The Garden's Own Sunshine
©A.K.SIMON - The Garden's Own Shine - 8"x8" oil on linen - $100
Happy Valentine's Day
Quote for the Day: Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed. ~Walt Whitman
Here we go again my nemesis! I absolutely love peonies but they don't seem to want to grow for me. I started this painting a while ago and finished it today. On my "to do" list for this year is to dig all those paintings off the closet floor (and I say dig because there is a pretty big pile). The ones deemed "potential-less" will be primed over! I thought it appropriate to paint a flower for valentine's day so this one got finished. I would rather have a peony than a rose anyway (no disrespect to the rose). I worked really hard on this one to "not" make monotonous edges. However, because I am intimidated by the flower it took way longer than I anticipated. I have to say that the underpainting from the first session made a nice surface on which to finish the painting. I think I got closer to my emotional feel for the flower on this one than I have ever before. It was a good learning experience today.
Quiet Memory
©A.K.SIMON - Quiet Memory - 8" x 8" oil on linen - $100
Quote for the day: "The colors live a remarkable life of their own after they have been applied to the canvas." Edvard Munch
This is a set up (or a part of one) from Donna in our upstairs painting class. This was so appealing to me because it was mostly gray/green. The painting does look better than this picture (someday I'm going to get this right). I took many liberties with the colors but tried to stick to the value patterns. I love the quote by Munch because it is how I often feel when finishing a painting. Though there was a reference and many times I use local color, the painting takes on life of its own. This one looks like a quiet memory, faded and aged but still there.
Outlier
©A.K.SIMON - Outlier - 6"x 6" oil on linen - SOLD
Todays Quote:The Story of Success: "Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good." Malcom Gladwell
I decided after doing the 30 day painting challenge in January that having a daily quote is very inspirational for me and hopefully for those who read them. I just love tapping into the profound (and sometimes not so profound) thoughts of others. If you've ever read my artist's statement (it's on the website www.aksimonart.com) you know that relationships are everything to me. After all, isn't that why we are all here? If you go to the website, please read the excerpt from Robert Henri's book, The Art Spirit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Henri). Now that is profound!
So, back around to the title of this piece. As I peruse the internet for inspirational works and art books, "ad nauseum", I came across one of Malcolm Gladwell's books, Outliers. My curiosity was peaked (of course after looking it up I was bummed because I didn't know what it was which means I'm not one). Through the wonders of Kindle I was reading it in a flash. Wow, there are some really amazing people - oh yeah, an outlier is someone who achieves a level of greatness beyond most of his/her contemporaries. Some of them I had heard of and some I had not. Reading the book is a real eye-opener as far as realizing that maybe intellect has far less to do with achievement than originally thought. I am so glad I read the book to see it from this perspective. There are so many times I have wondered, "why him" and not me. Of course many times it is because "he" is a "he" and I am a "she" but that's another can of worms!
So my take (which I admit can sometimes be warped) is that I am an outlier (well maybe not as defined in the book or by our society) because I choose to be. I work harder and longer than anyone else and have a desire beyond compare. I'm sure that applies to a vast amount of the artists in this world.
