Serendipity

-
Today, Thursday, was a paintsite day with the watercolor group. Finally, finally, finally, after looking at the Chinese tower of Maryknoll from the freeway - almost daily, I glance to see what the shadows are doing, and almost daily, I wonder how to get that viewpoint from a place other than whizzing past on a freeway - Maryknoll was today's scheduled paintsite. Though I knew that I wouldn't get quite that freeway view, I was nevertheless excited to be painting architecture.
Here is the painting - I didn't even paint that tower. I was stunned by this view as I took the steps up to the Maryknoll campus from the parking lot. I should have played up the mediums and darks to bring out the beauty of the tops of the curved walls getting direct sunlight which is what drew me. I should have designed my shapes and assigned better values - this looks washed out, though I am happy with the color harmony, and the gentleness of it.
While I was painting, a man who lives in this retirement community came by and admired my painting. He then got his own acrylic painting from his room to show me. His name was Joe Hermes - and he said "Hermes as in Greek messenger."


When I checked my email later in the day, I found my daily subscription to A-Word-A-Day. Today's word of the day was:

A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

hermeneutic

PRONUNCIATION:
(hur-muh-NOO/NYOO-tik) 

MEANING:
adjective: Interpretive or explanatory.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek hermeneutikos (of interpreting), from hermeneuein (to interpret), from hermeneus (interpreter). After Hermes in Greek mythology, who served as a messenger and herald for other gods, and who himself was the god of eloquence, commerce, invention, cunning, theft, and more. Earliest documented use: 1678..
Other words that Hermes has given us are hermaphrodite, hermetic, and herm.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Connected shadows

-
Image
I have often passed by the Campbell Community Center/Heritage Theater and been struck by the beautiful Spanish Colonial Revival architecture with intricate ornamentation. Finally, I had the opportunity to paint it today with the SCVWS Thursday plein air group. I think I should have used a ruler for this as some of my verticals aren't parallel to the edge of the paper! I do like the purple/blue shadows and how the colored shadows blend into one another around all the bright white areas. As always, for me, greens are troublesome - they often look overworked in my paintings. But, I am pleased with this overall.                       “One Ticket, Please”
Read more

Faith vs. belief, and inspiration

-
Image
In yesterday's Gita session, we discussed the difference between belief and faith. I found myself saying that a belief was hard-edged and inflexible, and faith all-encompassing and flexible and always positive - akin to having a big-picture trust in the cosmos. When I heard myself say "hard-edged," it made me realize how many terms and ideas are so interchangeable between the world of watercolor (art) and spirituality (life). When edges are hard, the eye stops at each edge before it goes to the next "item." It's like stop-and-go traffic. You are making progress but it is not smooth, not a flow. When edges are soft, your eyes travel easily, from one object to the next because the divisions between the objects are blurred, and the values do the talking. It is like life, like consciousness. We are all one - not so hard-edged and separate - yet we don't know it, and bump up against one another because of our hard edges, fixed ideas and notions, prejudices an...
Read more

Design- vs. content-driven

-
Image
I've found that strong design-driven art is more attractive to me than content-driven paintings. Of course, the content or subject is there (unless it is truly non-representational work), but it is realized and recognized a split second after one has responded to the design. For this reason, subjects that lend themselves to being more easily abstracted - interiors, close-ups of anything, still life cropped just so - are more appealing than standard impressionistic distant landscapes where the shapes themselves tell you sky-earth-mountains-lake. A landscape can also be abstracted but I feel there is more effort in hiding or veiling landscape features for the slow reveal to happen. I've been working on this still life, and just starting with a notan helped me understand and crop shapes right away. Pushing some of the lighter shapes to the white of the paper helps with abstraction. Like a chess board where each shape is bordered by a contrasting value shape, or the way we typicall...
Read more