The Art Spirit

The Art Spirit

by Robert Henri

I started off my vacation finding this book at a used book store the first day.

It is a book written in 1923 by American Artist, Robert Henri.

It embodies the entire system of his teaching,

plus inspiration for those to whom

the happiness to be found through all the arts is important."There are Moments in our lives....

There are Moments in our days....

when we seem to see beyond the usual - become clairvoyant.

We reach then into reality.

Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom.

At such times there is a SONG going on within us,

as SONG to which we listen.

It fills us with SURPRISE.

We marvel at it.

We would continue to hear it.

But few are capable of holding themselves in the state of listening to their own SONG.

Intellectuality steps in and as the SONG within us is of the utmost sensitiveness,

it retires in the presence of the cold, material intellect.

We fall back and become our ordinary selves.

Yet we live in the memory of these SONGS

which in moments of intellectual inadvertence have been possible to us.

They are the pinnacles of our experience

and it is the desire to express these intimate sensations,

THIS SONG FROM WITHIN, WHICH MOTIVATES

THE MASTERS OF ALL ART."

Robert Henri

Here are just a few of the things

I've been working on down in Pacific Grove.

Here at Ford Ord State Park
just north of the Monterey area I decided to set up.

The weather held up nicely,

only at the end (about an hour)

I was having to hold onto everything as the winds picked up.

Second day I set up at

Lover's Point in Pacific Grove

....it was cold, and cloudy and a little windy...but I worked for 2 hours.I also took photos and uploaded them to my laptop and then painted from some of those.

Below you can see the upclose painting of the Gerber daisy in the vase.

Then...I spent about an hour on
painting the flowers I bought at the farmer's market in town.

Flower Market Find

6" x 8" oil


I really enjoyed this one

as I was very happy with

the pitcher and and the lighting.

More to Come!

"Look for what you love...

Try to capture it...

Anywhere - Everywhere

Learn to see...

To understand...

ENJOY!"

Robert Henri

FreshBrain Mural

Here is my little video of the

Making of the FreshBrain Mural!

(click on it to watch)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG5tZB7DAJk

I had a lot of fun over approximately 40 hours hangin' out at FreshBrain!

I was literally like a "fly on the wall" getting to be a part of the office.

Mother's Day Rocked... and Roses

Painting....the freedom to paint just for fun about a subject I love...roses and my boys
Picnic...a park filled with roses and people enjoying the gorgeous day
Perfect Movie...a fun, entertaining movie we all loved
Mother's Day Rocked!

I had an awesome Mother's Day! I woke up early - 7am and decided since no one was up...I would paint something. The boys had given me some flowers that were delivered on Friday. They were beautiful roses...so I took them out the the Art Cottage and thought about how to paint them. I decided to set up a still life in honor of Mother's Day. What did I have to set up with the roses that would speak Mother's Day to me? I found my statue I had that reminded me of my boys. Okay..now I wanted to give it a "blue" feel since the vase, flowers and "boys" have an underlying "blue" tone...so I used my blue paint shirt to cover the stand for the statue. I then took my camera and took several photos of the setting to see if I could find a composition I liked. The sunlight was streaming in at this early morning hour. So I set off to paint.

I decided to sketch with paint and not draw with pencil.

And wahlah...3 hours later the boys came in to say they were all ready for our picnic.

(my husband is one of "the boys"....actually he is the best boy at heart!) All I did was hop in the car and off we went to the Rose Garden in Santa Clara. They had brought yummy cheeses, salami and crackers, grapes, drinks and chairs. We all really enjoyed the beautiful day and gorgeous roses.

It was fun checking out the varieties they had there. The boys got a lesson in the differences between a "hybrid tea", a "grandiflora" and a "florabunda" rose.

They were surprised they found it interesting.

After the rose education...we headed off to see "Star Trek" the movie.

Woo wee that was a great treat.

We all enjoyed that movie.

What a perfect movie to watch with your teenage sons on mother's day.






I'm One Lucky Girl!