Readers – Blind Portraits
Here are a couple of characters. The blind drawing technique allows my hand to have its say in expressing myself.
Tag Archives: self expression
Portrait – Mike Resting
I think of my brother Mike* quite often. I credit him, in part, with the origin of my inquisitiveness and my wide range of interests. I challenged myself to conjure up an image of Mike and paint the first image that came to my mind. I have posted many articles, photographs and paintings of my […]
Two Gestures
In this study I continue to use the thick outlines inspired by Joan Miró (see Hand in Hand) to combine two gestures frequently exhibited by my brother Mike*. Backstory I photographed Mike for many years and tried to capture his actions with the hope of understanding his expressions. Mike’s hand is often on the side […]
Promised?
At first glance this sign looks to be an exhortation to all who happen by with writing implements. Upon closer reading, it appears as if the building owner is addressing a specific person or persons. Note that the sign writer said “I promised”; ‘promised’ is in the past tense. The building owner already promised not to […]
Granulation
Today, I am shying away from ‘self expression’, having been stung by Annie Dillard’s description of those who consider ‘art’ as a way to understand one’s self: “You may hold the popular view that art is self expression, or a way of understanding the self – in which case the artist need do nothing more than […]
From My Own Head
I got all tangled up trying to figure out Paul Klee‘s methods yesterday. I’ve been reading Volume 2 of Klee’s notebooks, The Nature of Nature, a summary of some of the classes he taught at the Bauhaus. Klee’s view of his world of art had is foundations in his own cosmology. He wrote about origins of the universe in […]
Hands in Context
I am still interested in creating an atlas of hand gestures as related to my older brother and me. If you are visiting my blog for the first time, my older brother is autistic, very low functioning and has never spoken. Images of hands have figured noticeably in my photographs of him. Using a short […]
Fun with Lines
I took a break today. No researching about surrealism, abstract expressionism or any kind of expressionism. I just thought that I would have some fun with lines. In all honesty, though, I was inspired by the grids that Joan Miró used to organize his paintings and sketches. Now I understand how he could say that […]
Barking Up the Wrong Tree?
Self Expression I have been trying to figure out how to express my feelings thought the visual arts, specifically through painting. I assumed that abstract expressionism was the way to go. However, connecting of the emotions to the hand with the paint brush seems to require a big canvas: sweeping movements as a dancer would […]
Meditation as Calibration
Kandinsky It is common to think of colors as “warm” or “cold”, “exciting” or “relaxing”. The Russian-born painter and musician Wassily Kandinsky spent years painting abstract compositions, looking at the work of other artists and making note of the effect color had on him. [1] However, he had an advantage that many of us […]
