Not really the promised goods...

Another painting to post. As the title mentions, this is not really the promised fruit of artistic thinking. But to be fair I started this one a long time ago. Im personally quite pleased to have it finished so I can clear my plate and start fresh in a new direction. Not that Im not happy with this work, I am. Finally. Its been a little rotter. But its done and Im happy. Like someone once told me, portraiture is a picutre of someone with something wrong with the mouth...or something like that. Yep, I think that holds here. But Ive worked at this sucker until I pulled out what I think I am able to pull out at this stage. Its a good thing to know when to put down the paint brush. This is Minette, my lovely daughter.

Lets get interesting...

So, Ive been thinking (always dangerous) and well, I think its time to start some sort of cohesive relationship between this art gift I have, and the journey of my heart. So far I have generally painted within fairly safe, straight lines of predictability.  Thats not really thinking too creatively...I see something that appeals to me, I paint it. While its kind of honourable I guess to be attempting to replicate beauty; if thats my only aim I think I am already outdone by a thousand artists before me and indeed by God himself. And whilst replicating beauty demands a fairly whopping dose of skill and patience, it lacks somewhat on the side of meaning, unless I am satisified with beauty being an end in itself. I guess it is; and I will sometime just paint beauty. But there is another level which I have hesitated to go into because its risky...that is that I begin to put my heart on a canvas...what I not on see with my eyes, but what I perceive in my soul. The anguish as well as the beauty; the journey, the search, the heartache. There's a lot more to me, and the observations I make of the world, of life, and God, than just painting a painting for the sake of painting it. I am boring myself with the boundary Ive been contented to paint within. I hereby open myself to the danger of critisicm and condemnation (be it all in my own mind!) and begin to think (and then hopefully produce artwork) in a new direction. Im more interested in my art career already!

  Before I get to that, I do have a couple of paintings in the "previous category" to submit here. May the beauty of scenes etc that I continue to paint,  be a refreshing interlude to the paintings of great meaning I intend to create from here on in!

Here's to thinking like an artist!