influence, inspiration, imitation

Last winter, when I was in Philadelphia, I was thrilled to happen upon the colossal "Van Gogh Up Close"  show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I love van Gogh, and his strokes of color on the canvas inspire and excite me. While listening to the recorded narration of the exhibit,  I heard this memorable description:

 "Van Gogh paints the landscape with the knowledge that he is 

painting the skin of a living and breathing dragon."

This summer, during my week with Marj Lightle and Dori Dewberry, we looked at the work of Canadian landscape artist Tom Thompson in many books I have in my studio. Tom Thomson: The Silence and the Storm is a beautiful book, filled with photographs of Thomson's paintings, and is still available through Amazon and other booksellers. The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson is another great resource for works done by this pioneering group.

For the last year or so, the dazzling work of these artists has rolled around in my imagination. In the painting above, you see some of my thoughts turned into action. How will I divide the landscape shapes into interlocking and interesting pieces? What will happen if I lay color in with short, directional strokes?

Both Marj and Dori did paintings during their stay with me that showed these same influences. You can click here to see. 

Trying on ideas, each in our own way. Nodding to the masters of the past. Looking to create something of our own. It is all part of the process of art making.

Sort of like this video. Or, maybe not at all.

RUN DMC "Walk This Way."

All thumbs

My sketchbook is filled with words, sketches, notes from books, notes from classes and lectures, incidentals, ideas, feeling words, starts of poems, and thumbnails.

I've been following blogger Barbara Newton and her exploration and use of thumbnails as a part of her painting process. You can read about her thumbs here.

Loriann Signori uses thumbnails regularly, but lately in a new way as she explores memory work. See her thumbs here.

I like the brevity of thumbnails. By necessity they have just enough information about the shapes and value to give a good idea about what's going on in a scene. In my thumbnails above, I have done many of them from life, but several of them from photographs. Photos can lead me astray with all of their precise information, but I'm beginning to try on the idea that I can reduce a photo to a thumbnail and then paint from my thumbnail to become a more expressive and painterly painter. We'll see.

Ideas are like shoes. Until you try them on and walk around in them for a bit, you don't know if you should buy them and take them home.

Do you use thumbnail sketches?