Craftsman

I had not done a full underpainting in a while; I forget how magical this process can be. Glazing color over the grisaille creates an illusion of depth that is hard to achieve in any other technique. Progress shots, drawing, umber wipe -out, grisaille, color pass.

Grisaille – (griz-eye’) fr.- grey an underpainting done entirely in monochrome shades of gray.

Craftsman, oil on linen panel, 11 x 14 in, Jim Serrett

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim 

 Website - jimserrett.com 

 Studio Blog - jimserrettstudio.com 

 Landscape Blog - Pochade Box Paintings

"Is not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."

I seem to paint a lot of bottles. A friend recently asked me why? I see a still life as a visual meditation, and glass can be a mental challenge in that you must decide what is effective and what is not in explaining the image.  It is walking an edge of what is optical information (that what we see) and conceptual information (that what we know) to express form and imagery. 

The simpler explanation is that old glass bottles are cool.

Marbles with Bottles, oil on panel, 10 x 8 inches, Jim Serrett

"Is not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." -- Henry David Thoreau

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim 

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

Marbles with Bottles - WIP

Current work in progress. Progress shots, drawing, first pass, color mixing, final pass.

Marbles and Glass, contour drawing

First Pass.

Palette, color mixtures.

"Is not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." -- Henry David Thoreau

Final pass.

Marbles with Bottles, wip, oil on panel, 10 x 8 inches, Jim Serrett

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim 

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

The Plumb Line and String of Thought

I spend a great deal of time sorting objects for a still life, arranging them and looking at the set up. I will contemplate the surfaces, shapes, reflections, positive-negative spaces and assemble the composition. Then looking at the overall design and playing around with it, add and subtract things until I get something that “feels’ right. All the while looking through a view finder for a sense of how it will look to scale on canvas. I try not to rush this part of the painting process, knowing that I am going to make a commitment of time and energy. I want it be something worth the effort and not have one of those last hour, “good grief what was I thinking" moments.

Now that I have a design I like. I need to transfer the image to paper or canvas. In almost every painting or drawing setup of mine you will find a plumb line. A very simple but most useful tool for artists.

Webster’s definition of plumb line is.

1 : a line (as of cord) that has at one end a weight (such as a plumb bob) and is used especially to determine verticality   

    

OK, so it’s a cord or string with a weight on it. 

More important is that it is a drawing tool, a vertical line from which you can measure any point. Plotting out the dimension and placement of objects and the alignment of elements.

Plotting the drawing and blocking out.

To scale the drawing, you need a measuring device, something you can move your thumb up and down and make visual measurements from quickly, for comparison. You can use a piece of charcoal or a brush handle works. I like chop sticks as they have a uniform thickness up to the point. 

After setting up the still life and establishing a viewing point (the spot you will use to make all your observation from), establish a vertical axis through the composition. Use a plumb line or scale edge held at arm’s length. I place the subject and artwork where I can see both in one glance and flash my eyes back and forth between the two and make comparative measurements. Always using my reference of the plumb line from my vantage point.

Hang your plumb line so that it visually kisses or intersects edges. In the Moka pot I have the plumb line falling down the straight edge of the upper part of the pot. I draw that line on my paper for the first placement. Then using a pencil at arm’s length, I establish a unit of measurement. I measure widths and heights from this virtual line. How tall the pot, how wide, how far over is the garlic clove.

Once you establish the size of one part, compare it to another and build on those relationships, establishing one measurement that you compare the next measurement to and so on, growing a set of ratios. As you develop the drawing you will check your dimensions often. I like to refer to this as plotting out the drawing. Develop a set of points you can use as constant reference, after plotting all your reference points block out the basic shapes with simple straight lines. Keeping it as uncomplicated as possible, keeping the marks simple makes it easier to rearrange them until you have their placement correct.

My goal is a accurate drawing and solid foundation for my painting.

This is mainly a Comparative Measurement process based on my adapted version of the “Sight-Size Method”, there many links and articles about this topic online and a wealth of information at Darren Rousar’s website.

https://www.sightsize.com/about/

I absolutely recommend spending some time there.

The sight-size method is great tool for artist to understand and adapt to their process. I think sometimes it gets a bad rap because of its academic pedigree or it being too mechanical. But, every representational artist: no matter how loose they paint, plot the positioning of the elements in their picture plane with some type of mark or mass of paint. This process when applied to a direct method of painting can be very fluid and energetic.

I want approaches which allow me to understand the elements required to represent three-dimensional space in painting. Good drawing skills are the first element of that. To help achieve that goal make use of any drawing aids that will train your eyes and hand to draw proficiently. As you progress most of those tools will become second nature. I have always liked the idea that to master a skill you must own it.

