We have been painting for years, going along with whatever our group, teacher, workshop leader is doing.
We try new things, this and that, and the latest painting fads.
One day, perhaps quite unexpectedly, we try something that goes well for us and we realize that;
"This is me. I am happy with this way of painting! It feels natural and good when I make the marks,
use the colors and draw the shapes."
You are now painting authentically.
You have, after all this time and experimentation reached the stage when you are painting "you"!
Not like your teacher, not like your best painting friends and not the latest painting fad.
You are painting "you"!
Painting authentically!
How long did it take you to reach this place where your marks, your colors, your shapes are a true
expression of you, of your thoughts and dreams, of your innermost being?
Perhaps it has taken a very long time, years in fact.
A new vigor and enthusiasm becomes apparent as you work on your creations.
Now, when you paint, each stroke, each mark is like a handwritten signature.
Yours alone, completely unique in this world of Billions!
Likewise, your paintings are yours alone, reflecting you, your interests and your environment.
Why would you want to paint any other way when you can be authentically YOU?
Webster's Dictionary: Authentic; genuine, veritable. Being actually and percisely what is claimed. Not imaginary, false or imitation.
2/03/2015
Overnight
Overnight, tomorrow.
Let's look at our painting tomorrow.
Let's seen what the night brings.
What does the night bring? Rest, dreams, a synthesis of the mental and physical activities of the day.
And a new light, a dim light; the early morning light.
Things look differently in the morning.
The shapes, colors revealing exactly "what" the painting is meaning.
What is the language of those shapes and colors?
Can you read it anew in the early morning light?
And what is it telling you today?
Hidden secrets, now revealed; the painting's symbolic language has been translated overnight by
one's own dreams, visions and subconscious!!
What a revelation! Yesterday's insolvable problems can really be solved!
Ideas pile on top of one another!
A color here, a change of shape, more lines here, lighter on the top, darker on the side,
find some new references, redo this drawing!
One goes on painting day after day and the visual book and essay is written!
Let's look at our painting tomorrow.
Let's seen what the night brings.
What does the night bring? Rest, dreams, a synthesis of the mental and physical activities of the day.
And a new light, a dim light; the early morning light.
Things look differently in the morning.
The shapes, colors revealing exactly "what" the painting is meaning.
What is the language of those shapes and colors?
Can you read it anew in the early morning light?
And what is it telling you today?
Hidden secrets, now revealed; the painting's symbolic language has been translated overnight by
one's own dreams, visions and subconscious!!
What a revelation! Yesterday's insolvable problems can really be solved!
Ideas pile on top of one another!
A color here, a change of shape, more lines here, lighter on the top, darker on the side,
find some new references, redo this drawing!
One goes on painting day after day and the visual book and essay is written!
1/12/2015
Recent Work
Bonnie's most recent work depicts organic themes such as this new painting below called: "CACTUS IN MY GARDEN III" which is 30"X 22" and was created by layering acrylic paints.
To view more of Bonnie's most recent pieces, please visit this page.
11/24/2014
Ask the Painting!!
How do you know what to do next when you are painting?
How can you tell if something is good or or bad, effective or not, in a painting.
A critique is in order!
In other words, ask the painting what it wants you to do next!
After all, the painting has a being, that which you created. It knows what it wants to be.
Even if you don't.
After all, the painting has a being, that which you created. It knows what it wants to be.
Even if you don't.
The questions that you can ask the painting are called "The Principles of Design".
They are a universal set of ideas about the design of visual art.
They are a universal set of ideas about the design of visual art.
My list of them to ask the painting are as follows:
Contrast, "Do you have contrast?
Is there a difference between, light and dark, rough and smooth, dull and bright?
Is there a difference between, light and dark, rough and smooth, dull and bright?
Do you have a "Focus Point"? A"Center of Interest"? Or are there many competing, confusing areas?
Do you have a "Dominance"? A color dominance? A pattern dominance? A dominant style of brush stroke?
