As a plein-air painter I've grown in Oregon Coastline
oil on canvas
30 x 24 inches many ways in a short period of time - starting with the need to paint faster and with less use of details. I've learned to express the scene with fewer brush strokes. But over the years I've also noticed a pattern that most of us plein-air painters get into: Our work starts to all look the same. That's when I started asking myself what I can do differently. What is going to make what I do stand out from the norm? Slowly a transformation occurred: more washes, more texture both visual and physical, limited pallet and changing color schemes, more representational abstract. I'm still letting the painting direct its path to completion. I'm merely the vehicle that gets it there. There is an overwhelming amount of great art and artists in this world, I continually ask myself how or what can I do to be different.

Innovation usually starts with a dream. We are
What Color is Your Dream?
by kittie beletic inspired, yes, and sometimes by the smallest flutter of a butterfly, the deepest hurt we can imagine, the simple joy of turning the corner and there is our dream, hanging sparkling and clear. Inspiration often comes while we are hard at work avoiding it. Sometimes we simply have to begin, to dig through the trash, work through the muck and mire to find it. It is there, waiting like an infant waits in the womb, like a Spring green shoot waits below the ground, like a musical note suspended in a lengthy phrase waiting to be resolved. The denoument. Aaaaaaahhh yes. Innovation takes Inspiration. It also takes Tenacity and Flexibility, Honesty. What you get in the end is beyond the original imagining and completely satisfying. What Color is Your Dream?

One of my greatest joys in the past was going through multitudes of galleries and seeing the skills and talents of others. But it did not take long for me to realize that I had one of those minds that is able to copy the ideas of others. Sadly, this was not my goal, but since that time, I have carefully distanced myself from the wonderful work of others... if I were in the process of creating art at the time. I know it defies logic, but my right brain just warps into doing what it wants and many times I stop a work until I can get a little left brain involved in the outcome.

Thank you again for the illuminating letter about The Cave Spring
original painting Charles John Collings. How fortunate you are to be in a place where you have access to such lovely work. The images posted on your site are beautiful but I cannot help but think that to view them in person would be an inspiring event. I am fortunate to live in a beautiful part of Canada, that being North Central Manitoba, but we rarely get to view original art of this caliber unless we travel for 6 hours west or south. Maybe one benefit of being somewhat isolated is that your art making is not influenced so much by outside forces, and a person can feel less constrained and can be innovative in his/her approach.

Every single product in the world today originated Cookie Ruins
Mayan heiroglyph cookies in the mind of an Artist. Bridging the gap between idea and product calls for a person who's willing to step out into the rather unstable realms between concept and reality, hence our reputation for being nutty. While it's decent advice to say "pick one thing and learn it well," this also easily promotes tunnel vision, where each piece of work looks almost like the next. For some folks, trying something new takes as much discipline as specializing does for others. Each new work of Art presents a distinctive set of decisions to be made, and any experience in other areas of Art can help resolve them. It can be frightening to take a leap off the page, either to experiment a little or focus more, but stepping out of our usual work, even for a moment, to try out an idea that you have no clue where it's leading to, can really be invigorating.

After painting in watercolour for many years, I moved Water Garden
watercolour collage 'on' to acrylics, mixed media and print making, all of which I enjoy. I find myself returning to watercolours after their 'absence' - or mine perhaps, of five years, especially to do what we now refer to as 'wet-on-wet.' That seems to be the technique of Charles John Collings which Walter J. Phillips described in his essay . It's wonderfully challenging and freeing at the same time, as the elements of 'chance,' as well as serendipity, are always present. Combining watercolour with collage adds yet another dimension.

C J Collings is in the collection at the University of Victoria, in Victoria, B.C. near where I live. In the University's write-up they note that Collings didn't like his style being compared to others, even if it was to that great innovator J. M. W. Turner! According to the University, it was exactly those comparisons, the views of critics, and the influence of other artists that led C J Collings to move to far away Canada, where he felt he could innovate in peace. His reclusiveness didn't extend though to where he sold paintings. And he continued to sell mostly through a well established London Gallery!

I love figurative art but for the most part, I'm an Auburn Memories
oil on canvas
14 x 11 inches abstract painter. For the last few months I have been painting designs that imply trees. I can't help but think that this is symbolic of my process. Since there isn't much planning involved in my work, it's not symbolic in a "can't see the forest for the trees" way of seeing. What I feel is that since I am the creator of the forest I can find my way because I am the only creature that can paint my way out. I must work this way because it feels so good to work from the inside out. I can't follow directions, not even my own! And that's why I paint as I do.

Be careful, or at least self-aware, about innovation -
Kaunas Picture Gallery sometimes it can lead to places where it is hard for the "salon" and collectors to understand you. Most call my work paintings. I very much work in the mainstream of modern photographic tools. I'm sure you all now use it (or at least know someone who does). Camera, Computer with photo editing tool, printer. A well respected photographic preservationist said in the past couple of weeks, "We need a new category for what you do." I explore the full range of the modern tool set, and indeed have many references to various painting schools. I set out to make Art - not necessarily photographs. I'm hoping my stubborn thing works out. I'd like a wider audience for my current work showing at the Kaunas Picture Gallery, National M.K. Ciurlionis Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania.

Having spent most of my life going against the Black Dancer
oak with black patina
46.5 inches tall flow I have a well earned reputation in three countries for "eccentricity." I teach English these days to support my body and my art. I teach mostly in the business world, i.e. a world which preaches innovation. I tell you if any of these people woke up with an idea of any sort it would send them screaming for help. Ideas are scary and one mighty function of normal society is to eliminate them or at least limit them to the "useful." Your story of Collings is wonderful, up there with Monet and his water lilies. I am blessed here with no mentors, so I roll on my own. No shows, I am different, but I roll on.

Regarding your letter about cruise ship art auctions , we were unable to get a second opinion while on a cruise and went ahead and purchased anyway. We spent more than ten thousand dollars on art we soon discovered (on eBay) to be virtually unsalable at any price, and the shipboard con-artists will not return our money even though we have refused delivery at our door. We get no satisfaction contacting the Park West Pirates and wish to warn others of their perfidy. This type of art sale gives a bad name to all legitimate land-based galleries and their artists who are willing to take art back that turns out to be unsatisfactory.

(RG note) While paying high prices for art that you can't live without is part of the game, the business of ramping up values and talking investment art when it does not exist is outright fraud. Cruise ships may finally be doing something about this demeanor. There is an excellent forum . A printout of this forum should be on every chair before anyone sits down at a shipboard art auction, and fresh copies ought to be served with every glass of champagne.