Same Song, Second Verse - 20 More to Come

Well, upon seeing what I had done and posted to this blog, my mentor, Mark Keathley, responded with encouragement and a couple of recommendations.  The first was to apply thicker paint in the lighter areas of the starts where I am trying to portray light.  While I already understood this principle I had difficulty carrying it out.  He provided brief guidance as to how best accomplish that.  He described the application of paint in those areas to putting on icing with the brush held more parallel to the canvas.  He also suggested that I mix about twenty piles of colors to use, including pastel shades, greens, blues and purples that don't come in the tube colors.

For the benefit of those who may want to know, the principle of painting darks thinly and lights with thicker paint when painting in oils is foundational as is painting thin to thick and dark to light.  The reasoning is pretty easy to grasp and demonstrate.  You cannot see the color of dark hues if applied thickly.  They need some light shinning through them to transmit their hue.  By the same token, light colors if not applied thickly will allow darker color underneath to show through.  Also the brightest brights are most often highlights reflecting off some surface and should stand out or sort of sparkle, whereas darker shadow areas should lay back.  This is also controlled by color temperature: cool colors like blues and greens tend to recede and warm colors like yellow and red tend to advance, visually.

Mark also suggested that I do another set of starts using the guidance he offered described above.  Since I enjoyed doing the first set of starts he recommended and feel that I made some progress, I'm certainly going to take his further advice and do another set of starts.  Therefore, I'm now making selections from my photo images that I would like to paint.  Most of these I'll do even smaller in a 6"X8" panel as I have quite a few of those prepared with gesso and some with canvas applied to the panel.  These starts are similar to learning to do scales before performing a recital, but a lot more fun.

The purpose of doing them even smaller is to avoid putting in too much detail in these starts, concentrating more on the design of the compositions. This is done by combining shapes and values to simplify and strenghten the compositions in this underpainting stage.  Doing so will help me gain the ability to more simply and dynamically express what I want to communicate. 

If the composition and design "works" in this small format it will also work when a larger painting is done, and the larger painting will not be as much about copying details as it will be about communicating the emotions I feel about the image I chose to paint.

Following Mark Keathley's counsel is somewhat like the story behind the movie "Julie and Julia" which was partly responsible for my returning to paint and doing this blog.  In the movie, Julie blogs her journey through Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."  It was after seeing this movie with my younger daughter and wife that my daughter challenged me to do this blog and start painting again.  I'm like the young "Julia" and Mark's counsel to me is guiding me like Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."  I'm extremely grateful for his willingness to give me guidance.  I have never been more excited about painting than I am now.  At nearly 66, I'll take all the non-medical excitement I can get.

So, with another set of starts to come, the journey to become a better painter continues...

Acting on Good Counsel - 22 "Starts"

At the advice of Mark Keathley, an accomplished and successful artist, I have spent all my spare time since my last post, doing twenty-two "starts."  Starts, if I have understood what he meant by the term, are beginning of paintings on which one spends an hour to an hour and a half covering the panel or canvas by blocking in the colors, values color temperatures and larger shapes combining values and shapes where possible to simplify the underpainting.  Most will not be very far along when the surface is covered with paint but the basic idea the artist wants to convey to the viewer will be evident most of the time.

I'm including photos of these starts as a group and individually to demonstrate some of my experiences, thoughts and ideas as I discuss them over the next few posts.  Below is a photo of my drawing table and bookcase where I've laid out 20 of the starts.

All of the starts except one are painted on 8X10 canvas (from Dick Blick) or hardboard panels some of which have been given a rougher texture when coating them with Utrecht New Temp Artist's white acrylic gesso.  The one exception was the first start done and it was done on a 6"X9" panel.  All but one of these starts were painted in regular artists oil colors while the one of the carnival ferris wheel was painted with Winsor & Newton Artisan water soluble artists oil colors.  A few of them were started by blocking in the larger darkest shapes with black acrylic gesso and when that dried the entire surface was given a wash of burnt sienna Golden Acrylic before continuing to lay in the underpainting with regular oil paints.  All of the starts were done using only pure boar bristle brushes usually with sizes 6, 4, and 2.  Very little oil painting medium was used but when it was necessary Winsor & Newton Liquin was used.  Turpenoid was the solvent used with the regular oil paints for cleaning brushes and water was used for the one painting started with water soluble oils.

