Blog One - Getting Started

Out of the clear blue sky without much thought I decided on November 15th that I would try my hand at painting. I enjoyed drawing with pencils and a sketch pad from time to time but never painted. In fact, even as a child I never sat or stood in front of a easel with brushes. I have always gravitated to pencils and crayons. I consider myself fairly creative but I also believe we all have creativity that gets suppressed as we begin to age as evident by how many young children color, draw, invent, fantasize, paint and play with no limits. And how few us adults do...

Off to Michaels I went to pick up supplies to fulfil my sudden urge. I grabbed a three legged easel, a set of acrylic paint, a plastic flat pallet and a package of 10 brushes. Of course I needed a canvas to transfer the paint from their tubes and turn it into the visual Picasso for all to see. So I grabbed a 36x20 wood frame backed canvas and headed home. Why so large, I have no idea. No clue to what I was getting myself into.

I put together the easel and placed the canvas onto it and stared. It appeared to stare back almost as if it were taunting me by asking with a blankness 'now what?' I had absolutely no idea. The only thing that I knew was that I wanted to do this, probably needed to as well. Time for youtube.

As you read and follow along my journey chronicling my transformation from a man staring at a blank canvas to a man that wants to be an artist, you will find that there are no limitation outside of what's in our own minds. Yes there are some people that seemingly have a natural propensity to create beauty with seemingly ease. We have all heard many times throughout our lives, 'art is in the eye of the beholder.' I will add a quote from the longtime PBS painting genius, Bob Ross, 'you are an artist the second you put brush to canvas.' I hope this graphical path inspires and brings confidence to those that want to experience the same creativity and emotional connection to art that once existed in all of our 8 year old selves. You will laugh along side with me as I make happy little accidents because we all know there are no mistakes in painting. Oh, I am sure some of the artists out there in the world will laugh at me as I don't have an M FA and absolutely no significant experience to speak of. But if I can get people to laugh and smile even if it sometimes comes with a cringe, then I'm good.

My blog or whatever this is that I'm doing will surely be another trial with more error. Don't know if I will be consistent or my grammar any good but I will attempt to keep this up to date with whatever it is that I'm working on. It'll be fun finding my artistic voice, my style and my: strengths and weaknesses,

So over the last few weeks I've been trying my hand at Plein Air painting and I enjoyed it a lot. I feel that style of painting lends itself to good blogging material. I do have to say, it was an interesting feeling when I was set up at the rocky beach of cape Elizbeth in Maine for my first go at it. I was about an hour in to one of the paintings when I paused to grab some water and noticed people behind me watching. I looked up and said to myself- hmmm. It made me think when I was back home reflecting on the Plein Air experience. It would have been nice if a few people walked closer and said hello. I'm sure everyone was just being respectful and courteous thinking I was in deep concentration mode. Nah, I'm pretty sure I can keep my focus even if I received a few hellos. So if you ever stumble upon me out in the wild, do not hesitate, say hello and introduce yourself.

So that’s enough for now. I am going to keep these short and sweet and let the pictures do most of the talking.

Thank you for giving me your time.