I met with a group of artists last night, and as usual was stunned that some of them had not heard of Robert Genn and The Painter’s Keys.  If you are interested in art, his newsletters are always thought provoking. In a recent post, Genn talked about the art of negative thinking. He highlighted a study that showed artists who are self-critical are more successful than those who are ‘perennially upbeat.’  I have seen this in action, and while I believe that most successful artists have a certain amount of confidence and self esteem, it is also true that they are their own harshest critic.

I started this post in February of 2011, after a particularly rough barrage of rejection letters and low sales. I didn’t quit painting… I furthered my resolve. Although plenty of artists find good excuses to lay down the brush, none of these reasons seemed quite worth sacrificing the thrill of  finishing a painting that expresses my own unique esthetic and emotion or the satisfaction of knowing my art connected with a connoisseur.  That said, here are some of the negative thoughts that were rolling around in my head. Simon Cowell was here, laying it on the line.

1. When people ask you “Are you still painting?” you can  exclaim “Nope, I finally gave up that bad habit!”
2. Your walls will finally match your furniture
3. You can get a ‘real’ job
4. You won’t have to worry anymore about whether your work is finished
5. No more subjecting your work to others for judgement
6. Inspiration can be someone else’s worry
7. Whether your work has meaning will no longer be a concern
8. You can devote more time to golf
9. Travel can now be devoted to eating well, not the vistas and sights
10. No more impersonal rejection letters
11. When you go to work, you will know exactly what to do
12. No more ‘groping’ for something you’ve never seen before
13. ‘Studio’ space can be devoted to exercise and meditation
14. You can throw away all those bad paintings accumulating under the bed
15. When you talk about your ‘style’ you can be referring to your clothes or your life, not your work

Leave a comment: If you’re an artist, what would be one reason you would give up creating? If you are a collector, your purchase may be the one that dissuades an artist from quitting altogether. Support artists in their struggle by affirming that the work they do is valuable and worth collecting. There is no endorsement that is more convincing than a check.

PS: if you have been wanting a chance to collect one of my paintings, I’m hosting a contest over on my facebook page: Ruth Armitage Studios. “Like My Page” for a chance to win, or to throw a little extra encouragement my way…

“Field and Stream” copyright ©Ruth Armitage 2013, Acrylic on paper, 22×30″

Another new painting in the “Down on the Farm” series. This painting began with two ideas: bluegrass (the crop) and bluegill… both were some of my favorite parts of summer, walking through the fields and fishing in the small creeks and ponds surrounding our home as a kid. As the painting progressed, the colors shifted toward the greens and golds, though, so I decided to change the title. Perhaps I will try to do another bluegrass and bluegill next time.

I’m talking about the colors changing as if they have a mind of their own, which I guess they did in this case. I just hung on for the ride, and tried to get everything to harmonize. Sometimes you have to deviate from your original idea in order to make the whole painting work. I’m not married to the title “Field and Stream” though. Can you suggest a better one?

“Fields and Forests” Copyright ©Ruth Armitage 2013 Mixed Media on Yupo 20″x28″

A new painting in the series “Down on the Farm.”  This painting was inspired by the colors of spring on my parent’s farm: Trillium, lambs, new grass, tulips, cool river, clouds and blue sky. I’m wondering what words you would use to describe it to someone who couldn’t see it? Leave me a comment!

“Spring Forest” ©Ruth Armitage 2013, Oil on Panel 11″x9″

This is another plein air sketch from Boskey Dell Nursery last month. Our weather here has rapidly progressed to summer, and I’m missing the crispness of spring! Getting out and painting with friends is one of my favorite ways to spend a day. This quotation sums it up for me:

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. -Albert Schweitzer

My ‘Spark Session’ last weekend was just that… a rekindling of spirit, for myself and my students! We enjoyed painting together, looking at great art, and even snuck in some time sharing the nearby labyrinth. I’ve walked them alone before, but this was my first time sharing the experience with others. What a joy!

Judy and Shawn on the Labyrinth

The other Judy, working!