Working with the water soluble oils took a bit of getting used to and I found no advantage in their use other than that of not having to use Turpenoid, which is virually odorless, as the solvent.  I have noticed that drying time is considerably slower with the water soluble oils especially when Liquin is used with the regular artists oils.

Most often my darkest darks including my blacks were made from a mixture of French Ultamarine Blue and Burnt Sienna.  This allows me to easily mix a wide range of warm and cool greys by varying the amount of each pigment and titanium white.  Occasionally I also used Viridian Green and Permanent Alizarin where I wanted a really dark color in rendering green vegetation.

The first attempt at these "starts" since the first painting in 10 years post was made was a 6"X9" covered bridge scene from Tennessee that Mark Keathley had sent me to use as I began acting on his counsel.  He told me, "Do 20 starts before attempting to bring any of them along to a point where you might consider them finished."  His only instruction was that I should not spend more than 1 to 1 1/2 hours on each.  He sent me a couple of photos showing one of his starts and the reference photo used for that start.  I already had an email from him of the finished painting.  This was used to visually show me what the goal was.

I took this first one and several others beyond the "starts" point as I worked my way through the twenty and beyond to twenty-two.  Okay, I'm a bit O.C. (obsessive compulsive) and tend to do more than asked or than necessary figuring that if twenty is good, twenty-two is better.  Mark Keathley told me that when I had finished the twenty starts I'd know what I wanted to do next and would know the road on which I would continue my journey to becoming a better painter. 

Mark was right.  I had a great time doing these small starts each day anxiously looking forward to the time I could get off work and get back to painting.  I looked toward each weekend with great anticipation.  Not all the starts are that pleasing to me but all have some potential for a finished painting and some seem almost finished.  I gained facility in mixing and applying paint.  My earliest attempts have some muddy areas where I tried to adjust hue or color temperature and made a mess of it.  These however can and will be corrected as I move next to work on the starts bringing along the ones that I'm most excited about to a finished piece of art.  This will bear the fruit of another stage of development as I go back and work on the starts and try to know when they are finished.

So, here are photos of the starts without going into much commentary about each one.  All were done very quickly and all are at a basic underpainting stage.  I'll bring them further along to completion over the next few months.  I think it might be interesting, and possibly helpful to other persons wishing to work toward becoming a better artist, to show the source and progress or problems if there be some on each.

The above scene of vineyard in France.  Reference photo was taken by my daughter, Laura Vassberg.

This scene of the San Fransico Bay Bridge will have two rows of lamplights running back in the distance with a very dark foreground while I've only indicated two to get the perspective and spacing.  This start has some pretty muddy areas in it.   Reference photo was taken by my daughter.

This is a hillside full of red poppies in France.  I have just indicated a couple of the flowers to show the complementary colors (colors opposite each other on the color wheel or nearly so) of the red and green.  This will take some time to finish properly even if kept lose.  The reference photo was taken by my oldest daughter during a trip to France.

This scene is San Francisco with the bay bridge in the faint distance.  At this stage I just have the basic underpainting. If you look carefully, you can see the Golden Gate bridge just above the horizon between the two rows of buildings. The large white building will have many darkened windows added as I develop this one further.  Reference is my daughter's photo.

Reference photo was taken by my daughter.  I've pushed the contrasts and colors to get the complementary colors to make the scene more dynamic.

Scene is from England.  I think this has potential due to the great range from foreground to background.  Reference photo by friends of Mark Keathley who passed some on to me for my use in these starts.

This scene is from a scanned slide my father took of my grandmother and mother exiting a restaurant in the 50s.  The three boys on the left are me, in the green jacket nearest the building, the larger one is my older brother, the smaller one is my younger brother probably around 7 years old.  I thought this might be fun.

Another scene from England from photo taken by Mark Keathley's friends.

Scene is Apalachicola, Florida.  I was inspired to do this one due to the complimentary blue and orange colors. Reference photo was taken by me from the walkway of our motel while on vacation in October of 2009.

Cypress tree and lily pads in Caddo Lake near Jefferson, Texas while on a short vacation there.  Reference photo is taken by me and looks a bit like a Monet scene to me.  This was fun to this point.  I'll certainly take this one further.

Oyster fishermen in Port Aransas, Texas.  Reference photo taken by me.

Shrimp boats at Fulton Beach, Texas north of Rockport.  Reference photo taken by me.  Boat on the right is named "Ole No. One."  This start went together easily taking less than an hour.  Finishing it might take some time.

