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?

 

 

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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.

Colours For Tree Trunks

 

 

 

 

 

 

Painting often involves pushing into something without fully knowing why. Blind response perhaps.  Thoughts from somewhere, being prone to listening in a given moment and things transpire.

While painting tree trunks, the colour red connected with me. Not any red: a really bright red. I wasn’t sure but I listened and things evolved.

Is there a colour you would paint the tree trunks? I’m interested. There is no right or wrong answer. Something will suggest itself and it is about allowing this to have expression. What colour would you paint the tree trunks if you were painting them?

Would you paint them the colour that reaches out to you? Would you paint them that colour knowing that others would see?

Hoping you will.

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.

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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

Have You Seen This Place?

I paint on location and sometimes from photo sources. Often I paint from within.

The canvas was painted over a few hours while this Calgary artist listened to Blues through earbuds connected to Slacker Radio playing on my BlackBerry. I never look up: there is no question of what goes where or how something should be. Colours reached out from the palette. Everything unfolds in layers and layers.

The place feels familiar but it is no where I know exactly. I can show you where it is but it isn’t the same place.

When I paint from within it is very much connected to somewhere I’ve seen either in this lifetime, or perhaps, in another lifetime. Not sure.

Have you seen this place?

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Jim Pescott is an international contemporary artist who lives and creates 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

How Large Is Large?

“I love this!  But can you paint it for me on a much larger canvas?”

And the response is “How large is large?”

Imagine yourself in this moment. You feel a deep personal connection with a cityscape painting on a 10″ x 12″ canvas. And you know you’d love it even more if the painting is larger. The happy ending, of course, is you decide on a 48″x 48″ canvas and this Calgary artist created a similar cityscape just for you  (see the image below). 

Paintings do this. They help us feel things. Paintings bring something into our life that never before exisited. And we have an oppotunity everyday to respond to this nourishing experience.

As an artist, a painter, I love bringing things into existance.

So tell me, “What would you like painted?”

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Jim Pescott is an international contemporary artist who lives and creates 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. Jim’s website is http://www.jimpescott.com