Our instigator, Jennifer

The other friends I’ve been spending time with lately are books. My book club has recently chosen some new reads, and I am eating them up like candy. Here we are at our 20th anniversary meeting! These women have become some of my closest friends, and I look forward to our gathering each month for a wonderful meal and meaningful discussions.

First Tuesday Literary Society

Here are some links to my recent reads. I’m warning you though, they are addictive! I think I read each of them in 48 hours or less! Happy reading. The first and second are moving portraits of friendship. Click on the book images to go to the Amazon.com page for each book, or check them out from your local library.

“Harvest Light” Mixed Media on Yupo 20×26″ ©Ruth Armitage

Here is a new painting I finished on Tuesday, just in time for a deadline. It is funny, I’ve known about the deadline for a whole year, but still waited until the very last minute to decide to pursue it, and to finish the work. It took some determination to power through it, since the weather has been so beautiful, calling me outside. And I’ve been immersed in a few good books lately, also a powerful distraction. My most recent read was The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. Maybe that influenced me to use a cooler palette!

While painting this work, I had other paintings in process simultaneously. That is not my usual way of working, and I found it pretty distracting. I think I will return to one painting at a time, post haste. I’ve also been preparing for my Roseburg workshop, and doing some board work research for the Watercolor Society of Oregon. It is odd, sometimes the busiest times are the most productive!

Perhaps you can see some influence from my recent workshop with Mary Ann Beckwith? I’ve tried to vary some of the techniques she uses, and make the painting read as mine. What do you think?

If you’d like to see a recent plein air oil painting, hop on over to my facebook page. Be sure to ‘like’ my page while you’re there!

Finally, don’t forget to send your submission for my online art exhibit! I’ve only received one so far, and if I don’t get a few more, it may become a feature article on that one person

“Garden Companions” copyright Ruth Armitage 2009 Watercolor & Gouache 15×22″

I want to put out another call for entries to my online gallery of artists who read Art is Truth! Be sure to send in an image of your work. Read more about it here.

Garden Companions will be on display for the month of May at West Linn Lutheran Church. The exhibit is titled “Rooted in Grace, Branching Out Boldly.” I usually don’t participate in group shows like this, but the person who contacted me is a friend and student, and I just happened to have this painting that I felt spoke to the theme. See more details below:

Next time I’m going through rejection depression, someone please remind me of this month! Yesterday I received an invitation to exhibit in November at the World Forestry Center in the Sitka Invitational. If you haven’t been before, this is a big honor. I love being part of a show that celebrates our connection to the earth, and supports a beautiful place: Sitka Center for Art & Ecology, in Otis, Oregon. I wrote about a workshop I had with Bill Park in this post: http://rutharmitage.com/from-desert-to-rain-forest/

This is just the type of goal I needed Last night a friend was asking me… where can I see your work in Portland, what do you have coming up? Here is the answer! This year I’m planning to show some of my new aerial landscapes. Hop on over to my Facebook Page & see one! While you’re there, be sure to ‘like’ my page… and feel free to share it! If you’re in Nw Oregon, enjoy the sun today… I know I will!

Sarah Sedwick, Annie Salness, Sarah Peroutka, Jo Reimer, Randall Tipton, Celeste Bergin, Carol Marine and I

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures. -Vincent van Gogh

As I did a couple of years ago, I’d like to celebrate blogging and the connections I’ve made here, by hosting an online art exhibition! June will mark the 5th year of Art is Truth’s presence on the internet. In those five years, my work has changed, my horizons have broadened, and I’ve had the chance to meet and become friends with many artists through their blogs. I like the idea of bringing their work here to share with you, because I think it helps to further our connections. Sharing their art is good for patrons and artists alike, and makes the world a more beautiful place.

Here are the details:

Who: anyone who reads this blog

What: Online art show

When: Email images and info to ruth (at) rutharmitage.com by May 25, 2013.

Why: Celebration and Sharing

Where: Here!

I will link your image to any site you choose, just send me a working link.  Watch this space in June for the next gallery of images from readers… I’m looking forward to it!

