Good, Bad, and Ugly

I haven't been painting recently and thusly not posting here. That's the bad.

The good news is Travel Alberta emailed me asking if they can use some of my flickr pictures in their online magazine City Spice. They're going to compensate me with MEC gift certificates. Sweet!

The ugly is my plan to try out the recently discovered time lapse photo feature on Jackie's camera and record a painting session. The lawn needs mowing firstly so hopefully i can get to painting thereafter tonight.

Malaise

The previous post was a speech i gave at Toastmasters. When i did a rehearsal for Jackie, she didn't like it because she says my time management skills suck. It's more like, sometimes i don't feel like doin' stuff. The Toastmasters club seemed to like the speech though.

I think the really true thing from that speech is that you're not going to be world class at something unless you do it full time. Laziness and what i called "lifestyle" eat up too much of the rest of the day.

The art auction is over. The unsold pieces just have to picked up along with the cabbage and write a cheque to the Alberta Cancer Foundation. So i haven't been as inspired to paint.

Sometimes i wonder if i procrastinate doin' stuff because i don't have much to do? That does sound crazy. I wonder if dr. Phil knows what that's about?

Maybe laziness is a function of nutrition? Yesterday i only had a couple packets of instant oatmeal. That probably reduces the old metabolism to that of a hibernating bear.

Maybe i need to set up a reward for achieving some targets? That does sound childish. I'll run it by Jackie Chan and see what she thinks. Better pick up a basket of apples on the way home tonight too.

Paradigm Shift Required

In Malcolm Gladwell's new book "Outliers" he examines the difference between talented piano players and merely competent students. The explanation is extraordinary players are not in fact "gifted" but have practiced much more. He asserts, 10,000 hours of polishing is required to shine in your chosen field. He gives several more examples of people who've spent 10k honing their skills. You can probably think of some as well, like Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky, Paul McCartney....

10,000 hours is Wow!!! That's 3 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 10 years!

My question is, does a balanced lifestyle including, career, exercise, walking the dogs, charity, gardening, friends, family, and most importantly spending time with my wife, mean i can never be more than a jack of all trades concerning my passions of real estate investing, photography, and painting?

If the hours in the day that remain after the balanced lifestyle is my spare time, are there 9 hours a day to devote to 3 hobbies? Maybe if i don't sleep.

If i want to keep all three hobbies, I'm going to have to compromise on the hours in the day devoted to each field. This is the frustrating conclusion. It's frustrating because i know i'd be much better at any of the three things if i wasn't spending time on the other two.

Lately i've been spending more time painting. The reason is to replace works that are selling in the silent auction to raise money for the Alberta Cancer Foundation. Since i've been painting more, it's obvious my skill is improving. I'm over the moon that my painting is better. It's tremendously rewarding, and yet the exciting part is i haven't even made a dent in 10,000 hours of painting. I can't imagine what my artwork will look like in 10 years.

But of course, because i've been painting more, i've been shooting less. That means my photography portfolio isn't growing, and that income stream isn't growing. Income aside, as a photographer, i'm also stagnating. New lighting techniques, compositions, equipment and special effects aren't being mastered. A growing, yet neglected list of people who want to be shot is frustrating.

What If i spent more time looking for great real estate deals? What would that mean? Probably i'd find more sweetheart deals. Looking for and analyzing deals is something i really enjoy, and besides the fun aspect, there are pretty big kickbacks that are hard to ignore.

One creative option, might be to focus exclusively on buying real estate and retire early, and thereafter shoot and paint to my hearts content. If gardening and watching hockey are sacrificed now, the timeline to retire could be even shorter. If i stopped wasting time walking to work and stayed awake longer drinking espresso coffee every night, who knows how short i could make that timeline to retire and start painting? On the other hand, maybe after 10 years of no gardening, no hockey, no walking and staying up late drinking espresso, i won't feel like painting. Maybe i'll just feel like sleeping?

