Another New Adventure

  What excitement, to see a new path on this fun journey. I have considered, taking too many new directions could become overwhelming, but as I have followed other artist they lead me to believe that using your same creative hunger and applying it to different medium will only cause growth in one’s creative vision.  As a person who started over 30 years ago as a oil canvas painter and finally moving out to watercolors, I began to feel some reassurance that my love art was part of God’s plan so as to cause others to pause and stop and see the wonder in the simplest of His creation. The medium really wasn't the drawing power to the creative process. Rather each medium had its own characteristic in which to pull out some different or new aspect thus testifying to some part of Gods identity.  

Today I see that using any and all mediums is a great way to broaden your understanding of all aspects of color theory, design and perspective. It allows me additional tools to express the feelings of what drove  me to pause and notice some new wonder in nature. It seems to me that each medium have its own revealing quality.

I have played with charcoal and pen and ink and fell in love with the simplified means of reinforcing my understanding of value and center of interest. Value I have come to suspect is the backbone of all art. My own creative journey did not begin as many others. That is in mastering some amount of drawing. I have ventured in to the drawing world just enough to get something on a canvas but had not pursed the love of just drawing alone. The experience of charcoals and pen and ink was very eye opening. 

I think I have mentioned before that I had begun art journey in the Decorative Art world. I had wonderful teachers who gave me a great background of color, value, and intensity, This was extremely useful but the drawing aspect of art was not apart of the overall art experience process. In defense of the Decorative Art filed, I will say for many who have deep down a hidden hunger to paint but feel it almost unattainable because of the slow tedious work of hours of drawing just to begin to come out with a usable hand painted item that can be place in your home was overwhelming. 

Within this field a person can see the work of a teacher  and attend her class which provides the pattern and step by step instruction allowed a person to come to a four or six hour class and come home with a beautiful addition to their home. With a relatively small amount of time they can produce some very satisfying pieces of art. The down side is they must rely on teachers to start the creative journey as felt from the individual teacher. All of this was to say I felt I knew how to paint, some might even say I might even have a some talent but I didn't feel the part of an artist. To describe the meaning of an artist of course is near impossible but to answer someone’s question of "are you an artist" would always cause me to dance around this question with things like yes I love to paint or some other low key answer. To be truthful, which is what I was after, I didn't feel like a true artist.

But this venture into new mediums has built some reassurance in my having the dedication and hunger to be a true artist.  As I began to realize the benefit going into new directions I was suddenly exposed to drawing as a stand alone art piece. I also began to learn that drawing is like almost all of the other aspects I had dealt with in the art field and that is, its very learnable. By this I mean one doesn't have to be born with some kind of mysterious talent. 

I have found that what is required is a passion for freezing on paper or canvas beauty as I see it. So with some books and lesson I would surprise myself out of my chair to see I could begin to create works of art with just the power of my pencil. I am working with one fellow who does powerful landscape drawing suitable for framing. I have tried my hand at this and was just thrilled. This picture to the right is one of my first attempts at serious landscape drawing, and even though it is not finish I have learned so much and really enjoy this. To remove the powerful effect of color and now begin the process of developing a center of interest in value and composition is challenging but learn able. 

I have a passionate love of sunrises and sunsets. As I watched this fellow pick up these pieces of chalk and create some of the most beautiful sunsets on Mi Tense paper. I could feel the adrenaline rise in me. I knew I had some pastels tucked away in my work shop I had used in my scrapbooking and also had a good supply of the paper he was using. So I was drawn in to this new world that had a way of creating the peaceful almost romantic feel to nature. I was so excited that even at the late hour I had watched this You Tube video I had to see if it was as easy as this fellow made it look.  

It was just absolutely thrilling. I love it because of the softness but also a piece can be completed in a couple of hours. The fun is learning the little fundamentals needed to understand the power and weakness of this medium. I feel all mediums have some kind of weakness but each also has it own strength and at times I find at times you can create even more excitement, intermingling different medium. I believe my new rule is "Whatever medium of conventional and unconventional tool it takes to express what I feel, or the mood I want to capture will be employed".

I feel this creative journey is about to take a sharp turn and if it be the will of God and his guidance as to what he wants me to share in my art will have some heavenly purpose.

The first pastel I did was with a online video. It was made by a fellow named Les Darlow.  I loved it and the possibly of sharing the wonder of nightly sunsets shared from the creator himself.

This video open a whole new way of expressing my passion for nature and landscape. But oh my goodness, I found so many more to wet my senses.


I began to go from one pastel artist to another and I believe I will find my own style. I have branched out to a tempt may of my sunrise and sunset photos. I have hundreds you know. My little dog and I would go out each evening at sunset and see what surprise God had painted that night. I am a retired bus driver and my driving friends gave me the title of Cloud watcher for I posted many days a week a daily sunrise.


If you have seen my creative journey you know I took a break from art and enjoyed scrapbooking for a while. So I began a scrapbook I call the 50 state book. I have been in all but 1 of the 50 states and I want to scrap a highlight of each state. Now these pastels are so much fun and take little time to create so it might be fun to add some of my art to this book and do a little pastel of each state. I began just where I was in the scrapbook. It was in the South Dakota which was not one of my favorite states but its history gave it high marks so my choice for this states was a sunset on the Missouri River, a place that you could maybe hear the sound of rowing of the Lewis and Clark who was also making a unknown journey. The painting was a lot of fun.

This last painting was part of a Christmas present for my friend. She had just return from a vacation in Florida and she loves to walk the beaches nightly and photo the sunset. This picture is one of five in a frame of several of the photos she shared with me. I was so exited and not sure where or what is next but I have purchased a better set of pastels and ready to stretch out in this new medium. I would love to do flowers and animals.

The moral of the story is there is nothing like adventure and new mediums and new subjects tho keep life exciting.




So just as a person takes off to hike a new unknown trail or path, you are unsure of the twist and turns that will come along but you want the journey to be eye opening and exciting.