These new paintings are a departure for me in many ways. They are smaller, and they are painted on illustration board. I’m using more knives and scrapers to apply the paint, building up the surface in a way that I haven’t in the past. This impasto is something I have admired for a long time in other artists’ work. So I’m using fewer brushes, and less water.

The frames are from second hand stores. After art school, I stopped painting on paper because I wanted to avoid the expense of framing.

Expensive art supplies don’t make me a better artist. If anything, they make me more cautious, and that is not a good thing. What I love about the act of painting, is the sense of fun or exploration. I don’t feel free to experiment with expensive paint. I don’t want to dirty an expensive brush.

I buy the absolute cheapest paint scrapers and spackling knives… the kind at the hardware store, in the three-pack, with plastic handles.

I remember applying paint with bits of cut up or torn cardboard when I was in art school.

What I’m doing is not new, but new to me.

I heard a podcast this week that said, Creativity is the only way human progress happens.

It went on to say that creativity is Novelty with a purpose. Expectation, fulfilled in a way we haven’t seen before.

I have to strike a balance between Regulatory and comfort vs. surprise and novelty.

I’ve eluded to this previously in my blog. I want my art to be familiar enough to be accessible and yet innovative enough to be interesting. This refers to the physical application of paint to a surface, but it applies to the intellectual content as well. I want to express something in colors and shades, lines and shapes, that expresses my impression or emotion, so that you can look at it and say

Yes. I have felt that way, too.

The words I write here can inform or surprise you, but only because they are familiar enough to be understood. If I made up my own unique language, it would be useless in conveying a message.