Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Getting there

 Morning in Korea (work in progress)
Acrylic on canvas
24 x 24 inches
Barbara Muir © 2011

This new year is almost 1/12th gone.  Yikes.  It
is speeding by.  When we went to see the motivational
speaker (he would deny he was that) Mike Dooley
last summer he said that one of the secrets to
a happy life was to be busy.  Well January
certainly has met that criteria.  Whew!
I feel like I'm running full tilt all the time.

The blog helps keep me grounded, and seeing
your work helps me figure out my next steps.
The other day I talked to a wonderfully
talented friend in California who I met at a
painting course eight years ago.  She is classically
trained with a fine art degree, and I love her
intelligent approach to painting.  Plus as she
lives, works, and continues to study in
L.A., she meets top artists, art critics and
collectors.

She helped me see that an extra dimension to
my Skype portraits was the layer of abstraction
-- which if you use video telephoning can be created
by the distortion of storms and distance -- this series
is based on talks from Korea and Taiwan -- a 14 hour time
difference for one thing.  So the dilemma is
how much abstraction, how much distortion?
She is right.

Tonight I worked primarily on the painting 
I'm showing you, pushing and pulling the
abstraction while I listened to David Seidler, the
screenwriter for the movie The King's Speech in an
interview with Jian Ghomeshi on Q on CBC Radio.
The interview was great, the painting is getting there.
I only have one more day and part of Friday to push
all three paintings to the place I want them to be,
so there's not much time left.  But I feel close.  So
close.  I'm sure you know the feeling. I'm afraid I
can't give you new daily paintings when I'm up to
my ears in a series like this.  But please know that
I am painting every day.  And how.

Have a loving-working-on-what-you-do day.
at

8 comments:

  1. CHRIS MURRAYJanuary 27, 2011 at 8:34 AM

    you give the best book and radio (podcast) suggestions on your blog. thanks for that. oh, and your art is quite amazing as well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Linny D. VineJanuary 27, 2011 at 5:48 PM

    Wishing you much double business always. I see that you have been extremely happy since I last visited and they are all beautiful, Barbara! Happy thoughts...busy thoughts...

    ReplyDelete
  3. NickiJanuary 27, 2011 at 7:52 PM

    I really like the abstraction/pixelized direction of this piece. Very interesting. Will you be taking it beyond the figures and into the setting? I guess I will stay tuned to find out!

    It's going to be a good one! In fact, it already is!

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJanuary 29, 2011 at 5:00 AM

    looks good Barbara, you have some thing interesting going on there.;)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Barbara MuirJanuary 29, 2011 at 10:10 AM

    Hi Chris,

    Thanks so much. Glad you like the cool radio and TED stuff. CBC and TED TV are a winning combo.

    Take care,

    Barbara

    ReplyDelete
  6. Barbara MuirJanuary 29, 2011 at 10:11 AM

    Hi Linny,

    Every time I visit your site I get happy. Such beautiful work. The inspiration from visiting artists like you is huge. It powers this busy person.

    XOBarbara

    ReplyDelete
  7. Barbara MuirJanuary 29, 2011 at 10:13 AM

    Hi Nicki,

    Thanks so much. I really liked the background essentially the way it was. You could get mega carried away, but although it doesn't show here I used a palette knife for part of the background and it does cool things.

    I love your clouds, your trees and your people.

    XOBarbara

    ReplyDelete
  8. Barbara MuirJanuary 29, 2011 at 10:14 AM

    Hi Sally,

    Thanks for the tip on shadows. I am not very observant of technical details, and it's always great to learn more.

    Hope all is well with you.

    XOBarbara

    ReplyDelete

Your thoughts and positive comments make my day. Thank you for stopping by.