Yarrow's Blog

Well, I'm back. It's taken me a long time to get over the death of my friend. I guess I took the scenic route, although it's wasn't really very scenic, darn right ugly at times. What it did was get me to reflect on what I think is important in my life and how I want my life to be. That includes my art.

I rearranged my life according to my view of the life I want to be living. I quit my good paying job with insurance (an international corporation) and took a part time job with a small local business with no insurance except their kindness, doing what I really like with people I really like. Less time away from home means I can concentrate on my homesteading activities; gardening, food preservation, etc. It feels to good to be intimately involved with producing my food. That means I also have time to paint and draw. It means that I can indulge my miniatures hobby and start working on unexpected ways of creating art, like my latest craze of book art. I hope to have some ready for the spring Art Tour.

Let me know if you like any of my latest art.

I've really been looking at a lot of watercolors lately, painted by a variety of painters and there is a lot of different techniques. I like to employ some of them myself while others just make me drool, I want to learn how to do them so bad. Do you ever feel this way?

I like to use a lot of different techniques in my own painting because I try to match my feelings for the subject of the painting with different techniques. Sometimes though, I admit, I'm just showing off. But usually I'm trying to convey my emotional response with technique.

Sometimes it backfires and all I have is technique. When that happens I just feel flat.

Check out this link to WKBT's art blog and see my work.
http://art.blogs.wkbt.com/

My recent experience with this year's art tour was positive, refreshing, stimulating and good for the ego. I had forgotten how nice it is to talk "art" with another artist and to talk "art" with non-artists. I thoroughly enjoyed my self. I didn't have all of the stress associated with moving artwork to a far location, borrowing other people's display equipment or worrying about making enough sales to justify my existence. Yes, it wasn't easy to move the art and set up the display but it was way easier this year. I enjoyed the weekend and hope you did too.

My friend, Vic, died last September and I have been depressed ever since. Well, maybe not as much as I was. But it really knocked the stuffing out of me. I've been trying to find meaning in my art work but can't seem to make anything worth viewing. So I decided to wait a while and see what happens. I've brought more attention to my hobbies because they seem safe, friendly and non-threatening. And it has been good to simply relax and have a little fun.

I'm thinking that the time has come when I need to start producing art again. And I'm afraid that the talent has left me. I feel like an empty box. What if I can't ever paint again? What will happen to me? Will anyone care? Will I care? Does it matter? Has anyone out there had to deal with the fear of painting ability leaving? Please let me know if you have had this fear and how you dealt with it.