String of Thought

My line of thought is to get the main idea down, blocked in or sketched out as quickly and accurately as possible. I want to see the main impression, or what is the “big” picture?

From there the general approach is to continue bearing down on the elements in the painting, making smaller adjustments, dialing in on the image I want to see. Thinking big to small, simple to complex, general to specific. Until I reach the illusion of realism I want to imply.

This can seem like a slow process to some, but when done consistently you will find it very effective and quick. But the point of the process is not speed but slowing down and engaging with the image. Painting is both time consuming and time slowing.

If you are not going to get a thrill, how can you give someone else one? 

You must feel the beauty of the thing before you start.   ---- Charles Hawthorne 

I paint what captures my eye, often those small things overlooked. The reflection in a glass, the atmosphere around an object, the ying-yang of negatives-positive spaces, the play of light and shadow. Those qualities that resonate with me in art are skill, beauty, poetic feelings and simple truths. These are the qualities that transcend mere representation and I aspire to.

I certainly enjoy the process of painting, building layers of glazes and color – modeling form. It is a very sensual medium. But it does go beyond the technical and observational skills, craftsmanship is just the conduit for authentic self-expression. If art is hard work, it’s because you’re struggling to go beyond what you know and looking for that poetry in your art.

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim 

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

Feather Vase - WIP

Current work in progress. Progress shots, drawing, wipe-out, first pass, last pass.

Preliminary pencil drawing. Most of my still lifes begin with a simple but descriptive contour drawing, which works out the composition and suggests the shadow side or turning point on the form. This is typically more than enough information to move on to the next stage of paint. Especially for any monochrome underpainting.

Bistre - (the wipe-out method) – An underpainting using warm browns (usually raw umber or burnt umber). A thin coat of umber is painted or rubbed over the canvas and then ‘wiped out’ or lifted using a rag or a bristle brush and a small amount of solvent

First Color Pass: These are the first color layers over the underpainting, with each color pass over the image you make small corrections and adjustments, slowly tuning in the image to the level of three-dimensional reality and “resolution” you wish to see in your painting. When I speak of “resolution” I am using it to describe the degree of focus.

Feather Vase, 11 x 14, oil on panel, Jim Serrett

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim 

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

Underpainting Techniques – Demonstration Six - Part II – WIP

First Color Pass: These are the first color layers over the underpaintings. I have attempted to develop each one equally and establish a similar refinement. It is obvious from the beginning the degree of finish or resolution is more observable in the further developed monochromatic underpaintings.

When I speak of “resolution” I am using it to describe the degree of focus, that with each color pass over the image you make small corrections and adjustments, slowly tuning in the image to the level of three-dimensional reality you wish to see in your painting. With this slow dialing in, each pass should be about fine tuning not correcting and selective focus instead of detail. That is key to moving forward towards you’re vision. The artist Sadie Valeri explains this dialing in like this, “that in every layer of the painting you get 50% closer to reality “and in each additional layer fifty percent more so on. Each one growing exponentially (building) on the last until you achieve a high degree of realism.

Form Painting: So, in the First Pass I wish to make the big statements of color, shape and edges over the value study and drawing.  I want to think about color relationships comparing abstract passages of paint by chroma and temperature. To think about form, that each brush stroke exists in three-dimensional space and state where it is in light and where it is in shadow. The concept of light on form or modeling dimension like a sculpture is often referred to as Chiaroscuro – The contrast of light and shade. The act of modeling light and dark is called “Turning Form”. I like that adage because it simply describes the goal of representational painting to create the perception of depth.

My paint consistency varies depending on which underpainting I am working with but basically, over top of the underpainting I am using thinned transparent glazes which I then work into with more opaque paints wet into wet. Building up of transparent, semitransparent, semi-opaque, opaque and impasto layers of paint (glazes, scumbles, velauturas, impasto) that create different optical effects.

Starting top left moving clock wise- Grisaille, Bistre, Ébauche, Imprimatura.

I am not quite ready to lose my drawing yet, plus I need the values to affect the color passages and to build luminosity and depth. In each paint passage I continue comparing hue, value, chroma, edges, and textures.

I think form and atmosphere, not things. Painting the points of contact, reflected light, the hills and valleys as light rakes across the subject I look for delicate passages and subtle shading. I look for the “air” around the subject, (as odd as that sounds) and try to paint the atmosphere.

Hue - is a color’s characteristic, where it lies in the color spectrum, (the color name)

          and which temperature it leans towards, warm or cool.