Scene in France.  Reference photo taken by my daughter.  This one was difficult to do in the small scale format and will take a good deal of work to get it where I like it.

Another scene from France with reference photo taken by my daughter.  I like the value range and colors in this.  It almost "works" the way it is.

Another scene from England.  Reference photo taken  by Mark Keathley's friends and passed along to me for use in these stars.

This unusual scene is pretty accurate and is from a photo I took in a swamp on a plantation we visited near Savanah, Georgia on our vacation thorugh the South in October of 2009.  I found the patterns that the light and the shapes of the trees make very interesting.  The area was somewhat mysterious in feeling and I want to capture that as I continue working this one to completion.

Reference photo taken by my daughter while in France.  This one came together very quickly and strongly to this point.  I'm looking forward to taking it to a finish but since this photo I have already struggled a bit with keeping it loose.

This start was done using water soluble artist's oil paints.  I had never worked with these before and decided to experiment on this scene from a carnival in Pharr, Texas.  Reference photo taken by me.  I'm fascinated by the carnivals and games I remember from my youth.  I doubt I will use these water-soluable paints again.  They took several weeks for the underpainting show above to dry.

This is of the lead singer, Alan Barnett, of the Psychic Cowboys, a very entertaining cover band from Austin.  The reference photo was taken by my daughter whose husband play electric bass and signs with this band.  The setting is The Oasis overlooking Lake Travis west of Austin.  This one was done by first laying in all the darkest darks with black acrylic gesso, covering that with a wash of burnt sienna acrylic when the black dried quickly.  Then the brightest values were laid in and "pieces of paint" applied with local color to bring it to this point.  Probably took me about 45 minutes.  I think this one has potential to be very strong.   I pushed both the values and complementary blue and orange colors to get a more dynamic image.  Look forward to correcting some "muddy" areas in the face and bringing it along to finish.  I don't think it has far to go to be finished.

I found the small size of these starts to be a challenge and look forward to completing them and beginning some larger canvases--perhaps of some of these small painting  subjects.  I also have a couple I'd like to try in watercolor and at least one that I want to do in pastels.  I have not done many paintings in either of these media.  However, here's a watercolor that I did of part of the San Antonio Riverwalk near Jim Cullum's Jazz Club that is part of the collection of my oldest daughter and son-in-law.

I welcome your comments and criticism, both positive and negative.  Art is a form of communication as is this blog.  Due to my work I don't get out of the house very much and welcome and enjoy the interaction with friends, family, co-workers, and anonymous comments on this blog.   Discussions are welcome about the art I am producing, the writing of the blog, and methods I'm following.  This is all a learning process for me and one model for learning is placing yourself in an interactive environment such as this.

Thanks for taking time to look, read, and comment.

The Benefit of Reflection from Viewer Comments

The Jacques Barzun book “Simple and Direct: A Rhetoric for Writers” is on my desk directly in front of me. In it Barzun states, “It has been said that we should write as we speak. That is absurd, …. Most speaking is not plain or direct, but vague, clumsy, confused, and wordy….What is meant by the advice to write as we speak is to write as we might [author’s emphasis] speak if we spoke extremely well.” This had special meaning to me as I read it this afternoon.

In responding to my daughter Laura’s comments on the blog post this morning, I had a bit of an epiphany that I will express here now. I was trying to explain to her that I had discovered from the Bob Rohm book “The Painterly Approach” (Northlight) and through watching a video I have of him doing a demonstration, these simple principles of painting methodology:
1. Formulate the idea.

2. Simplify the shapes.
3. Average the values.
4. Average the color.
5. Determine the extremes.
    What is the darkest dark?
    What is the lightest light?
    What is the most intense hue?
    What is the most dynamic edge?

Mr. Rohm states that, by adding the extremes to the under painting containing the simplified shapes, averaged values and colors, one has solved the picture. This is a condensation of a few of the critical points in his book and I commend it to you should you wish an expansion on these principles.

I realized that this is exactly what is missing in my previous work in several genre. Formulate the idea and focus everything on the expression of that idea.

