Heavenleigh Art: September 2010

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Fossils

Fossils 1 - 3

mixed media

on 4"x4"x1-3/8" wrapped canvas

Many years ago, when I was very young, I used to take road trips across the U.S. and Canada with my parents. On one trip we went to the Pacific Northwest, where I was amazed to learn that there was a place called the Yakima Desert in Washington State. Yes, there is a desert in Washington!

thunder egg agate

Here's the thunder egg agate I bought in the souvenir shop at the time. I've always loved how the agate looks like a maple leaf with a seascape inside. Nature never ceases to amaze me.

The poetry of the earth

is never dead.

~ John Keats

So it made perfect sense when these three little canvases I've been working on turned into fossil paintings.

click to enlarge

It almost felt like a fossil hunt when I painted them, too. I applied layer after layer, wiped away paint here and there, until the fossil images emerged.

Adopt the pace of nature:

her secret is patience.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I gently wiped the layers of paint so much, the result is a burnished look I've never seen in one of my paintings before.

Fossil mixed media painting (detail)

Can you see the texture? I don't know if I'll ever be able to duplicate this method again. Maybe these will just be three unique little paintings, pale imitations of the fossils they represent.

In wilderness

I sense the miracle of life,

and behind it

our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia.

~ Charles A. Lindbergh

Monday, September 20, 2010

International Day of Peace

Did you know that tomorrow, September 21, is the International Day of Peace? The first Peace Day was celebrated in September, 1981, and in 2002 the United Nations officially declared that September 21 would be the permanent date for the International Day of Peace.

For more information, please visit the United Nations here.

Peace cannot be kept by force;

it can only be achieved by understanding.

~ Albert Einstein

I also found this perfect 3-minute video at Fragments Treasures Memory, a wonderful blog by Robyn in Australia. If everyone had to see this video, maybe we would come closer to understanding each other better, and maybe peace would actually be a possibility someday.

For more information about the Miniature Earth, please visit their website here.

You may say I'm a dreamer

but I'm not the only one.

I hope someday you will join us

and the world will be as one.

~ John Lennon

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Interior landscapes

I came across this quote recently, and it really made me stop and think.

Excellence can be obtained

if you:

care

more than others think is wise.

risk

more than others think is safe

dream

more than others think is practical

expect

more than others think is possible.

~ author unknown,

(although I suspect it may be the words of some motivational speaker)

:0)

I'm more than happy to let go of striving for perfection. I'm certainly never going to do most things perfectly. Perfection is so subjective anyway. But excellence. That's something else. That's something I can work toward in life and art.

I already care, dream and expect a great deal, for myself and others. But risk - that's a tough one. When I started blogging, I think I really began to open up to risk more than ever before. I put my ideas and art out there, for better or worse, for all to see. So, yeah, I'm taking more and more risks, trying ever-more new things.

Spreading my wings. I'm even back on facebook.

When I started working on these three 4"x4" canvases, I thought it would be easy to quickly paint something on them and move on to something else.

Ha!

These little canvases had other ideas.

Interior Landscapes

textured abstracts

acrylic, found papers, oil pastel

on 4"x4"x1-3/8" wrapped canvas

For weeks, I kept returning to them.. Tweaking this. Covering up that. Trying something else.

But, man, did I learn things!

During the process, I found this quote:

We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence, then,

is not an act,

but a habit.

~ Aristotle

(384 BC – 322 BC)

This is why I love quotes! I know some people don't like them, but I really, really do. When you find the right quote, at the right time, you know you're not alone. You don't have to recreate the wheel. Someone else has put your feelings into the right words for you already. You can say "YES!" or "AH HA!" and move on, knowing there are others out there who have felt and still feel just like you do.