Art Letter 9: Should You Climb A Mountain?
More specifically, which one? The new year makes everyone cuckoo with optimism and ambition, so I thought we might assess just how motivated we all are, and adjust our expectations accordingly.
First, here are some teeny tiny mountains which should take your eyeballs no more than a split second to climb. My retinas are feeling ground down by microscopic detail after holiday orders, so they’re easing into these abstract minis. These necklaces are also ridges and peaks more affordable ($37), since they drain far less brain marrow to create. Double win! Does that count as climbing a mountain? Did I just summit?!
And now, our monthly flowchart.
Setting realistically flexy goals seems like the best way to grow as a human. I wanted to do a painting every day this month, but that is baloney on a bicycle. So instead I am (trying to) do one very fast sketch every day of either Sunny or Cosimo. It helps me stay present in the moment while practicing drawing skills (<<that seems like poor grammar but I can’t figure out why?).
Hopefully this will help you to find that sweet spot, too.
As always, an icy-sweet smattering of painters I admire, thematically appropriate of course. Personally I am all woozy-swoony over Charlie Easton’s work. Guy stands out in the frisky gusts of the Canadian Rockies painting en plein aire but moves lithe as if he’s picking out orchids at a hot house.
Conrad Jon Godly
Albert Beirstadt
Ariel Lee
And if NONE OF THAT gets your winter blood pumping, then maybe SALVATION MOUNTAIN is the place for you. Where the indefatigable Leonard Knight literally built a mountain out of adobe, sand, junk, sticks, bales of hay, and approximately 100,000 gallons of paint, all in a lifelong passion to bring the message God is Love to the world. His story is a diamond in the desert.
Image via Creative Commons.
May the newness of your new year be invigorating, and may your uphill climbs be peek-a-boo’d with panoramic views.
Me, I’ll be sodden as a ski slope sock up here in northwest Washington until April. I leave you all with a candid action shot of some nut doing a watercolor portrait of someone else’s baby while nursing her own in garish leggings. Overachieving kook.
xoxo,
Khara