That is basic, for instance, to sermon preparation: the Big Idea. My years of preaching were filled with homilies that, in hindsight, did not communicate very well. From the pulpit, I poured out lots of information gleaned from my study to the point of overwhelming those in the pew. Sometimes I think their eyes would literally roll back in their head. What was missing was the Big Idea of the passage, something that should be clearly understood from the pericope and should be consistent with the entire argument of the context. That Big Idea should be simply and directly expressed by “simplifying the shapes,” “averaging” the values and the color of the details, and eliminating any verbiage that is not directly related to the argument of the Big Idea. That is far more important than having lively or funny illustrations which I never was very good at so didn’t use many. If the illustration doesn’t help the listener know, understand and take home the Big Idea then it doesn’t belong in the message.

I compared my previous art work and found it to have a similar dilemma—no real clear concept that I wanted the viewer to see, too much detail, not enough simplification, no linking nor averaging of the values or colors, no real directing of the viewers eye to a particular place except as the natural composition I was viewing dictated. There are no extremes as listed above. They all have a good deal of sameness throughout due to my “copying” the details I saw. Too wide a range of values, too much sameness in textures and details, too few big shapes, no one place that holds two or more of the extremes of dark, light, intensity or sharpness of edge. They were technical “copies” of the scene.

My undergraduate and graduate papers most all suffered from not narrowing the idea enough and not simply and directly expressing that idea. Too much rambling around verbally.  My posts on this blog suffer in the same manner, up to this point at least.

My verbal communication suffers from the same problem. My dear wife often says, “TMI, too much information.” I never thought about the common thread of error in these various modes of communication.  This carries over even to my Information Technology support work.

As I considered these principles and attempted to communicate them to my daughter, I realized that I would like speak, paint, and write in a more elegant (in the true sense of the word) way: simple and direct.  Quietly formulating the idea I want to express--that which I want the one receiving the communication to hear, see or read.  Carefully choosing and adjusting my words or my brush strokes, colors, values to express the concept in the clearest, most engaging form.  When that is done I’ll be ready to expose that idea. I found this realization both enjoyable and encouraging.

I asked my daughter to post her comments on the blog, which she did, so others could benefit from her candid and very helpful thoughts and understand how they led me to step back and take a fresh look at improving my communications. Hopefully this will encourage others to comment freely which is what I desire. I’m not fragile and find criticism, whether positive or negative, very helpful as it causes me to reflect, review, and possibly redirect my efforts thereby growing, improving and learning from others.

As some famous orator has said, “If I had more time, I’d have said less.” I appreciate hearing from each of you and welcome the exchange of ideas, discoveries and thoughts as it helps me to connect to the outside world from the cage of my office.

First Color Sketch in 10 Years

Saturday, November 7, 2009 I put paint on a canvas for the first time in nearly ten years.  My intent was to just do a color sketch from a photo my daughter had taken near Tyler, Texas a couple of years ago while we were in the area for Thanksgiving.

I selected a 9X12 prepared gessoed panel and blocked in my darkest values using black gesso following the approach of the Svob book mentioned in an earlier post.  After that dried I applied a wash of Burnt Sienna acrylic over the entire surface.  I allowed that to dry before continuing and set out my palette of oil colors:

My palette consists of Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Cadmium Orange, Cadmium Red, Alizarin Crimson, and Transparent Brown (warm colors in top row) as well as Ivory Black (I'd been told never to use black), Winsor Violet (Dioxanine), French Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue, Viridian, and Titanium White (cool colors in second row).  My palette is glass with a white paper underneath and a four-value scale slipped between for value comparison.

The photo shown on a LCD computer monitor serves as my reference.  The photo is enhanced in the coloration, brightness and contrast using Adobe Photoshop CS4 since it is a "rejected" photo sent to me by my daughter.  She sent me a number of photos to use for reference and the first group were photos she did not expect to print due to them not being up to her standards.  I chose to use photos such as this as her photography is so good that I just want to frame her work and not paint it as it is already art itself.  I just selected 18 of her photos for printing (12X18) and framing to hand in our home.

As I began painting in oil on the completely covered canvas board, I first painted the brightest color having already established my dark masses with the gesso and middle values with the burnt sienna acrylic.  The first color I painted was the green grass in the pasture on the right followed by the yellows and oranges in the bank of trees on the right and the bright areas of sunlight on the road.  Next I laid in the sky and began to lay in colors in the middle values followed by reestablishing some of the dark patterns that were either misplaced originally or that needed some local color modulation.  Here is my "finished" color sketch which is much looser than my previous works.

