Showing posts with label Joseph Campbell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joseph Campbell. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Buddha Baby – Finished





I have had this little guy for over a decade, he was a dash ornament for a few years and has been hanging out on the bookshelf for several more. I've always wanted to add him into a painting somewhere/sometime. Plus, I figure anyone that stuck with me this long deserves a little recognition.

Painting, (creating a work of art) is always a balance of the internal and the external. The object I see and how to technically recreate the illusion of it in form and color with pigments. And the internal, that which generated this connection with me enough to want to create a expression of it.




Technique is important, it is the tool bag from which you pull, the foundation on which you create. Usually what attracts me to a subject is the underlying abstraction, how to convey light and form with painted shapes is more than enough of a challenge. Honestly there are times when I am oblivious to what the thing is that I am painting and see only color, edges, shapes – form described by light is a fascinating subject and the medium of oil paint is the most incredible material to depict it with.






The emotional attachment artists have to their subject matter is a difficult thing to explain. Funny thou - it can easily be seen in a piece, the expressive response has a tendency to works its way in unconsciously while you are creating. Sensitivity, intuition, passion are words used to describe that empathy for your subject. When I look at great art, art that really touches me, all tend to exhibit three central traits... skill, creativity and empathy. And empathy being the most elusive, for I feel that it is something which takes time, and something that is more experienced then learned, it is...some reflection of our artistic selves and our inner emotional lives.




“With our thoughts we make the world.” ― Buddha




Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim 


Website - jimserrett.com 
Studio Blog - jimserrettstudio.com 
Landscape Blog - Pochade Box Paintings






Monday, February 29, 2016

Buddha Baby







There are things we do or experience in life that seem to fit with our psyche, they just feel comfortable and natural to us. I have always drawn, filled notebooks with Army men and monsters from Mars, I was the kid in class that everyone would ask, “Can you draw me a...”.  I still remember, like it was yesterday the first real paintings I saw in a Museum. They blew my mind, and yet somehow I knew I had to figure out how in the world they did it. And later, the first time I pushed a puddle of oil paint around on a palette, I knew, oh yeah…this is it.


Joseph Campbell wrote, “If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”



Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim




Website - jimserrett.com 
Studio Blog - jimserrettstudio.com 
Landscape Blog - Pochade Box Paintings