"Look What I Can Do!"

All Hail The Return Of Harvey Wood!

In the spirit of "You start somethin'; You finish somethin'", ideas are rolling again to get Harvey Wood published. 

~ Stay tuned.

Art As Therapy (Part 3)

Color and line set a mood ~ or can give the artist’s mood a way; either way with this next piece I wanted to see if I could get everything in order to create a happier piece. The idea came from this idea I had. She had not painted anything in a long while, so I told her we should trade portraits.

"I'll do one of you and you do one of me!" ~ great idea.
This is the one I promised her. I'm still waiting for mine.

This piece I pick proved my point. Set your mind to it
and you can squeeze out a little happy on to your canvas.

Happy in = Happy out!

Art As Therapy (Part 2)

I've talked a lot about color, line, and how my mood had a part in the last self-portrait. So now we need to talk about the creative process itself. I realized something the other day about my art, and life in general; Try this with me.

Look at something ~anything, a horse, a house, a word~ anything. Hold it in your head. Now try to draw it. Hard as I’ve tried, from conception to delivery, I lose a lot (sometimes all). I do realize that sometimes it turns out better than the picture I had in my mind, because of the variations.  I did one for you just so you can see what I mean. The top one  is what I saw in my head. The other is my translation. Far from a perfect rendering, but it has more of my own voice. This one is ready for a card to someone I love.

My point is ~ we have an idea in our head whether it’s a horse, a house or how we treat each other, and it rarely turns out how we think it will. Here is the art as therapy part; by embracing the good parts of  your art piece or life and holding on to them, we can begin to see the perfection in the imperfections...

...or something like that.

Art As Therapy (Part 1) ~ Self Portrait No.4

“Poor Sad Bastard” ~ After all these years I finally got to fall in love again! But alas, it ended too soon. A well meaning friend told me with a symptomatic tone, "people come into our lives for: a reason, a season, or a life" I must of been looking like some poor sad bastard to get that pep talk :) 

Whatever it was, she was great ~ but it has left me a little wilted. So when I look at this piece, I see there's a happy-sad thing going on. Colors are more subdued and the lines are hard, yet there is a positive upwards movement to the whole piece. Hopeful and scared at the same time…you know.

*A person made a commented on this post 1/21/2012. Among other things, she said she saw more pain than joy in the piece. Never one to back down when someone calls me on my crap; I took an introspective look at what I had painted. 

All of the things I had been talking about in the last few post were right there. Emotion in motion! (Sorry Billy Squire), but still, the Bluesy music I’ve been listening to, the internal sunshine turning into a stormy day, and even the exquisite funk! 

This self-portrait was a product of all that ~ even better it was a photograph of my guts as I worked through all this stuff.

I thought about this as I studied it. I saw less positive upward movement, if any at all. I saw the first lightning strike over the heart with fresh red puncture wounds, the second strike happening on the far left side of the page; obviously something else going on there.  And maybe ~ just maybe, there was a falling back, and not an upward movement. 

I like the fact my darker emotions got in there and mixed stuff up. I still stand by my romantic, sunshiny self and say “Love rocks and Girls rule…and I would do it over again, a hundred times!”

* Added 1/23/2012

The Internal Sunshine of the Artistic Mind

Pay attention, because there will be a test; Do you have to be in love to write a love song? Do you have to be depressed to paint a sad painting?  Is a story better when it really happened to you? You catch my drift? The pieces above were created the year while my Dad was dieing, and they don't look anywhere near dark and dreary. So I say "No".

I think art is best when you get what you get .

Everyone says that I'm a "happy" painter, something in all my stuff has "internal sunshine". I'm OK  with that, In fact, I'm grateful for it. However, I would like to think if I were sad, I could squeeze a cloudy day out on my canvus. Things as they are. These guys coming through when they did were sheer joy!  They're like my babies! Over the course of a few months, from conception to delivery, it proved to me that art could be theropy, and in spite of a drepressed mood joyful art could come out.

I LOVE ART!

David Street Art Turns 3000!

Time for a change. I am growing weary of the "Basic Black" treatment of my blog. Time to mix it up a little with one of my favorite watercolor splotches, Thanks to Google, I am getting more hits ~ and today 1/20/12; I hit 3000 at 5:00 PM Boise Time!! Thanks everybody!