Blue Coffee

Blue coffee tastes much like regular coffee. The same for red coffee. Yellow too.

I’ve tried them all and, while colours haven’t caught on with boutique coffee haunts, I wonder if someday the experience will be available to everyone. If so, the colours will hopefully have a source other than acrylic paint from tubes as my coffee spectrum involves.

Coffee is my companion in the studio: not sure of its role in the creative process but it seems to have opinions. Acrylic paint is water soluble and in this there no preference on water source. If the mug is too close to the palate, a paint brush inevitably will be swished in caffeine for cleaning rather than the clear water close by.

Creativity moves my thoughts to places unknown and a clean brush, when you need one, is a clean brush. The solution is to cover the mug.

Imbibing rainbow coffee happens often at a cafe I enjoy. People go to cafes for lunch: I go to this cafe to paint, make new friends, and joy the coffee as I’ve done for many years.

The small round cafe table means a paintbox is essential for supplies and as an easel. All this in a confined space seems so unavoidably aligned for coffee colouring. A go-cup with a lid is essential.

Given the options available, my favourite coffee is black.

Gimli is East of Here, Right?

Tomorrow, at 4am, I leave Calgary for a drive across the Canadian Prairies to Manitoba. Done this many times over the years and each time I can’t wait to start heading toward the sunrise. The time I spend in Saskatchewan will be stage lights bright. And the sun will be low in the western when I arrive in Winnipeg. Lots of road coffee on this journey.

Driving across the prairies brings place names that in themselves seem adventures. Moose Jaw, Portage la Praire, Medicine Hat, Indian Head, Swift Current and many, many more places like this chart the journey. When I’m in Brandon it always feels to me I’m mid-point between the west coast and the east coast of Canada. One things is for sure, arriving at Brandon, Manitoba, means two hours remain to Winnipeg after a long day on the highway.

On the prairies it seems you can see off to the edge of the earth as you drive. The hush of the vastness is compelling. Spirit seems everywhere.
I’m going to Manitoba to seek out some paintings, so canvas and paints are my travelling companions. A couple cameras will do the trip too. Will also meet up with some gallery friends in Winnipeg and Gimli.
________________________________
Let’s meet up on FaceBook http://wwwmfacebook.com/JimPescottPaintingsinDots

Jim Pescott is an international contemporary artist: he lives and creates in Calgary, Alberta. Email is info@jimpescott.com Phone 403-870-0591. Website http://www.jimpescott.com

Living With Art

For most of us, sleep consumes a large portion of life.

When we sleep, most of us dream much like we are at the movies but without the popcorn.

When we awake, the show ends and life resumes. There may be day dreams at times, but the awake time is often filled with functions and pragmatics. The theatre of our awake life seldom performs as when we wish ourselves a “good night”.

Can we introduce things to make our day something more? For example: the work of an artist who blends “her classical artistic training with spirituality and healing energy merged into paintings” could be an option. Basically, this is about owning original art: a painting that speaks deeply to you. But not just a painting as there are so many options involving art and what touches you personally. What YOU feel is what really matters in looking at art that provides you nourishment in the spaces where you live and where you work.

Live with art that nourishes you always. The nourishment can be “sprituality and healing” but it can be anything else that matters to you.

Another artist writes , “When thinking of Art one should not exclusively think of museums or art galleries, art should be a integral part of our LIVING SPACE, OFFICE SPACE and inspire our daily lives with colorful and original objects. Living with Art is in itself an Art”.  Include original art in the spaces where we live and where we work.

Don’t walk away from art you love, bring it into your life.

If you’ve been “living with art”, what are your experiences. Please, please share with us.

______________________________________________

Jim Pescott is an international contemporary artist who lives and works in Calgary, Alberta. To connect with Jim about his original paintings, or a project you have in mind, call 403-870-0591, or email hime at paintwithdots@shaw.ca. His website is 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.

 

Calgary Artist in Paris at the Carrousel du Louvre

I’m soon travelling to Paris where I’m a Canadian delegate at an international art exhibition of paintings and sculpture: the prestigious Salon 2011 de la Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts (SNBA).

“Antarctica Shoreline” is a juried selection by the SNBA to be displayed at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, France, from December 7th to December 11th. Needless to say I’m honoured to be a delegate and very pleased the SNBA jury chose a work from the Antarctica series.

 

Following the exhibition in Paris, I travel to Florence, Italy, with paintings for another international exhibition: “Symphony of Colors” from December 10th to 17th. This too feels an honour.

www.jimpescott.com

Trees Downtown

“Trees Downtown” is where trees, amidst the energies of concrete, vehicles, and people, ask for their lives to be witnessed. Evergreens huddle close to big walls: deciduous occupy solitary space like lamp posts.

Trees share selflessly and listening brings much to know while understanding may perhaps be another painting. Always, this depends on what the canvas seeks as I’m simply the messenger.

Orange Tree

Orange tree trunks must exist somewhere. Or rather, if the canvas wants an orange tree trunk then one simply appears. Either way, “Orange Tree” now exists.

Ever seen an orange tree trunk somewhere? Anywhere?

Paintings In Dots

www.jimpescott.com

http://dotpaintr.wordpress.com

“Like” Jim Pescott Paintings in Dots on Facebook

“Evening Shadows” Share With Calgary Artist

After a wonderful week in Montreal at the Quebec 2011 art exhibition, it was great to get back to the studio in Calgary.

 

“Evening Shadows” was the first canvas waiting by the easel: it wanted “yellow” and this happened with thin, wet, sloppy dots. Next the canvas wanted “trees”: in response, trees were identified with darker dots where trees needed to be. When the canvas wanted shadows, shadows happened one dot at a time.

 

A super time in the studio.

 

Jim Pescott
Paintings In Dots
www.jimpescott.com
403-870-0591

“The Backstairs”

At any other time of day I would have walked past this place. But the light of the day, at that moment, placed a flight of wooden stairs on stage and the words “paint me” entered my thoughts. No trees, no sky, no people: just stairs at the back of an old building. “The Backstairs” is a forgotten place.

What do you experience in this painting?

“Windows In The Trees”

While unwrapping a new canvas the other day, a vision of deep shadows and windows in the trees came to mind: actually it really wasn’t a thinking experience as the canvas was sharing and my role is to listen and then respond although more and more I get the feeling I’m not responding.

“Windows In The Trees” is 20″x16″.