Desire to be Modern - ALSO Scorched

[gxhpainter2]

back to working in abstracts, colors and textures.... After reading D Akey's comment I agree this is much more about fire and scorched land than my original title, I did tweak it a bit and retitled it.

[D Akey]

One way to look at this is negative I'm afraid -- it says forest fire to me and all the people who lost their homes and more in those terrible fires this (last) year. I have a friend who lost everything except his human family in that particular blaze. So it's probably always going to be on my mind, yet that scenario may have no bearing on what you were doing. That's merely the news from Rorschach Central in my scorched psyche.

Cabin fever ain't so bad when you can at least say you've got your cabin. Keep painting!

[gxhpainter2]

One way to look at this is negative I'm afraid -- it says forest fire to me and all the people who lost their homes and more in those terrible fires this (last) year. I have a friend who lost everything except his human family in that particular blaze. So it's probably always going to be on my mind, yet that scenario may have no bearing on what you were doing. That's merely the news from Rorschach Central in my scorched psyche.

Cabin fever ain't so bad when you can at least say you've got your cabin. Keep painting!

D Akey you are quite right and I was not really satisfied with the original as titled it looked like a fire scorched landscape to me too so I had decided to to back and either remove it if no one had commented on it or revised it somewhat and repost. But after reading your comment I liked it as a statement about the terrible fires and loss of life and property we experienced last year. I tweaked the greens to be more of an evergreen shade and darkened the edges a bit. Thanks for your comment It was an inspiration and motivation and I am much happier with this...

[pat1940]

Gary, this is a powerful statement, I felt so bad for the people that suffered so many losses, and are still going through it, it is bad enough with the weather patterns causing so much pain, let alone all the violence in the Countries that we have to see, sure hope 2016 things will change for the better

[gxhpainter2]

Gary, this is a powerful statement, I felt so bad for the people that suffered so many losses, and are still going through it, it is bad enough with the weather patterns causing so much pain, let alone all the violence in the Countries that we have to see, sure hope 2016 things will change for the better

Thanks Pat...I am hoping 2016 is better for everyone...

[D Akey]

Indeed. The green is less sweet in the second one which is in keeping with that particular theme.

I can't tell you the levels I personally reached when doodling (in my case it was doodling) listening to lectures. I went through high school doing just that--doodling all over my text books out of boredom. So I think I wired myself that way, because several decades hence, when I was already an artist and trying to keep from getting too bored during some lectures and with nothing to gain or lose and nobody telling me not to, I came to find I had been creating a whole catalog of incredibly poignant personal drawings that had a theme basically around the lecture.

And they were all surprising to me. I had no intention to draw anything clever. I would just let my pen move around and suddenly characters would appear acting out this and that. Would start with a circle or line and I would add more, and keep adding to what was there and voila.

Kind of blew my mind actually that there was this region in my depths that I was not consciously aware off -- at all -- like Stephen King referred to as the guys in the basement. The notions I ended up depicting did not exist as things or thoughts or anything. But once I was moving around my pen, they came out and I just watched it unfolding.

An analogy would be like letting a seismograph run during a disturbance and then tearing off the paper and examining the data like they used to do in those old disaster movies. If I had a specific intention, while I could create a picture like those others, they were nowhere near as deep as the unconscious stuff. Often left me reacting with "Wow. . ." and "Aha!. . ." And it was then that I got into interpreting what I was looking at after the fact, and it was often revealing, instructive, and in some cases even making my conscious mind jealous, leaving me to lament why I couldn't just do it in the first place. The second I started trying to control it, it would pull in some cognitive functions that disconnected the circuit by putting it into a different part of the brain that used different tools.

Anyway. . . a 'for what it's worth' comment. Still mystifies me and would love to summon it up at will with direction, but it doesn't work that way. Stephen King is one of those writers is what they call a "pantser" (seat of the pants) as opposed to a "plotter" (with outlining and all that planning before hand). If you read his book "On Writing" you could see that's where he's coming from. Personally it also says to me it's why some of his work seems random, some stories far better than others. It's the risk when when you put the boys in the basement to work where the conscious mind doesn't get called in till months later letting the work cool off so you can 'see' what you've been handed.

[gxhpainter2]

Indeed. The green is less sweet in the second one which is in keeping with that particular theme.

I can't tell you the levels I personally reached when doodling (in my case it was doodling) listening to lectures. I went through high school doing just that--doodling all over my text books out of boredom. So I think I wired myself that way, because several decades hence, when I was already an artist and trying to keep from getting too bored during some lectures and with nothing to gain or lose and nobody telling me not to, I came to find I had been creating a whole catalog of incredibly poignant personal drawings that had a theme basically around the lecture.

And they were all surprising to me. I had no intention to draw anything clever. I would just let my pen move around and suddenly characters would appear acting out this and that. Would start with a circle or line and I would add more, and keep adding to what was there and voila.

Kind of blew my mind actually that there was this region in my depths that I was not consciously aware off -- at all -- like Stephen King referred to as the guys in the basement. The notions I ended up depicting did not exist as things or thoughts or anything. But once I was moving around my pen, they came out and I just watched it unfolding.

An analogy would be like letting a seismograph run during a disturbance and then tearing off the paper and examining the data like they used to do in those old disaster movies. If I had a specific intention, while I could create a picture like those others, they were nowhere near as deep as the unconscious stuff. Often left me reacting with "Wow. . ." and "Aha!. . ." And it was then that I got into interpreting what I was looking at after the fact, and it was often revealing, instructive, and in some cases even making my conscious mind jealous, leaving me to lament why I couldn't just do it in the first place. The second I started trying to control it, it would pull in some cognitive functions that disconnected the circuit by putting it into a different part of the brain that used different tools.

Anyway. . . a 'for what it's worth' comment. Still mystifies me and would love to summon it up at will with direction, but it doesn't work that way. Stephen King is one of those writers is what they call a "pantser" (seat of the pants) as opposed to a "plotter" (with outlining and all that planning before hand). If you read his book "On Writing" you could see that's where he's coming from. Personally it also says to me it's why some of his work seems random, some stories far better than others. It's the risk when when you put the boys in the basement to work where the conscious mind doesn't get called in till months later letting the work cool off so you can 'see' what you've been handed.

Wow thanks for the depth and care in this comment.! I really understand your comments on your doodling and getting into that quiet still part that can come up with some amazing stuff, that it may take awhile as you say to see what you have been handed. It has been many decades literally for me using that as the basis for painting, and now digital art. Something in me said this is a very special space and if line color and energy come out to me that was a legitimate source for a painting, although I also have spent countless hours exploring and practicing different digital or natural media and techniques so that I did not have to "think" about how to achive a particular look , in this way there could be this fluid dance between what I saw and what I did next... all of which you alluded to in your commentary....

[justjean]

Cold and dark, made me think of winter blowing in

[gxhpainter2]

Cold and dark, made me think of winter blowing in

that description pretty much sums up the weather the past few weeks here in Central Oregon.