Focus for Results

 January, 19, 2010

    Here are the first four paintings of England……the last one, England # 4 is just a color layout and will take more work to complete. Just thought you would like to see these as I paint them.

England # 1, New Forest 8 x 10 Oil	England # 2, Winter Solstice Sun 9 x 12 Oil
England # 3, Beach Huts 12 x 16 Oil	England # 4, Customs Buildings 9 x 12 Oil

It’s all about FOCUS.

    Without focus in our lives we drift – maybe even to places we should not go. I think we all suffer this threat – I know artists are not the only ones – but the art of focusing is elusive and difficult to maintain (pun intended).  Companies, individuals, families, groups, countries, organizations succeed or fail if they loose track of their focus or maybe they just never had any focus, just scattered ideas without goals. My dialog about New Years Resolutions continues, but it’s not just about making lists. First you have to analyze yourself (or company etc) admitting where correction, growth or education must take place. Then and only then can you set appropriate goals which will need sets of steps with which to bring the goals into focus.

    Humans find difficulty being humble, dislike admitting faults and have trouble knowing what they should improve or change because they are in self denial. For artists, this self analysis can become debilitating. Every painting you do reveals your very soul, with all of its faults, aspirations, insecurities and hopes. When we share our work with others, we reveal our failings to the world. What other profession reveals so much of the individual? But to grow, we must reveal our weaknesses. Okay, so now you have revealed yourself and it becomes obvious (if you have the audacity to admit it) where you need improvement. Now you are ready for goal setting. You make a list of your goals, but without a focused set of steps to reach those goals, you will never accomplish what you set out to do. It’s all about FOCUS. Do you know where to focus for success?   Here follows my tale of loosing focus – a very recent and eye-opening event.

    Regularly, I flip-flop back and forth from feeling confident to uncomfortable about my painting skills and development. In the past, I jumped right in knowing that no matter how badly I painted today, progress came regularly and over the period of a year I grew considerably. Sometimes I even felt like a by-stander, anxious to see what growth would occur. Now it seems the steps are smaller and definitely harder to make. Or are they? Was I in a state of denial before and therefore took no responsibility for my own growth? This summer I awoke to a serious need for artistic improvement and instantly understood that, to do so, I would have to buck-up in the self analysis department. I could then see where my concentrated efforts should be placed. But this was all too vague to actually accomplish. I kept loosing sight and reverting back to previous approaches to painting. In the middle of all of this I took a workshop with Scott Christensen and suddenly I understood where to begin. You can read about my right brain/left brain awareness in past blogs and e-Newsletters. Now my course was set – no guarantees that my discovery would lead to improvement, but I now had real work to do – in other words a focused set of steps I needed to pass through to attain my intended goal. 

    Last week, as I knew I would, I got bored with painting scenes of England consecutively. So one late afternoon I grabbed this already laid out complex scene of a waterfall, rocks and green leaves…..Feeling confident from 3 quick paintings of England, I began to fully engage myself in the new painting. Soon, evening duties called and I left the studio.

 

On the Easel Breck Falls 20 x 24 Oil

   Many days later with household chores competing for studio time, my right brain dreaming about an exciting up-coming trip, and my left brain planning re-organization of my entire life, I returned to the studio and continued to work on this painting. I painted by rote – right brain not fully engaged and the left brain completely somewhere else. I had lost focus, forgotten my goals and my need for right/left brain communications. The result was awful.  I learned a valuable lesson. Studio time takes total concentration if I want to succeed. Without focus you will find failure regardless of your list or set of goals. You probably already guessed correctly about my failure, why didn’t I acknowledge that and spend time refocusing first? 

 

On the Easel Breck Falls 20 x 24 Oil

Okay so it isn’t as bad as you thought it would be. But look carefully. The distant leaf forms and rocks are suggested only, appropriately colored for distant objects and understood – these I painted the first day while in focus and control. But the middle ground is too tight, too complex, too cool in hue and generally lacking in understandable placement and purpose. I have the answers, thank heavens, so watch for progress once my two brains return to communication.

