The story of art

Winter Road Trip

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 48 inches

Barbara Muir © 2019

Hey that's a presumptuous title isn't it?  The story of art. What I
mean is that art is a dynamic force in an artist's mind.  And that
force changes over time.  Let's take a recent painting (shown above)
-- Winter Road Trip. As you saw in the picture of me with it at the
opening of the Windows show at the Heliconian Club on July 4th.
I am happy with it.  It does what I wanted it to do.

Me with Winter Road Trip

But its history is like the story of many, many paintings.  Not
just mine.  Believe it or not it started out as a portrait of my
husband reading with the cat.  But somehow I never got enough
sittings to complete it, or even really get it off the ground.  The
cat died, years passed.  And then this year I went on a glorious road trip
with my husband for Valentine's Day to Ottawa.

Looking for a canvas to capture the feeling of that trip, I came
upon the former portrait, sanded it a bit, re-gessoed it, and
began.  But the painting drove me crazy.  My vision was so
romantic, and the painting "meh" as my son says (meaning
not impressive.)

The canvas in its previous life

a not even completely begun portrait of

Steven reading with the cat.

An early version of Winter Road Trip

The start of a journey.

(Cue sound of kid crying)

In other words.  Not working.

I put this painting away.  I worked on other things.  Then pulled it out one day,

put it on the easel, and knew exactly what to do.  That is a miraculous feeling, and

I went with it until the painting was done to my satisfaction.  And that my 

lovely friends is the story of art.  One piece of art.  

Have an enjoying your story day.