Energy Flow

"Flow" 

by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"Energy flows where intention goes."

- Rhonda Byrne

Getting into a state of deep relaxation with heightened creativity and imagination is definitely a challenge. It is such a wonderful place to visit, and can be a highly productive and happy place. Many day-to-day necessary activities and distractions can keep us from reaching this state. Creative people have talked about how they lose track of time when they are producing their craft - hours that pass can seem like only minutes! 

The book, "Flow," by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, explains how to get into the flow state. It can be hard to do, but the reward is a happiness which is difficult to match. Experiencing flow can give us a wonderful sense of accomplishment and a way of tapping into our true deeper selves. Getting into our own personal and unique flow can be exhilarating and the desire to return to this happy state of mind can become a powerful motivating force.

What happens to us is often out of our control. If we patiently look inward and learn to reach the flow state and control the thoughts in our consciousness, then full involvement in the present moment is possible. We can experience a new level of enjoyment by using our acquired skills and imagination. Production of more unique creative works becomes very possible.

"After each episode of flow a person becomes more of a unique individual, less predictable, possessed of rarer skills." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

I highly recommend this book.

Enjoy your flow!

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A Simple Still Life

"Apple with Leaves"

8x10" oil on canvas board

painted by Cindy Mott McGarry

"Art is a harmony parallel with nature."

- Paul Cezanne

A recent class with Jenny Berry at Arts Alliance of Lemon Bay in Englewood, Florida, on the art of painting a still life was truly fascinating. A great teacher really enjoys teaching, listening, answering questions and sharing ideas about art and painting. Going over painting basics can always improve the simplicity of your unique process. These are a few reminders and important tips to remember while making a painting.

Go for a strong, bold design! Painting large shapes is difficult because we tend to become mesmerized by details. Only looking for large shapes and the overall value of each shape really helps with the beginning design. It also can help keep you true to and not stray from the original inspiring image. Choosing a basic composition from the very start is very important to the success of the whole work of art. If you stick with a basic design the imaginative, loose work added during the later stages can help bring the work together.

A big key to generating an attractive painting is making objects look round. Painting dark, medium and light values of color give any object weight and depth. This produces dimension which is very appealing to the viewer.

Keeping your paint thick and creamy helps create an engaging work. It builds alluring textures and allows for an easier painterly edge-blending experience. It's much more fun to work with loose, thick paint. 

Shadows and the angle of light are necessary to ground objects. They also help with rounding each significant shape in the piece. If this is not accomplished, then objects can look like they are floating in mid air.

Pressure put on the brush is of the utmost importance. When paint is thick and wet there are so many different techniques you can use to create many different effects. Pressure can make all the difference in what you are trying to create as an end result. It also helps keep the colors clean.

Paint away ....

Thank you for reading my blog!
Love to paint and share!

#art #oilpainting #brushwork #colormixing #design #composition #loosebrushwork

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Freestyle Alcohol Inking

"Ocean Sunset"

Alcohol ink painted on a 10" dinner plate

- by Cindy Mott McGarry

Alcohol ink painted on a 4"x4" tile/coaster

-by Cindy Mott McGarry

"You can't depend on your eyes

when your imagination is out of focus."

- Mark Twain

Attending an alcohol ink class a week ago was a wonderful experience in free flowing thinking and  painting. It was a blast! The demonstration given by the teacher was so quick and easy to understand. This was the opposite experience I had imagined having because I thought it would be much more involved and complicated.

All you really need is a small cup holding isopropyl alcohol, a small paint brush, some alcohol inks in basic colors, paper towels, a small tile for a palette and a finished tile or canvas as a painting surface. A few drops of ink go a long way. Dipping the brush into the isopropyl alcohol and just dabbing a few drops onto a small painted shape of ink color thins and expands in ways all its own. As if you are partnering with another artist. 😃😃

It didn't take long at all to get comfortable with putting down basic shapes of color and allowing the mediums to create their own free flowing, unique little world of expansion and connection. I think of this style as being very similar to pointillism - only much more loose with a variety of shapes. The teacher kept the student pieces and put a resin on them that needed to cure for a week.

It was a mind stretching class that was a totally new experience in how to use my imagination. Truly loved it! A big take away was understanding that learning any new medium transfers to your other mediums. Now when I paint in oils again I will have this alcohol ink technique I created in the back of my mind and will want to use it with oil paint and big brushes!

More about this type of painting to come. Enjoy painting! Thank you for reading my blog.

All the best until next time,

Cindy

https://www.instagram.com/cindymottmcgarry/?hl=en

  

My Setup for Plein Air Painting

Top photo: My setup for plein air painting

My photo

Middle photo: My EasyL tripod and easel box ready to travel

Wet canvas/panel sizes 8x10, 9x12, 11x14, 12x16 slide into pochade box 

My photo

Bottom photo: EasyL Plein Air Easel and Tripod Setup

EasyL photo

"Creativity takes courage."

-Henri Matisse

My EasyL Versa Plein Air Easel and tripod have made painting on location so much easier! It feels like an outdoor studio once you are all setup. The pochade box holds a variety of sizes of canvases or panels that are transported by sliding them into the back of the box - 8x10, 9x12, 11x14, 12x16. If you wish to transport smaller or larger sizes in another wet panel or canvas carrier then many more sizes can be secured onto this easel with certain necessary adapters (i.e. bungee cords, etc.). 