Do you have "Repetition and Rhythm"? Do shapes, lines, colors repeat? Is there a feeling of a beat or of a rhythm?
Do you have "Movement"? Can my eye travel easily around the painting? Is it blocked or stuck in one place with no where to go?
Is there "Unity" in the composition? Does all work together as a whole? Does something "stick out" or seen as if it does not belong there?
More questions can arise and the painting will be able to reply to them all.
Perhaps at times it will reply, "Let me think about this for a while!"
Perhaps at times it will reply, "Let me think about this for a while!"
Bonnie Lou Prouty
Our Personal Visual Language
Our Personal Visual Language
We store up everything we see and do in our brains as images. As artists this becomes our visual language.
We develop this visual language through the concious observation of what we encounter in daily living. And the "seeing" we learn to do when we draw, paint and photograph.
Each of these activities require us to select, observe with intent and connect emotionally
with the situation in which we are involved.
.
We collect these images in our brains and arrange and rearrange them in a very personal manner.
It is our task as creative persons to continually expand and develop our visual language.
Writers and poets use words, musicians use sounds, dancers their movements, actors and actresess use their voices, but painters communicate with their marks.
Expanding these is our "job"!
Seeing with intentional observation. Looking for shapes, shadows, lines, edges, and colors in every thing!
The colors in a fall field, the effect of the purple asters against the yellow goldenrod, and that against a muted grey sky.
The pattern of a fence repeating itself in shadows on the grass and the grass creating yet another pattern.
A group of shoppers together making a shape, persons on a bench with a light effect behind them.
A fleeting thought of how light brings out a certian color and looks brighter than when there is no light.
Textures in old wood, the ripped sign on a wall, the brick in an old building with it's cracks and repairs.
A pile of old stumps with fungi growing out of it and a mosic of leaves surounding the edges.
Beginning to see everything as pattern and design. Making note of this seeing. A small sketch book to
make notes or scribbles or drawings of your observing.
Writing ideas as well, with the realization that ideas are fleeting! The abstract painter is wittness to all of this with the result of meaning in the design of shapes and color.
When confronted by a blank canvas or paper, these stored images begin to come forth almost as bats at sundown flying from their caves.
At other times the door seems stuck and cannot be opened, you think!
But there they are, all of them, ready to emerge as our very own. Personal as a fingerprint. Images unlike anyone in this whole world that has ever lived.
Our personal visual language!
We store up everything we see and do in our brains as images. As artists this becomes our visual language.
We develop this visual language through the concious observation of what we encounter in daily living. And the "seeing" we learn to do when we draw, paint and photograph.
Each of these activities require us to select, observe with intent and connect emotionally
with the situation in which we are involved.
.
We collect these images in our brains and arrange and rearrange them in a very personal manner.
It is our task as creative persons to continually expand and develop our visual language.
Writers and poets use words, musicians use sounds, dancers their movements, actors and actresess use their voices, but painters communicate with their marks.
Expanding these is our "job"!
Seeing with intentional observation. Looking for shapes, shadows, lines, edges, and colors in every thing!
The colors in a fall field, the effect of the purple asters against the yellow goldenrod, and that against a muted grey sky.
The pattern of a fence repeating itself in shadows on the grass and the grass creating yet another pattern.
A group of shoppers together making a shape, persons on a bench with a light effect behind them.
A fleeting thought of how light brings out a certian color and looks brighter than when there is no light.
Textures in old wood, the ripped sign on a wall, the brick in an old building with it's cracks and repairs.
A pile of old stumps with fungi growing out of it and a mosic of leaves surounding the edges.
Beginning to see everything as pattern and design. Making note of this seeing. A small sketch book to
make notes or scribbles or drawings of your observing.
Writing ideas as well, with the realization that ideas are fleeting! The abstract painter is wittness to all of this with the result of meaning in the design of shapes and color.
When confronted by a blank canvas or paper, these stored images begin to come forth almost as bats at sundown flying from their caves.