Value – is the relative degree of grayness, lightness or darkness of a color.

Chroma – is the colors intensity, the degree of brilliance of a color, from intense to dull.

Chiaroscuro, (from Italian: chiaro, “light,” and scuro, “dark”) 1. The contrast of light and shade and the art of distributing these elements in a picture planes. 2. Light and shade as they define three-dimensional objects

Summary: The main purpose of underpainting is to solve the problems of composition, drawing and value so that you can concentrate solely on the application of paint. Using a variety of techniques to realistically create the illusion of depth, form and atmosphere. (The amount of light, depth and atmosphere you can achieve in this manner is almost magical.) Multiple veils of transparent color contrasted by opaque light passages, produces a level of realism that I believe cannot be matched with other approaches. You literally carve out volume with this method.

Which type of underpainting to use, Grisaille, Bistre, Ébauche, or Imprimatura is about knowing the strengths of each and being able to look at an object as say, “Yes this approach will work best to achieve that", kind of knowing which tool to reach for in the tool box. I was going to go into my thoughts on each and compare strengths and weaknesses? But feel it better to not muddy the waters with that and let people come to their own conclusion. Maybe I will touch on it later, but for now I will say there is a wealth of knowledge within these methods to explore and doing so will expose how to get the maximum impact of what the material can do.

As a Realist, it is important to have a comprehensive range of techniques to draw from and expand your artistic vocabulary.

“The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”   Aristotle

You can find Underpainting Techniques – Demonstration Six - Part I – WIP here.

You can access more Underpainting Demos through the labels in the side bar or use the search box at the top left of the blog.

A couple of quick Links:

Underpainting Techniques    

Bistre Method – “wipe out”   
Grisaille Underpainting  

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim 

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

Underpainting Techniques – Demonstration Six - Part I – WIP

In this demonstration, I will attempt to compare the different methods of underpainting technique used and developed by artist prior to the 20th century. Just walk through any museum and compare the 20th century wing to the 19th and on to 15^th century. It becomes obvious that those artists where doing something different, they were using paint differently. They had a vast vocabulary when it came to making marks with paint and with it they could create great illusion of space and form.

Painting in an indirect method, building layers up of transparent, semitransparent, semi-opaque, opaque and impasto layers of paint create different optical effects. The purpose of this is to achieve three-dimensional space, through the refraction of light, what is called “Turning the Form.”

The most important illusions of realism in a painting are Form and Value. And by using the underpainting to divide the image into manageable parts, the drawing, the values and lastly color, they could focus on the actual mechanics of applying paint. They created this amazing tool box of techniques, which liberated them, where they could slowly tune in on the level of realism wanted. Thus allowing these artists to create at a higher level of expression and produce some of the greatest masterpieces in history.

Starting top left moving clock wise- 

Grisaille – (griz-eye’) fr.-  A grey underpainting done entirely in monochrome shades of gray or another neutral color, to produce the illusion of relief sculpture.

Bistre - (the wipe-out method) – An underpainting using warm browns (usually raw umber or burnt umber). A thin coat of umber is painted or rubbed over the canvas and then ‘wiped out’ or lifted using a rag or a bristle brush and a small amount of solvent. Darks are built-up with thicker and leaner layers of umber in a near dry brush approach.

Ébauche – (ay•boash ) fr.  - or first block-in with color or color sketch. This creates the overall general feel and effect of the painting with colors and values.  Leaving a sympathetic underpainting or foundation similar to a watercolor.

Imprimatura is an initial stain of color painted on a ground. It provides a painter with a transparent, toned ground, which will allow light falling onto the painting to reflect through the paint layers. The term itself stems from the Italian and literally means "first paint layer". It's use as an underpainting layer can be dated back to the guilds and workshops during the Middle Ages; however, it came into standard use by painters during the Renaissance, particularly in Italy.

Alla-prima – Italian expression loosely translated “at first try”. Direct painting (wet into wet), a method which is completed in a single session without previous preparation or later layers of paint.

I will be continuing along with the indirect painting technique over these underpaintings, using layering, glazes, scumbles, and velauturas to create a illusion of three dimensional form.

So, I invite you to visit again as the paintings evolve.

You can access more Underpainting Demos through the labels in the side bar or use the search box at the top left of the blog.

A couple of quick Links:

Underpainting Techniques    

Bistre Method – “wipe out”     
Grisaille Underpainting  

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim 

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

Pear, Bottle and Speckled Rock - WIP

Going back to some basics for the first painting of the new year, a simple set up with an unassuming set of objects using a small shadow box and pochade box. I like objects that have a unique surface quality and form. The passages of abstract patterns, like the little area between the pear and glass bottle are fascinating and very rich in my eye.