One other important item I was counseled to always bring is a thick piece of light colored fabric to lay down on the ground. This helps keep ants and other crawly creatures from crawling on your shoes and up your legs. YIKES!!! The light color allows you to see any moving creatures better. I use a reversible outdoor picnic blanket with an adjustable strap that is machine washable - Picnic Time Vista Outdoor Picnic Blanket! Living in Florida makes this an absolute necessity!

More about plein air supplies to come!

Enjoy painting! ... Peace

https://www.instagram.com/cindymottmcgarry

Color Speak

"The Secret Language of Color"

by Inna Segal

"Color is a power which directly influences the soul."

~Wassily Kandinsky

One of the most powerful reasons many artists love to paint is Color! Color is a way of communicating what you want to say without using words. Using mindfulness along with knowledge acquired about how humans perceive color, the use of different shades can create calm within the nervous system, influence mood and create peaceful feelings.

Hospitals are now using color to help patients feel better. Some hospitals and nursing homes also use music, writing and animal therapies to create a happier and calming environment. Certain colors are considered healing. The top seven are:

Yellow = playful, optimistic

Orange = happy, positive

Pink = loving, compassionate

Red = stimulating, energizing

Purple = meditative, creative

Blue = calming, tranquil

Green = soothing, refreshing

"The Secret Language of Color Cards" book by Inna Segal contains 45 different color cards. The guidebook talks about what the colors mean and how they can help you. There are also meditations for each color. More new shades can be brought into a person's surroundings by displaying pleasing art, wearing certain colors of clothing, spending time in nature, decorating, serving up a colorful plate of food ... and, of course, by painting and drawing. 

Speaking with color is a wonderful way to communicate, improve your emotional state and create the ambiance you desire!

Coming soon - more meditative art!

Thank you for reading my blog!

Check out my Meditative Art on my website!

Until next time ... Peace

Painting Knife Play

"Painted Florida Palms"

oil on canvas board

by Cindy Mott McGarry

"The human urge to create comes from the play impulse."

- Carla Hannaford

One way to paint more quickly while plein air painting (painting outdoors) is to use a painting knife. 

It can be quite enjoyable once an artist has practiced loading paint onto the knife and experimenting with different ways to lay down and spread paint. Covering the canvas can go much faster while trying to capture the current light out in the field. A plein air piece is mostly a study of light, value and color from which a larger work can be created in the studio.

There are quite a variety of palette and painting knives. The painting above was small so I only used  Creative Mark knives sizes T2 and an S61to load and spread paint. Knife painting creates thick strokes known as impasto style painting. The paint layers are thick and look as though they are coming out of the canvas. This type of art appears highly textured and can create a wonderful sense of depth.

After a certain amount of paint is laid down and spread with knives a brush can be used to carefully blend the colors to connect the overall design and cover the canvas, but too much blending can ruin the effect of the impasto technique. Sometimes I use an acrylic colored underpainting such as raw sienna, indian yellow or transparent earth red. When the underpainting shows through it can give a glowing appearance and helps unify all parts of the design.

Have fun painting!
Cindy

https://www.instagram.com/cindymottmcgarry/

http://www.cindymottmcgarry.com/

Painting en Plein Air

"Caspersen Beach, Venice Florida"

8"x10" oil painting

by Cindy Mott McGarry

"Live out of your imagination (not your history)."

- Stephen Covey

   This was my first plein air (painting outside) painting which gave me a sense of comfort with creating on location outdoors. It was a perfect day for plein air.  The temperature was in the upper 70s, a slight breeze, beautiful light and many other artists out painting, socializing and sharing.

   The planning, packing, loading, setting up on a beach has been a learning process over the past year. Once the tripod, easel and oil paints were set up it was a really fun experience to look for the large shapes, lay them in and begin to build the painting. Trying to stay loose and be open to new ideas while using slightly larger brushes was invigorating. I was very pleased with the colors, values, overall looseness and limited brush strokes. Finished most of this painting on location and put the final touches on it later.

   The colors of oil paints on my palette were titanium white, cadmium yellow medium, yellow ochre, cadmium red deep, cerulean blue, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and burnt umber. My new favorite brushes are ASPEN Series 6500 from Princeton Artist Brush Company I love their Bright brushes for my style of painting. They are easy to clean and hold their shape very well. Most of my canvas panels are Pintura and are double primed and formaldehyde-free. I order mine from Dick Blick. 

Until next time! 

Enjoy painting!

Love and Peace,

Cindy

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Art That Inspires

"Purple Hydrangea"

oil painting by Cindy Mott McGarry

"Purple Hydrangea"

by poetess Paula Timpson

"Art is an experience, not an object."

- Robert Motherwell

It is fascinating to see how one type of art can inspire another type of artistic expression. The painting above, "Purple Hydrangea" was recently in an art exhibit at Venice Art Center in Venice, Florida.

The poetess, Paula Timpson, saw this painting and was so inspired by seeing it that she wrote a beautiful poem to describe her experience when she viewed the painting.

I was thrilled and very touched that my work inspired her to write. Collaboration in the future is an exciting possibility. Now more motivated to paint a new series of flowers!

Love, peace and Joy!