This is an art test:

• Without thinking, clasp your hands together.  Which thumb is on top? 

• Hold a straight object ( like a pencil or paint brush handle) out at arm's length, upright and lined up on an object across the room.  Using both eyes, focus on the pencil and slowly pull it toward you until it's about a foot or less from your nose.  Now close each eye, one at a time and see which eye is dominant (with your dominant eye, the pencil does not move, with the other eye, the pencil will jump over a notch).

• Do you ever pick up a book or magazine and start thumbing through it backward, using your non-dominant hand?

• Have you ever considered yourself to be ambidextrous?

Actually this isn't an art test, but a creativity test to see how well your right and left brain hemispheres work together.  If you are more of a *mixed-hander* you noticed something odd in the above tests.  Do you write with your right hand, but your left thumb, your left eye, and your left hand thumbing through magazines backward all cropped up?  There's a possible explanation why and you can read about it here.

But this is only a test.  Just for fun.  If it were real... 

My thanks to ArtsJournal: Daily Arts News for the link in this article. 

One of my goals this year has been to be ruthless when it comes to evaluating my own work. 

It's not easy to evaluate accurately, or summon the courage to take a moderately successful painting and re-work it.  But that is my challenge.

In a previous post I talked about my thought process as I worked on the painting "Early Light."  I had been focused on issues in the middle ground around a center of interest.  When I finished the painting, I thought I had achieved the goals I'd set for myself, but after studying it for several days I concluded that the painting, while pleasant, did not communicate the experience that inspired it.

Early Light, First Version

There were several areas in the first version of Early Light that bothered me. 

I truly felt the line of yellow trees appeared staged - which of course they were. 

I also felt I'd not achieved sufficient light in my shadowed bank, and had not left enough *air* in the painting as the trees move back into the distance.  Some of my edges were not skillfully rendered, particularly  where the water meets the rocks.

There was not enough variety or unity in the trees or the foreground, in that some surfaces were very uniformly painted (something I'd intended but which didn't work) and the trees - well, there were some beautifully rendered trees in the first version, but your eye jumps from tree to tree and they were so perfect they could have been painted at a tree farm.  I wanted to convey the wildness of the area.  In the second version I think you take in "trees" in one glance - enough information to inform while allowing imagination to take it from there.

The painting over all was cooler than I wanted, a consequence of my inexperience in painting on a very warm ground, and I hadn't captured the sense of light visually the way I remembered it emotionally.  I tried warming the foreground, but as we learn one way or the other, once you start messin' with the color you're messin' with the entire painting.  No *just one bravura stroke* in my bag of tricks yet. 

Early Light Second Version

So this is what I ended up with, after moments of complete doubt about my decision to repaint, as well as confidence in my ability to *fix things.* 

But, after letting go of my apprehensions and believing in my ability to do what I intended,  I am much happier with the second version of this painting.  The color is warmer, more earthy.  The water and the rocks along the bank create a sense of solid ground, while the edges (lines) help move the eye back into the painting. You can see into the shadows to find suggested form.  I hope I've captured enough mystery and unpredictability now to engage the viewer.  But what to you think?

Okay, I admit it: I've tried to reinvent the wheel on more than one occasion.  Particularly when it comes to organizing the upcoming deadlines for submitting applications to juried shows or art associations I might be interested in joining. 

Last year I missed several important opportunities, so at the beginning of this year I came up with an elaborate system using one of those multi-pocket file folders plus a monthly calendar where I dutifully filed the applications and entered each date.  And then I stowed the file folder and calendar where they would be convenient and...

It's the out of sight, out of mind thing.

So, I've developed a new system.

It's called a clipboard.

And those little post-it flags. 

And a red pen.  

And a small nail where I can hang it up right where I can see it.

Now when I find something interesting on the internet I print it off and file it on my high-tech clipboard.  I list the date when the application is due on the post-it note and then put the applications in order.  

I am optimistic that this system will work better for me than the old system.

Progress.

Yes, sometimes it is hard to tell whether you are moving forward or backward.

But at this age, any movement is a good sign. 

I hope those of you in Central Oregon can drop by and join in the fun.  For more information please visit www.highdesertgallery.com. 

I thought I would give you a peek into my art studio as I work on a new painting.

I've planned carefully, doing my preliminary sketch in a moleskine sketch book so I'll know exactly what I want to do.  As I start painting, I remind myself to place single brush strokes over a warm toned ground.  (That's my reference photo at the bottom.)

I want to keep my palette organized - warm on one side, cool on the other.  Of course, as I need more colors I realize I can't fit them in the right order, so I revert to Plan B, which is to put the paint wherever I can find an open spot. 

Still under control, though.  This single brush mark seems tricky, but after a lot of work I'm starting to get the hang of it.  Oh yeah, that's g-o-o-o-o-d, I'm really on a roll here, yes-sir-eee.  I think I GOT that brush mark thing, except ...humm...something about it all being the same value.  Okay, we can deal with that.  But what about it being all the same color?  I was doing so well, really in the flow, that sky is pretty darn fantastic...

Okay...fine.  I'll scrape it all off, then will you be happy?  How could it have all gone so wrong?  Now I have to start all over, put out more paint, no, gotta wait for that surface to dry a bit or it will all go to the same color again.  And you know how I hate waiting...

okay, done waiting, putting on more paint how...eeegaad, it's worse!  What is happening to me...I'm melting...oh, sorry, that's from the Wizard of Oz, but something has happened to all my skills, maybe the studio gremlins threw invisible melting water on me or something....

Well, dang!  That wasn't so bad.  You just have to know what you're doing, and that takes ...oh, years of practice...that brush mark thing?  I got a handle on it.  I gave up on the brushes, you know, they were inhibiting my creative flow and all that, just took out my painting knives and went at it.  I felt the German Expressionists right there at my elbow the whole time...cool how that whole gestalt thing where dead artists from the past can put their influence into the ether and I can just, like, tap right into it and...it's an "over 50" thing.  Young artists can't tap into it.  Oh yeah, they'll just have to wait...a really l-o-o-o-o-g time.