    I am human, I make mistakes, I fail and I forgive myself. But, if I can keep myself focused, I will eventually light the fire. 

    Thanks to you, my faithful readers for allowing me to carry on writing from the heart. Hang out on my web site for a while and return often as I always have new paintings to share. Please sign up for my Email Newsletter which comes out monthly, or so. 

    Thanks for your strong support and interest. Without you, I would loose sight of my goals and my focus would fade away.

 Cheers!

 Ginger

 

new year’s resolutions 2010

 January 4, 2010

    We arrived home safely from our journey to the UK just before New Year’s Eve and on January 1, 2010 I opened my studio door and stepped in to re-introduce myself to this delightful space. I’ve a head full of ideas for paintings; thoughts on new direction and growth begin to set up in my mind and I am anxious to get to work. But first, I needed to write down my ‘resolutions’ to help bring my ideas into focus.

   Last year I dutifully wrote my resolutions, kept them at the forefront of my thoughts for a few months, moved them around my studio and home trying to find the optimal location for them to remind me daily and finally they landed in my “to do” pile all but forgotten. As I began to write my resolutions for 2010, I found them sounding rather familiar. I located last year’s list and, with satisfaction and relief, re-hung the old list now the worse for wear from abuse.  Recycled Resolutions! Hummm…..Does that constitute going GREEN?  Never-the-less, my search for renewal and growth remains intact and un-tarnished.

 

2009/2010 New Year’s Resolutions!

  The United Kingdom! We were exceedingly lucky. Though very cold and damp, the Southwest Coast was mostly sunny while London and the rest of the country succumbed to seriously cold temperatures and SNOW. Roads were closed, stranded vehicles clogged major motorways, non-functioning trains held passengers captive in the tunnel to France and most of the country ground to a halt. We, on the other hand, walked in the New Forest and along the pebble beaches, took the ferry to the Isle of Wight for a delightful day of hiking, found numerous warm and welcoming pubs and celebrated in typical English fashion! The second week or our trip involved driving into the Cotswolds from the South – a journey of about 90 miles – which took 4 hours or more and the remainder of our stay included the occasional snow shower, icy roads and frost on our breath.

 

On the coast near Lymington, England – 12/17/2009

We walked along the beaches, around the harbors, over bluffs, into small villages and to the pubs. Each day presented scenes such as this, with a John Constable sky and many shades of green. 

 

 

John Constable 1776 – 1837 English Harwick Lighthouse

John Constable’s paintings of England with building cloud forms have always amused me. Many times I have witnessed these clouds myself and I find them fascinating.   I’ll have to work hard to compete with his representation!

 

 

Driving north into the Midlands of England – 12/22/2009

If you are from my home in Colorado, this just doesn’t look like a lot of snow – why such public disruption? But remember: few folks own 4 wheel drive cars, no snow plows clear the roads, temperatures hover at freezing for days creating icy fog AND the sun doesn’t rise until 8 am sets about 3:30 pm and usually hides low in the sky behind clouds – now you begin to get the picture.

   I take hundreds of photos on our once or twice a year travels to Europe, but find paintings of these delightful scenes difficult to sell. Consequentially, you’ll find few European scenes in my portfolio. This time though, while the images are fresh in my mind, I plan on swiftly painting a chronological series of small paintings from our trip. I’ll continue to work on other paintings too, but if you follow along on this blog, you will see England in perhaps as many as 20 paintings. Enjoy and give me you comments please. 

   I’ll keep this blog short – I’m very anxious to return to the studio so spending any more time at the computer would be wasteful. Thanks for understanding my haste and my absence.

    Thanks to you, my blog visitors, for traveling with me as I banter away. Hang out on my web site for a while and return often as I always have new paintings to share. Please sign up for my Email Newsletter which comes out monthly, or so. 

    Thanks for your strong support and interest. Without you, I would loose sight of my goals and failure would greet me around every corner.

 Cheerio!

 Ginger