My last post was on July 29, 2022, “What is Pareidolia“
I intentionally stopped painting in August to December, for several reasons.
1) I was asked by a member of the Rockingham Co. Fair to demonstrate basketry, just because I have no place to weave does not mean that I have forgotten how! I did enjoy doing it and talking with the many people I did. Unfortunately it also dredged up the painful demise of the weaving due to an exceedingly rotten group of people. However, life moves on and so must I, good bye basketry hello painting!
2) I needed to save back materials and supplies for the dreaded long, cold, dark & dreary days of winter January to March/April, being cooped up in the apartment, at least I would be able to paint.
Being True to Your Life, Vision & Art
The mountain stream painting is a work in the process, right now you see a lot of burnt sienna and red iron oxide used to tone the birch panel, the upper sky portion is red iron oxide and ultramarine blue. It should look vastly different in the coming weeks. I have been working on this on and off over the past 8 weeks
Unfortunately during the first half of my life, I allowed others to tell me what & how I should do things: during the second half I will not repeat the first half. In the 1960’s/70’s when I was growing up if you thought in terms of art & music as a career choice, that was considered taboo, you needed to pick a career like accounting doctor, lawyer etc.
This year I am planning on working more in my painting & drawing, as well as my watercolors, in addition to studying color mixing & theory. Beginning with this post, I will be posting drawings as I do them. I am not saying they are great or fantastic, however if I can do it so can you. I used to say all I can do is draw stick figures, however since starting to paint I have found that I can draw too!
Drawings & Sketches
Below are a series of drawings and sketches I have done over the past year. I keep a visual arts journal on the kitchen table as inspiration usually strikes while I am having coffee or tea in the morning. with the exception of the drawings in color (watercolor pencil) I generally draw with a mechanical pencil.
Pleases excuse any large blank or duplicated areas, it takes a while to get back into the swing of designing with the WordPress block editor.
Sojourns Today 
Beautiful painting!
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Happy New Year, Mitch. So glad to see you back here and painting, though a shame the basket making interlude brought up some bad memories. Your baskets were simply marvellous. But then your painting is pretty marvellous too. This wilderness header scene has such depth to it, in time as well as space. Magic!
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