The Year On The Coin

The date on the coin I’m holding is 1981.

So. .  . what was I doing in 1981?

Here’s the game: look at the date on a coin and ask yourself what you were doing that year. Something, or even a list of things, will reach out from your memory. And sometimes you have an idea you were doing something but you aren’t entirely sure it was exactly during the year on the coin. This too may lead you into another adventure.

Try it. Look at the date on a coin and ask yourself what you were doing that year. Your memory is like a diary and random coin dates from a pocket full of change will trigger much more that you might expect. (Personally, I’ve been able to remember things in response to coin dates back to as early as age three. How about you?)

Then there’s the unknown: those dates prior to your time on this earth. What might you have been doing then? Just let the imagination wonder a little and don’t worry as it is all meant to be fun. An alternative might be to ask yourself about sports and politics during those prior years.

One thing I do know is memories generally fascinate us: we try to remember things all the time.

My clients often bring memories to be painted: people and places that mean so much to them. Maybe a date on a coin will trigger something like this for you.

__________________________________________________

Jim Pescott is an international contemporary artist who lives and creates in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. To contact Jim directly about his paintings, or about a project you think about, please phone 403-870-0791 or email Jim at paintwithdots@shaw.ca Jim Facebook page is http://facebook.Jimpescottpaintingsindots Visit his website at http://www.jimpescott.com  

Windows In The Trees

Looking through trees it seems there are windows allowing me a view. And there are tiny eyes looking out from the trees as though windows allow them a view as well. On both sides, we simply watch.

Is a big part of life about watching through windows?

We “people watch“ as though people are on the other side of the glass: perhaps they too watch us. And please don’t tell me you resist the opportunity, at dusk while walking in the dusk light of the evening, to look through the windows of homes where the lights are on and the curtains are open. Facebook seems a window place. Weather, too, seems a window moment: we watch the weather from our kitchen window. Television augments the window experience with an entire weather providing a window on meteorology anywhere in the world.

Perhaps the most interesting window of all: when we frame a work of art.

 

Upside Down Buildings

What if all buildings were upside-down? What would we call them?

So let’s do it. Let’s imagine all buildings are in fact upside-down and you just discovered this has happened. How would you feel about this: upset, amused, annoyed, interested, concerned, jazzed?

The choice is yours to accept upside-down buildings or to reject them. If you accept them there may be benefits you didn’t expect. It you reject upside-down buildings you’ve kept the status quo which is fine as rightside-up buildings seem to work pretty well.

Alright, now let’s say that actual buildings are all upside down: this is our “normal”.  And then someone constructs a downside-up building. Will you be upset, amused, annoyed, interested, concerned, jazzed? Will you want to keep the status quo?

Art can be like this.

__________________________________________

Jim Pescott is an international contemporary artist living and creating in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. To contact Jim directly about his paintings, or a project you think about, please phone 403-870-0591 or email Jim at paintwithdots@shaw.ca. Enjoy his Facebook page at http://facebook.com/jimpescottpaintingsindots Jim’s website is http://www.jimpescott.com

 

Colour Spectrum

Do colours reach out to you?

During the past week at the Toronto Art Expo, watching people and paintings suggested to me that at least some colours may touch us with feelings and emotions. This is fun to think about and there’s lots of information sources for possible insight to what might be going on for you.

Colour for me is about expressing light, shadows and shapes. Sometimes a painting involves a spectrum of colours and sometimes mostly one colour satisfies. It’s especially fun when a canvas wants me to shift gears in the middle of interpretations to move into places not previously seen.

Not everyone sees the same colours: this link demonstrates . Do these colours reach out too?

________________________________________

Jim Pescott is an internationalcontemorary artist who lives and creates in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. To contact Jim directly about his paintings, or a project you think about, please phone 403-870-0591 or email Jim at paintwithdots@shaw.ca. Enjoy his Facebook page at http://facebook.com/jimpescottpaintingsindots

Step Inside

Step in?

Sure. Of course.

No, not into the studio. This is an invitation to step into the painting. That’s right, to explore from the inside as in a dream whilst colours flow and the image evolves. Then walk away when the painting is done. This is my experience everyday.

The painting now waits for someone else to step in. Someone who stops, looks, feels compelled to explore, and they step inside. Exploration becomes captivating.