I have "pushed" the hues and intensity of the colors to make the painting more dynamic.  As a beginning on my journey to become a better painter, I am pleased with this color sketch as it is much looser and dynamic than my earler work, a few of which I've shown below for comparisson.  This first attempt is more a painting than a copy of a photo and moving in the direction I desire to travel.  It went pretty fast and was done alla prima entirely.  It does not have the texture of paint application I was wanting as I had a tendancy to revert to my old manner of applying paint.

Below are a few of my paintings I did prior to 2000 which was the last time I painted before this journey began with this first color sketch done this past weekend.

In coming weeks I shall continue to paint even smaller (6X9 and 8X10) color sketches doing as many each day as I can accomplish to gain more freedom in execution and to develop my ability to see the subject as a painting with greater dynamics than the original and better design in composition and capturing the viewer's attention.  By doing these small color sketches I hope to quit focusing on the details and see the painting in my mind I want to produce.

By the way, I have been encouraged by two fine artist friends of mine and would like to invite you visit their websites and see their work:

http://www.jamesahumphrey.com/Gallery.html (James A. Humprey of Grapevine, Texas)

http://markkeathley.com/  (Mark Keathly of Victoria, Texas area)

These are both accomplished, successful professional fine artists whose work I'm sure you'll enjoy.

Ready, Get Set, Go!

Well, it has been a week since I began this blog and I have yet to lay out any paint and brushes and begin to place color on a surface. I struggled still with how to begin and in my quest for that starting point to ensure taking off in a different direction I decided to pick up one of the books that I had bought this past year but had only scanned when it came in due to pressures at my work and family medical matters.

The book I decided to check out was The Painterly Approach: An Artist's Guide to Seeing, Painting and Expressing (Northlight Books, 2008) by Bob Rohm. The title attracted my attention as this is how I've often expressed my goal: to paint more painterly. I began reading the book in the middle of the week and spent most of the day Saturday reading it through. Now that is not how I would normally use an art instruction book nor recommend to others to do. However, the way this book is written so perfectly matched my past experience, present problem, and future hope so well that I didn't want to put it down. It was a very easy read and I took notes as I went through page by page so as to get the content beyond the cognative level.

In the book are principles to follow and some great and practical suggestions for putting those principles into practice. While many of the principles have been found in other books I own, this book put them all into one place, explained them clearly and eloquently in a manner that fit me like an old, comfortable shoe. I now have the entry point for my journey and will start out walking instead of running by doing a good many small 6"X8" studies with just primary colors and a 1/2 inch brush as suggested by Mr. Rohm using the principles he has presented in his book. I can tell you this, if I can get to the point of painting with the dynamics of Mr. Rohm's examples, I'll be very happy. When I can do this consistently without having to think about each principle and each stroke I'll have reached the place I wish to go in my art. Thank you Bob Rohm for your book. It has already been an inspiration.

Where Do I Begin?

Okay, now that I've started the blog it is time to start the actual journey to that a place I don't know, a place I've never been.

Some favorite contemporary (in the time sense of the word) artists whose books I have and whose paintings I really like are (not necessarily in any particular order):

Kevin MacPherson, Fill Your Oil Paintings With Light and Color
Mike Svob, Paint Red Hot Landscapes That Sell!
Bob Rohm, The Painterly Approach, An Artist's Guide to Seeing, Painting and Expressing
Charles Sovek, Oil Painting, Develop Your Natural Ability
Steven Quiller, Color Choices, Making Color Sense Out of Color Theory; Painter's Guide to Color; Acrylic Painting Techniques, How to Master the Medium of Our Age
Rachel Wolf, editor, The Acrylic Painter's Book of Styles and Techniques (especially the work of William Hook and Joseph Orr in this book)
Tony Couch, Tony Couch's Keys to Successful Painting (plus I've talked with him on the phone)
Tom Lynch, Tom Lynch's 100 Watercolor Workshop Lesson Charts

One approach would be to go through their books doing exercises based on that content. However, the desire is to break from previous approaches to improving my art which have not proven productive in any permanent way.

I had private lessons from a Daphne Meister in Houston from nine to twelve years of age. All my work was done from copying prints using a very traditional palette of oil paints and a very traditional manner of painting. Here I learned many "rules" such as fat over lean, paint dark thin and light heavy, perspective, color mixing, and care of my brushes. Some of which I still own.