Multiple ellipses and transparent objects, I am the type that bites off more than they can chew. I don’t mean to. I think to myself, “Oh yea, that would be interesting to paint.” Dive in and about halfway into it, end up saying (out loud this time)... “Why do you pick the most difficult things?” 

I have done several compositions with bottles and enjoy the challenge of manipulating paint to create the illusion of glass. Natural looking reflections and bounced light can be a difficult subject to pull off, but with a combination of glazes and scumbles you will achieve a pretty convincing realistic look. The hard part with that is overstating the effect. You have to remind yourself to paint what you see, not what you think you see and that always makes me a bit apprehensive.

I learned a long time ago that the good things you learn in this craft take time, practice and dedication. It also takes a bit of fearlessness, fear being the biggest barrier to success in any endeavor. That fear causes you to over think and is the death of art. You have to enjoy yourself in the moment - even if you are out of your comfort zone. Remember the adage, “You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.”

Pear Bottle and Speckled Rock, oil on canvas panel, 8 x 10 inches, © Jim Serrett

If you want to push through to the next level, remember that no one ever creates anything great by staying in their comfort zone. You need to go beyond what you think you can do in order to see your full potential.

Break some eggs.......

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim 

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

Vanitas II - Etiquette - Finished

"Life imitates art far more than art imitates life."  - Oscar Wilde.

Intuition.

I get an idea and tend to just run with it, focus on the process and let the concepts evolve as I go. When working in a series, one piece will feed into another and things will lead in interesting directions, if you let them. This awareness of the painting experience is directing your decision making and aesthetic choices. The process is always asking questions as you answer them, what hue, value, chroma, shape, edges, scale and on and on, and hopefully with experience you are doing all of this intuitively. I find a lot meaning, energy and satisfaction within this chain of events.

Media – Popular Culture and Dumbing Down

It seems that where ever you go today there is someone staring at some little device lost in a vortex of texting or in some loud authoritative one-sided conversation. I wonder how much of their life is spent with their head down and eyes glued to a screen. People have become so dependent on these devices, if not addicted, starring and constantly checking their smartphone. Having a conversation with someone while they are texting is not multitasking, it’s just bad manners. When my earliest cell phone rang it was usually a client or art director in a panic about some deadline, commission or change needed. Silence was a good thing…

I am very supportive of the technology, but I wonder what it says about society and its direction. With all this conversing we actually seem to be becoming more anti-social, less tolerant and self-absorbed…the synonym for Narcissism is Vanity. (We just had the most narcissistic/egotistical public display in history the 2016 Presidential election.)

We always study the culture of past civilizations by the artifacts they leave behind, we analyze their art, literature and music in hopes of getting a glimpse into the conscious of that society. I wonder what a future archaeologist will think of a society in which a dead shark formaldehyde preserved or a real-life bed strewn with empty liquor bottles, soiled underwear, and stained sheets is considered high culture? Does it take the absurd and obnoxious to get us to look up from our cell phones? With great interest and at times contempt I’ve watched the “official” art establishments join the conceptual art carnival where ruder and cruder is worth more. I mean what does an 18-karat golden toilet installed in a Guggenheim Museum bathroom, by Maurizio Cattelan’s titled “America”— yes an actual functioning gold toilet – says? Conceit, arrogance and snobbery, more synonyms for Vanity.

Ugly – is easy.

I try to be open minded and tolerant, but I don’t get the joke, postmodernist art seems to me to be elitist and exclusive, a system in which mediocrity is rewarded and validated by a self-contained circle of critics and promoters. And it’s no secret that the real value is its importance in monetary exchange and more its utility as an unregulated commodity.

When we approach art from the oppose end, that of beauty. We are judging it by a different set of metrics. We look at art through our human experience, a personal, truthful and honest view of the world. Great art transcends time and subject matter, not because of the artist’s technical prowess, but because it embraces universal ideas. It has an intrinsic power, some sensation of perfection that bypasses the intellect, in the same way that we receive sensual pleasure from the scent of a rose. John Ruskin referred to this as Simple Beauty, but also spoke about Ideal Beauty which he calls Relation. The artistic idea of relation goes a step beyond Truth, Beauty, Power and Imitation, into a realm that requires intellect. This is art that produces expression, sentiment and character. I see that as the gateway to understanding/creating artistic beauty- it is to see with the mind (intellect) and heart (emotion) These are the core universal ideas.

