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.

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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

Spring River

“Spring River” will be at the Toronto Art Expo.

Toronto Art Expo, is a premier event celebrating the value of fine art in our lives.

With over 200 distinguished Canadian and International artists and galleries from 12 countries, this weekend of art has become a destination for selective art connoisseurs from all over North America and Europe.

Is the Toronto Art Expo your destination? 

 

 

 

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?

 

 

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

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