____________________________________________

Jim Pescott lives and creates in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is an international contemporary artist: recently Jim’s work exhibited in the Salon 2011 held by the Societe Nationale des Beaux-art,  in France, at the Carrousel du Louvre, Paris. http://www.jimpescott.com   http://facebook.com/jimpescottpaintingsindots

 

Not Ever Been There

I’ve been somewhere recently but I’ve not ever been there.

You’ve done this, right? Places in your thoughts like a vacation spot you dream about or maybe a new place to live that sounds wonderful. You have an image based on something but it isn’t based you having been there. Where have you been but you’ve not ever been there?

For me, as I work on a canvas, I’m often taken to see a place but I’ve never been there. I paint lots from real sources, real places, but there are options and eventually there is interpretation. It is something like looking at a black and white picture in a book and not knowing what the real colours are or what exisits beyond any edge of the image: with this, creativity awakens.

So I’ve been there but not ever been there. Every new canvas is so exciting.

____________________________________________

Jim Pescott lives and creates in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is an international contemporary artist: he recently exhibited in the Salon 2011 held by the Societe Nationale des Beaux-art in Paris at the Carrousel du Louvre. http://www.jimpescott.com   http://facebook.com/jimpescottpaintingsindots

Coffee Talk

Over coffee, at the kitchen table, Morse shared, ”If someone can draw a rock they can draw anything.”

We weren’t talking about rocks and we weren’t talking about drawing but it didn’t seem to matter to Morse. He just thought it should be said.

Many years later, as we sat with our coffee, there were some rocks on the kitchen table and Morse was drawing them. I watched. Moments like this say so much about how lives happen. How many rocks in the garden do we see but decline the opportunity to spend time with them.

Morse never said why he waited so long but it was very clear drawing rocks had been on his mind for some time. The wonderful part is Morse finally gathered some rocks to nourish the artist he held within.

Do you know stories like this?

 

 

A Rainbow Landed

What does a painting look like before it gets to the canvas?

Close your eyes and imagine a rainbow splashing down somewhere, having missed the proverbial “pot of gold”, and the image you have is fairly close. This photo is the real deal: an “in process” look at my palette box filled with a spectrum of musings in a bare all image of raw colours, mixed and swirled, pending application to the composition evolving on the easel. I can only speak for myself in this. I’m not suggesting other painters work the same way.

“Palette” is an interesting word. It refers to a thin board used by artists as a surface for mixing colours. Palette also refers to colours selected by the artist as revealed in a finished painting. In my case the paint is water base acrylic so I use a box-type ”wet-able” palette: the colour palette is evident.

I like too that the other “palate”, found close by in the dictionary, involves much focus on the sense of “taste” these days: in my world this is always about art.

In Paris, the Musee Marmottan Monet , a must see, holds a palatable surprise. Apart from wonderful, wonderful paintings on exhibit, there is, behind glass, an actual palette board used by Claude Monet : traces of paint colour are still visible on the age darkened wood. Would seeing an artifact like this be a thrill for you?

 

Love Affair

 ”You have a love affair with aspens.”

I heard the words and immediately felt so guilty. I’d not ever thought about aspens as an object of love but I knew it was true.

Right now, in my studio, I’m painting a group of seven canvases that include a total of seventy-five aspen trees around the theme “In A Yellow Wood”. Proof enough. Who would do this if they didn’t love aspens?

Aspens are so interesting. Each aspen is an individual: it looks nothing like its neighbour aspen as a douglas fir would. Every aspen is its own shape and this, together with the scars it displays, relates the individual life it lives. How like people this seems.  Perhaps each aspen I paint is a portrait.

What is the tree that you love?

The aspens in this painting are on a hillside that slopes toward an escarpment. They endure a nearby roadway, certainly gravity and people who brush against them. Of course the raw elements of various weather systems throughout the year are a significant endurance as well. This group of aspens seems much like a family as they reach to each other and touch.

In A Yellow Wood

Love to experience of a place like this whether during a hike or on a path within my thoughts. Colours, lights and smells rolled up in sensations as I pass through, carefully, not to disturb the essense of things.

People write about experiences like this. I paint them.

American poet, Robert Frost, wrote “two roads diverge in a yellow wood” and somehow touches me as I paint. The spectre and foreshadowing all dwell within the trees as he continues reflecting.

“And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden back.“

Wondering about trees in your world and what transpires for you.

______________________________________________

Jim Pescott is an international contemporary artist who lives and works in Calgary Alberta. To contact Jim directly about his paintings, or a project you think about, please phone 403-870-0591 or email him at paintwithdots@shaw.ca. His website is http://www.jimpescott.com