I enjoy writing/blogging about art but it truly is more for me than you. Writing is my way to work out some of my thoughts and concepts, engage in a bit of exchange and learn something new.  I hope you take my opinions with a grain of salt, for they may change. I believe it is very important for artists to give insights into their ideas, share those opinions, explore and conduct critical thinking about the world around us.

Who better to speak about art then those who make it.  That seems to me to be the proper etiquette.

Vanitas II - Etiquette, oil on panel, 11 x 14 inches, Jim Serrett

In the Vanitas genre people look at the skull imagery as macabre and morbid symbolism peppered with some moral instruction. That is one of the obvious interpretation, but I see it more as a cautioning reminder that life is precious, so they better not waste it on frivolous and meaningless things. Often included in the Vanitas or memento mori images is the phrase Memento vivere - Remember to live.

Live in the present moment. And recognize how we spend our time is important, what are we really cultivating? Is it improving our lives? Does binge watching hours of junk TV (which I am painfully guilty of) enrich your intellect or cultivate a skill? We need to have a balance, things we do that are frivolous or fun and those which are worthwhile.

Links:

The Emily Post Institute, Inc.

Life imitating art.......

Narcissism

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim 

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

Vanitas II – Etiquette – WIP

Here is an update and progress shots of my second Vanitas painting. I've made a couple of passes over the underpainting and I'm starting to model the form. Looking for a very sculptural feel, I want the illusion of space to govern this piece and to have all the objects sit and recede with a sense of dimension, which moves the viewer into the picture by means of light, form and depth. This is very important to the narrative of this Vanitas.

My still life set up is a shelving unit draped and boxed in with black fabric to block out any light.  I light it from within and balance the same light on my canvas and palette. I often use my pochade box as a standing palette, and will normally use a hand held palette in unison to work out color mixtures.

On the palette I premix mix a string of colors for each object representing it's hue, value and chroma. If I see there is any color shift as it moves from light to dark along the string I will tap warm or cool into it from my color palette as needed. This way I am never tied to those premixes and as I see reflected light or a temperature shift I can quickly punch it up or tone it down without breaking the flow of the painting process. Because if am really way off on my judgement, I can make those finite adjustments as I return for my second or third pass. Each time I visit a passage, the subtle differences in color and value become easier to find.

This way I can just stay in the zone.

The Vanitas or memento mori imagery is a fascinating genre to explore and is full of interesting symbolism. My concept of the Vanitas or certainly the core idea behind them is to use it not just as a platform to speak about the struggle of life and death, but of art and life.

I will save more of that conversation for later and as I work through this piece I will share those thoughts. I do want to share this link to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the amazing series “The ArtistProject” in this episode’s artist Roland Flexner discusses the 16thcentury Vanitas painting by Jacques de Gheyn II.

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim 

Link: The Artist Project: Roland Flexner

"the Met" -  http://www.metmuseum.org/

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

Vanitas II – Etiquette - Drawing and Underpainting

Preliminary pencil drawing for my next Vanitas oil painting, originally it was intended to be a simple contour drawing to transfer to canvas, but I was just having too much fun with a pencil.

The majority of my still life works begin with a simple but descriptive contour drawing, which works out the composition and suggests the shadow side or turning point on the form. This is typically more than enough information to move on to the next stage of paint. Especially for any monochrome underpainting.

I pushed this one quite a bit further. In a preliminary drawing you can do a great deal of problem solving. By simply dissecting the imagery, exploring the shapes, form and value relationships. You really familiarize yourself with the subjects and those nuances that first attracted you to it. This process seems the most natural for me and the most challenging. I feel that I am looking through a lens and slowly turning it, focusing in on the subject through my mind’s eye, interrupting it as I go. Becoming more aware and knowledgeable about this thing before me as I progress through the process of creating the image.  As I describe the effects of the light, it becomes more and more dimensional and real to me. And enjoyed fleshing out the value relationships in this drawing.

I transferred the drawing to board. With the subject in front of me and the value study as reference, I painted a quick wipe out umber underpainting, to truly reinforce the value relationships before my first color pass.

If we attempt to translate the natural world into paint with some type of optical fidelity (faithfulness to how that object looks in real life), what you paint is light. I know this is the vague common answer you hear when you ask an artist - what do you paint? But it is the simple truth, the truth of physical properties when describing form, what is illuminated and what is in shadow? No matter what the subject is; skulls, flowers, apples and oranges, I paint the effects of light first and the narrative second.

Our perception of everything in this world is described by light or the lack of.
It is the universal narrator, the chronicler, storyteller and poet.

"The purpose of art is to stop time." — Bob Dylan

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim 

Link: Fun with a Pencil By Andrew Loomis


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

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