitate to it like a moth to a flame. As I thumbed through Etsy.com I found fantastic artists. Some of them graciously gave permission for me to use their pictures here. This first painting is by Laura Barbosa and it's called "High Fashion". I think it's profoundly beautiful in it's intensity of pigmented color. I feel almost visually assaulted (in a very good way) as I gaze at it. I want my work to have boldness of color.

The next painter I also came across on Etsy. Matt has a shop here, check out his full collection. This tryptic, called "Magic Night", is painted in acrylic.  I love that I feel like I could go walking in the field and experience the unusual colored hills and roiling sky. It feels like a kaleidoscope world. I look at the clouds and want my paintings to have that fluid motion. To me, it looks like the sky is always moving. I love that about this picture.

I seem to be most attracted to abstract art that reminds me tangentially of nature. I think I like the mystery of it, that I'm not sure the artist meant to suggest that this is a rock and that is a flower. This abstract is called "Chen Q1", it's and oil on canvas. I found it in Horchow's art department. Sometimes when I look at it I think I see a coming storm with blue water spilling over the rocks toward a lonely old boat in the foreground. Other times I see a sunny day with a dead tree trunk to the left of a red dirt road flowing into the distance. It makes me want to walk in its grass, follow that road or sit in that old boat. I hope my artwork will make people want to move into it that way.

For these next two paintings I, unfortunately, have no information about. My bad. :o( Before I started this blog I had been collecting art that inspired me for at least a year. I was just trying to learn what I responded to and what I did not. I never thought I would need the links etc so I just saved them to a private folder as jpegs. If anyone knows who the artists are who painted them I'd love to give credit. (I hope I haven't upset them by showing their beautiful work.)

I love, love, love this painting! The swirling, the saturation of color, oooh the sheer splendor that is laid down on canvas. Wow. If I could paint like this I'd be a happy person. I could follow those curls and swirls for hours. I feel like I want to run my fingers in it and if I could it would feel like hunereds of satin ribbons tangled up in a pile. I want my work to make viewers as blissful as this piece makes me.

Doesn't this remind you of those cancan skirts the dancing women wore in Moulin Rouge? Don't you just love the "fluffiness" of the paint? Somehow this also makes me think of rain, that and dragon's breath. Hey, don't ask me, I have no idea where these impressions come from, lol. I just lurrrve how it makes me feel. This seems to have so many layers of ideas on one canvas. Can I learn how to do that with brush & paint? I hope so. :o)
Oh, and there's no question that I'm inspired by the artistry of Shirley Schmidt. As I mentioned the other day, she will be giving me lessons in watercolors. Her paintings need no verbal embellishment, they speak beautifully for themselves. But let me say, I can't wait to learn how she makes flowers look so windswept, so natural. I'm not sure flowers will be where I land in the future but it certainly is a perfect place to start.

Finally, it would seem obvious that I am inspired by Katherine McLean's work. I guess you noticed the similar last name. :o) She's my aunt and I'm gleefully proud to be related to her, even if it is only by marriage. I'll take anything I can get. Here is one of her recent works in encaustic on panel. It's called "Roadside Fireweed". I think it is one of the most wondrous paintings I've seen in many years. She is immensely talented.

There are so many paintings I'd love to own but thankfully the ones that inspire  me to put down paint on paper seem to be naturally narrowing themselves. Whew! Thank God for that. I have no idea exactly where I will end up when I feel like an accomplished watercolorist but right now I'm beginning to guess that my paintings will include saturation of color and airy movement. I want to make people fall into my paintings. I guess I want to create magic. ;o)

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