digdougsart blog

Tonight I attended a seminar, on “How to be Successful with an Art Career,” by Edward Povey,  and DL Tolar.  It felt good to be around other artists and to have the chance to learn something new.  There were several things that struck a chord with me on this cool Austin evening.  One of things Edward said was to imagine what your life as a successful artist looks like, down to every detail on one particular evening.  This also goes along with something a friend recently said to me.  “Think about what level you are on now and think about level you want to be on.  Then figure out what things you need to do to get to that new level.”  I think both of these points can help me to figure out exactly where I currently am with my art and where I want to go.  By doing so its like putting the dominoes into motion.  Making the idea a reality, pulling that idea out of thin air and putting it down onto my figurative canvas.  By this time next week I will know what that perfect evening as a successful artist will be down to the shirt and shoes I will be wearing.  And when I do I will post that perfect evening.  I hope you can join me next week for my detailed post and also join me when my IDEA becomes my REALITY!

Tell me what woud be your perfect evening of SUCCESS would be?

From time to time I find inspiration in the strangest places.  Just last month I noticed this man hole cover that I walk past everyday. Its about 2 feet in diameter with and I’m not sure what is beneath the cover.  What makes it unique is the pattern that is displayed on the cover itself.  I am not sure if it serves a purpose or if its just a design.  Whatever the reason I thought it looked really cool, so I snapped some pics of it.  I like the pattern so much I’m trying to find a way to re-create the same pattern in one of my paintings.  As of right now I thought it would be fun to make clouds out of the pattern.  Recently I have incorporated other simple shapes in some of my pieces.  For instance mountains are triangles.  I have always been fascinated by geometric shapes so it only makes since to incorporate them into my work.

Last Wed. night was the opening reception for the 32nd Annual Dougherty Arts show, featuring yours truly and about 30 other artists.  Pieces ranged from paintings, sculptures, photographs and mixed media.  It was a great opening, there was a constant flow of people from all walks of life.  It felt great to be a part of the show, and to know that my piece “FireEater” was selected among all of the entries to be displayed.  With every step forward it gets more exciting and exhilarating to be part of the creative society.  I was thinking of how great it would have been a part of something like AVAA when I was 18 yrs old and did not have an artist network.  Now its time to weave that web of contacts into a beautiful tapestry.

I am almost finished with the 3rd piece in the “Trees of Life,” series.  I have chosen to simplify the tree itself by not using as much detail unlike in  the first two paintings in the series.  The result is something of a,  more raw feeling.  Almost as if the tree is flexing its exposed mucles as it anchors itself to the earth and stretches out with its hand of five branches towards the light or heavens.  The title is “AfterGlow.”   I would say its about 75% done.  I just need to finish out the muscle of the tree so its more uniform, then a few hundred brush strokes on the flowing background patter of light.

How does one find time to create, when one has responsibilities ?  When the time is right is the answer.  For the past month I have not had alot of time to create due to having a full time job,  being a full time husband and dad.  All of which are important!  However if I am to reach my goals with my art I need time to create.  Rather than stress over finding that time I decided for my sanity and stress levels that its better to just wait it out and soon enough it will happen.  That time has come at 1:23 in the am on a late Thursday night or early Friday morning however you would like to look at it.   So what do I do, I blog.  This post is a result of  my current free time.  Thoughts that need to be put down on paper so to speak.  Reasons as to why I have not blogged much lately.  You see if I am not creating art,  I do not feel creative enough to write either.  

Tonight I could have probably painted or have drawn out some new ideas but,  I thought I would give my wife a break with the baby and let her sleep as long as possible.   You see our youngest daughter has been staying pretty late into the night for over a month now.  So I held my youngest daughter as long a possible before she awoke hungry.  Water would not ease her hunger pains so mom had to be awoken.   Before I woke mom  I watched a good amount of TV with baby in arms.  A couple of things I watched were stories from CBS Sunday morning.  One on kaleidoscopes and another on glass weaving.  Both really seemed to speak to me for one simple reason.  I have been working out some ideas in my head and on paper about what I call scribble art.   The result is something like,  well, stained glass kaleidoscopes.   Hence, when I see these two stories in one night I think this is my answer to my scribble art.  A cosmic hint that I am on the right track figuring out how to turn scribble into beautiful art.  I think it involves the simplicity of my scribble art , which is simple scribbled lines filled in with blocks of color, then add detail inside the blocks of color like flowing stained glass or lava.  An effect I hope will create a new amazing pieces expanding my work into the future.  The above photo is from the current scribble art piece I am currently working on.  It’s in the infancy stages right now, for there is no detail.   That will come soon enough.  Hopefully quicker, tick, tick, tick,  than later.