Currently i'm prioritizing the balanced life, and all three pastimes. It may be impossible to achieve 10,000 hours in 10 years for any hobby by keeping all three, but hopefully i can find happiness long before shining in my field. Perhaps all i really need, instead of an extra 6 hours in the day, is a paradigm shift. To focus attention on the joy i've found in the first few hundred hours investing, shooting and painting, and not how very far i am from being 10 years older.

Carabao

I feel like i had a pretty productive weekend, painting-wise. The weather was crap, so it's an easy decision to stay indoors. And we didn't have any pressing business to take care of, so painting was at the top of the agenda.

I'm feeling more and more confident with my ability to control the paint and my results. I used to be under the impression that if something initially didn't look just right, it was a lost cause and overworking the paper and paint made just an ugly mess. Now i'm realizing how malleable the medium really is. I think making the concertive effort to paint is paying dividends.

Malcolm Gladwell asserts in his new book "Outliers" that mastery of a skill takes about 10,000 hours. He used an example of young piano players and differentiating between the ones who appeared to be truly gifted and those that were merely proficient. People assumed that a few players had a gift or genetic advantage over the proficient piano players, but further investigation reveals the "gifted" players had practiced much more than the others, at least 10,000 hours says Gladwell.

Jackie Chan asked me why i'd been making so many little paintings lately. I wanted some little ones in case people were starting their search at etsy.com with lower prices, and if i had offerings at those prices, it would at least get them into my shop and some exposure to the bigger higher priced paintings. The big painting alone in the shop wasn't getting any viewings. I also wanted to use the smaller ones to practice and quickly experiment with less paper expense.

Sunday i decided to make a big one because making larger paintings is quite different than how quickly little ones are done and i should also practice making the big ones.

I started by taping a 20 x 24 sheet of 140 lb Strathmore paper to my clip board. I used the brown gummed tape rather than the green painters tape because i tried to stretch the little sheets last week and they still buckled and waved when wet and later dried buckled when i used the green painters tape to stretch the paper. The little sheets were of only 90 lb paper stock so being lighter weight might have also limited the ability to resist waving. This big painting on 140 lb Stratmore paper didn't wave, so i'll have to try the brown gummed tape on the lighter paper to see if it's the paper or the tape that matters.
I made a rough sketch referring to a photo i took at the beginning of March of a carabao in the Philippines. I dived right in painting all the negative areas with black paint. My new confidence that i could re-shape it later no matter if i started with the light areas or the darks took the painting quickly to the tone i wanted it to be.

When i got to this point it was starting to become clear that i'd never be satisfied with a photo realistic "Robert Bateman" kinda painting, and that spending the hours necessary to paint each and every plant leaf wasn't how i wanted to paint either.

I used the cellophane film AGAIN, yes. But this time i think it was really appropriate because lying the film in the wet paint and then shaping the wrinkles to curve the way i want really resulted in a natural plant like impression.

It looks pretty much done to me, although i might thin the girl's snout and perhaps make the foreground rise again on the right? And sign it.

Yellow & Blue

I'm pretty happy with this painting. It's a 15x19 inch watercolor on 140 lb Strathmore cold pressed paper. It's mostly a happy accident because the process was not exactly as planned.

The paint mixing chart from the January 2nd blog entry was used as a reference to pick Cotman's lemon yellow and intense blue. I used a dab of Cotman's cobalt blue here and there as well for variety. I'm very satisfied with the color of the painting so having the yellow and blue mixing chart was very useful. I should keep making these kind of charts for other combinations that may be used down the road.

My intention was to put down a big yellow area and then cover part of that area with wet blue and then lift vertical lines of that blue with a dry brush. The paint wasn't lifting very well. Maybe because the 140 lb Strathmore cold pressed paper has more texture and tooth than the smooth 5x7 inch sketch pad paper where i've tried with better success the lifting technique? More water was applied to try and unlock the stain in vertical lines, but this merely softened the line between where paint was and where it wasn't supposed to be. I wanted a more distinct border. So the whole painting was looking quite "soft" and i was disappointed. Then the "old crutch" cellophane wrap was laid on top of the wet mixture and wrinkles were purposefully made vertical. When that was dry, the painting was complete as it is now.