Announcement

My work “Shy” has been accepted into the Red River Watercolor Society’s Annual Exhibition in Moorhead Minnesota. I also have a painting accepted into the National Watercolor Society’s Membership show in California- “Harvest Moon.” I’m thrilled with the recent successes!

On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I’m coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light–
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

- Billy Collins

Yesterday I celebrated a milestone birthday with family and friends. It was a day to enjoy the sweet things in life: sunshine, new lambs, the love of family and greetings from friends. It was also a day of national tragedy, with the bombings at the Boston Marathon. My hair stylist and friend was running the marathon with a birthday message to me written on her leg. I am thankful to report that she is ok… but it makes me stop and think about those families and friends who have loved ones that are not ok, and about those who have recently lost loved ones.

This milestone birthday was a harder one for me. I feel like it is the first ‘big’ number.  I was telling a non-artist friend that an art career, unlike some where you have company led goals, income, evaluations, etc., demands that your goals and feedback are mostly self-imposed. You don’t get regular paychecks, raises, etc. Although you deal with clients, galleries, jurists, and mentors, there is not one boss or authority that follows your career from start to finish and advises you on your strengths and weaknesses. It is up to you to sort out which direction to take your work, which successes to celebrate, which failures to overcome.

Don’t get me wrong, I have been getting wonderful validation lately. If you follow me on Facebook, you might already know that my painting “Golden Hour” was selected as an award winner in the Western Federation of Watercolor Societies show in Texas this month! Or you might have seen my new abstract painting winning an award in the Watercolor Society of Oregon’s show last weekend in Albany! Perhaps you saw my painting on the invitation for the NWWS Open show, which opened yesterday  at the Mercer View Gallery on Mercer Island, WA. This recognition from my fellow artists is one of the few milestones that help me navigate my progress on the artistic journey.

But, after the hubbub has died down, I still  have to go to the studio and face a blank piece of paper, make decisions about what to paint and how to paint it, and decide for myself if what I’ve made is worthwhile. Counting my successes does not make that part easier. In art, one is always searching, stretching, questioning, changing. So today, I have no new art to show you, despite just finishing a workshop and painting all week. I still need to process what will be kept in the winnowing of new information.

I think I’ll enjoy the sun today and go work in the garden! But I want to share a couple of things… this poem:

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life.

Mary Oliver

and this photo from our pasture today:

By Popular Demand:

In the comments of a recent post I had a request for showing how one of my abstract paintings develops, from conception through completion. It is a bit difficult for me to remember to stop and take photos along the way, but here is my best effort. I’m not certain that this painting is at its final state, but I’m stopping for now.

I started with a couple of rough ideas:

1. This would be another ‘Down on the Farm’ painting – an aerial landscape
2. I wanted to emphasize the color red
3. I wanted to utilize 3 simple shapes, inspired by an exercise in the Steven Aimone book Expressive Drawing

Here is my inspiration… an aerial view of my parents’ farm.

My rough drawing in watercolor crayon. A rectangle, a triangle and a roughly circular shape

Maybe you can see by comparing the drawing and the inspiration that I have chosen shapes that roughly represent shapes in my inspiration… they are just placed a bit differently and simplified.

My first wash, feathered over the lines with a dry hake brush

I used a combination of yellows, oranges and reds for this first wash, trying for lots of variation.

Adding secondary colors, ultramarine blue and cobalt violet light

more color layers – I love the green that went in here!

I decided to intensify the violet and re-orient the painting

I added a spray of bright green acrylic, laying cording down first to create a mask for line work

I also glazed the upper left corner to create a new shape by combining it with the triangle. I’m starting to add bits of line work… along the edges of the shapes.

Now I added black acrylic line work, and swooped through it with a credit card. More mark making to integrate it into the whole picture plane

A final added red glaze and some more pencil and crayon mark making
“Property Line” ©Ruth Armitage, Watercolor & Acrylic on Paper 22″x30″    Sold

I also added one more glaze to the upper left corner. I think this is finished. What are your thoughts? I’d love your comments.