At the age of 16 I attended a week long (at least it seemed) pastel portrait workshop with Harry Worthman (1909-1989) in Houston. Harry Worthman was primarily a portrait artist and his paintings portray images of famous individuals, such as Lyndon B. Johnson, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, J.C. Penney, Alan Shepard, Ann Landers, and Texas governors John Connally and Price Daniel, as well as Norman Rockwell in the TMA-owned painting Norman Rockwell in His Arlington, Vermont Studio, 1946, (Tyler Museum of Art, 2003.23). Many other prominent families, primarily in Texas and Louisiana, but also throughout the Southwest, as well as in England, Mexico and Japan, commissioned Worthman portraits. I learned a great deal about portrait painting from him in that short time that has remained clear in my mind to this day.

Some of my best works have been portraits. I have done one of my father, an Assistant Fire Chief of the Edinburg Texas Volunteer Fire Department, one of a merchant from Edinburg, Texas commissioned by his family, and two of Roberto Pulido of which one was done for the charitible auction for a women's shelter in South Texas and the other was done as a gift to his dear mother and father. His mother is the sister of the elected official for whom I've worked for 26 years.

Portraits are fun but I also enjoy painting landscapes. This is where I seek the most change. One of the reasons I believe I paint landscapes is that it gives me a chance to "explore" places where I cannot travel to see myself. When one paints it is very easy to get totally absorbed in the subject of the painting as observations of color, texture, form, value and light are made. I love to dwell in peaceful wooded areas near flowing waters. This may be one reason many of my landscapes lack interest and drama. I need to think that through.

I have supplies on hand sufficient to work in oil, acrylic, gouache, pastel, and watercolor. While I am most comfortable with oils because I have used them the most, I also feel safe with them because I've got time to push the paint around. I believe I will start with acrylics in order to get out of my "safe" zone and also to give me the more rapid drying time that I would like to have to make the most of the little time each day I have after my long work day.

I am probably more illustrator than fine artist but what really is the difference? Permanence? Perhaps. Assignment? Maybe but there are commissioned works of "fine art." Many artists such as J. M. W. Turner painted to tell a story or report on a significant event.

My motivation? I love beauty. I love irony. I love interesting people, places and things with a lot of visual character. I love peaceful, tranquil, pastoral scenes. I live vicariously through my art. This is one thing that makes working from beautiful photographs that my daughter has taken (of France, California, Austin, Texas area) very difficult. I consider the photos art in and of themselves and rather than try to emulate that beauty I feel I should just frame them and enjoy them. She sees the light so much better than I.

Most of the books on painting I have most enjoyed have recommended doing value sketches (thumbnails) of your idea for a painting of a certain subject limiting the values to three and grouping intermediate values into larger shapes. I believe this is a practice I should begin with some great frequency until I begin to understand the compositional elements that make a really great painting. The goal here is to not focus on the details as much as to look for the big shapes of dominant values that can make up a dynamic composition.

Time to stop talking about it and do it. Let's see...where is my sketchbook?

The Journey Begins

Well, this is the first day of writing to this blog and not only does the journey to becoming the artist I think I want to be seem daunting so does the idea of writing to this blog daily to journal my journey. I was inspired this past weekend by the movie Julie and Julia and by the focus, discipline and success Julie found by making her committment public and accountable. My daughter suggested I do the same concerning my desire to be the painter I want to be at 65 years of age.
So, for the next year I step forward into an exercise that has become an intimidation to me when I've considered it before. It is good to make goals and be accountable. I have included a somewhat small, poor quality image of a 20" x 24" portrait I did for a charity event of Tejano singer Robert Pulido to reflect where I am at this time. It was taken sitting on my easel which is showing at the bottom of the image.
I spent seven years as a volunteer firefighter going into burning buildings, fighting brush fires, and doing rescues and this adventure puts more fear in me that all of those. I am going to stop trying to become "somebody" and just try to become the artist I think I want to be. I remember the quote from someone that goes something like this, "All my life I wanted to be somebody and now I realize I should have been more specific."
Hopefully, during this journey, the idea of what that is will become clearer and more focused so that I may chose a true direction and destination. Perhaps that is part of the previous problem. I might be wanting to be a different kind of artist when I should just try to become the best artist of the kind I am that I can be.

During this next year I plan to describe not only my actions but also my thoughts and feelings as I travel along this self-imposed highway to a destination not unlike the yellow brick road to Oz. I'm not sure I will find the place I want to be or just find myself, my own mind, my own heart, and the ability and willingness to just be me.