There was a bit of buckling in the paper and the paint pooled at the bottom of these waves. The wrap didn't touch the whole length of the paper because of the buckling. So if i try this one again, i'll make sure to stretch the paper using meat cutting tape to avoid the buckling. I may also try it again using hot pressed or smooth paper to see if the wet paint lifts more readily with a dry brush.

Old Style

I've been working on this pretty big painting for the last week. I've let it dry completely between layers of paint. Probably should have done many studies to figure out the colours before going ahead using a big sheet of 20 x 24 inch paper. Have been trying to adjust colours as it goes.

Part of what's bugging me is that i'm not sure how abstract it is. Of course i know what it is and the repetitive shapes should be matching if it was realistic. Maybe it wouldn't matter so much if it was a much looser style.

Even though i'm not exactly happy with it yet, i'm pleased i've been able to control the paint much more than i could even just a short while ago. I feel my technique is much stronger and less reliant on happy accidents.

Taking pictures and looking at it here has also given me a new prospective and a few of the problems with this painting are much clearer. I'm still optimistic going forward.

Rothko Homage

I was watching mtv's cribs on the weekend and Tricia Helfer's home was featured. She breezed by a fantastic painting referring to it as her Rothko. After a little bit of internet research, i have a brand new addition to my list of fave artists.

I love the way i react to Rothko's colours and their layers emotionally even though they don't necessarily evoke memories, deep thoughts or anything in particular. The don't require interpretation, they just evoke emotion.

I wouldn't consider my attempt entirely successful. Partly because of suspect technique and also because of my struggles with colours. How is it possible to be affected by colours but unable recreate them? I suspect i need to be patient and apply many layers. And also try to avoid muddling them somewhere along the way.

I started my painting on a sheet of Strathmore cold pressed 140 lb paper, running a Chinese mop brush all around the outside border wetting the paper about an inch wide all around the outside of the sheet. Then with another brush, undiluted pale cadmium red was added to the wet area, but only on the outside centimetre of the inch wide border. At this point the trouble with watercolour began. The edges of my sheet curled up and because my wet border was so wet, the water ran from the curled up edge to the middle of the sheet. Lesson: try to pre-wet the border evenly so water isn't pooling. Make sure the paper has soaked up the water.

I also thought that using paper that is stretched would keep it from curling and buckling from being wet. So i started another version that i'd complete in parallel. The second version being done on the top sheet of a watercolor block of Arches 140 lb paper. Again the outside border of the paper was wetted about an inch wide. And again the pale cad red was added to the wetted border undiluted. This block of stretched paper didn't allow the wet paper to buckle and the paint didn't run outside of where i wanted it. I waited overnight for both sheets to dry.

I used the same technique to apply the rectangles as was used for pale cad red border. I decided to make the yellow rectangle 1/3 of the sheet of paper, based solely on the rule of thirds, though i doubt Rothko ever used a principal so unnaturally. The paper was wetted and then lemon and cadmium yellow was mixed and applied to the wet rectangle undiluted.

On the Rothko painting i was referencing, the pink rectangle looked like it was about half the sheet, but not quite. I didn't want to risk cutting the sheet in half, so decided to make the pink area 2/5 of the sheet instead of closer to half. The 2/5 area was wetted and then an undiluted mixture of Indian red and Chinese white was applied to the wet paper. This layer was very transparent and looked more brown than pink, so an undiluted mix of cad red and Chinese white was applied to that while the original layer was still wet.

The black strip on both sheets was made in the same way. A wet line was drawn across the paper with a big brush and then a smaller brush added undiluted ivory black. The undiluted paint diffused into the wet area.

When both sheets were dry, i re-did the pale cad red border on both paintings.

I like both paintings, but not for the same reason i like Rothko's. So that's why i can't consider the exercise entirely successful. The runs and squiggles that resulted from loose watercolour technique are interesting and will probably beg the viewer to "interpret" them as if they were purposeful. They look like landscapes to me. I want the colours to be something more than they are here. Next time i'll go slower and apply multiple layers.