At other times the door seems stuck and cannot be opened, you think!
But there they are, all of them, ready to emerge as our very own. Personal as a fingerprint. Images unlike anyone in this whole world that has ever lived.
Our personal visual language!
10/02/2014
Scribbling
When in doubt, "Scribble".
When you can't think, "Scribble".
When no subject, idea, composition comes to mind, "Scribble".
Take a piece of white computer paper and a box of crayons and "Scribble".
Make marks, make shapes, make lots of lines, round and round, up and down, crossways
and back.
Make dark marks, light marks, medium marks, fill in some shapes, make other shapes on top of those.
Get another piece of paper, do another scribble, find some shapes in the scribble, find some image in the lines.
Make another one and then one more. Do one more then you want to do. Maybe you've been at this thirty minutes??
Hey, did I get a idea of some sort as I did this?
Did something pass thru my brain like a flutter of a dream?
Does my mind seem clearer now?
Are some images emerging as I fan the fires of creativity which are stimulated by the mere action of the crayons on the paper?
I belive that Scribbling helps release images inbeded in the subconscious brain.
Scribbling creates a break between the "have to" world of lists and media deluge.
Scribbling stimulates the creative sector of the mind.
A mere thirty minutes of Scribbling can wake up your dormant creative brain like warm-up exercises before a workout.
So Scribble for your creative health!!
When you can't think, "Scribble".
When no subject, idea, composition comes to mind, "Scribble".
Take a piece of white computer paper and a box of crayons and "Scribble".
Make marks, make shapes, make lots of lines, round and round, up and down, crossways
and back.
Make dark marks, light marks, medium marks, fill in some shapes, make other shapes on top of those.
Get another piece of paper, do another scribble, find some shapes in the scribble, find some image in the lines.
Make another one and then one more. Do one more then you want to do. Maybe you've been at this thirty minutes??
Hey, did I get a idea of some sort as I did this?
Did something pass thru my brain like a flutter of a dream?
Does my mind seem clearer now?
Are some images emerging as I fan the fires of creativity which are stimulated by the mere action of the crayons on the paper?
I belive that Scribbling helps release images inbeded in the subconscious brain.
Scribbling creates a break between the "have to" world of lists and media deluge.
Scribbling stimulates the creative sector of the mind.
A mere thirty minutes of Scribbling can wake up your dormant creative brain like warm-up exercises before a workout.
So Scribble for your creative health!!
10/01/2014
Becoming One With the Painting
As you struggle with your painting, you eventually become one with it.
That is, you get so involved in it that you become a part of it.
This is a painting, (the subject can be realistic, or abstract) with which you have some identity.
It is not just a casual one hour study. The subject means something to you!
You have done sketches, color and value drawings, perhaps you photographed the subject originally.
Now you are painting and nothing is going right! What went wrong with your preparation?
Whatever you do, it seems to get worse. The colors are wrong. The values are in the wrong place.
You fix one thing, you think, and then another area glares at you like a spotlight!
How can this be when I prepared so carefully?
Perhaps I am too close to my creation.
Give it a rest, come back tomorrow.
Come back tomorrow when we are both rested.
Then I will ask it to tell me what it needs.
And the painting will answer!
That is, you get so involved in it that you become a part of it.
This is a painting, (the subject can be realistic, or abstract) with which you have some identity.
It is not just a casual one hour study. The subject means something to you!
You have done sketches, color and value drawings, perhaps you photographed the subject originally.
Now you are painting and nothing is going right! What went wrong with your preparation?
Whatever you do, it seems to get worse. The colors are wrong. The values are in the wrong place.
You fix one thing, you think, and then another area glares at you like a spotlight!
How can this be when I prepared so carefully?
Perhaps I am too close to my creation.
Give it a rest, come back tomorrow.
Come back tomorrow when we are both rested.
Then I will ask it to tell me what it needs.
And the painting will answer!
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