This week I have been working on a small 10 x10 inch painting… Attached are my progress photos from this week. I re-worked the color scheme in this painting from being predominantly warm in tone (yellow, orange, red) to more analogous colors (blue, blue-green, and green).

It has been a herculean effort to make myself work and I feel like I have had to be a Nike athlete and follow the slogan, “Just do it,” whether I feel like it or not. All this struggle to be creative, has made me wonder, Is it ever justifiable for a professional creative to take a break from painting, or whatever their medium of choice may be (songs, poetry, novels, dance), especially when the passion or inspiration is lacking, or should we ( as creatives, makers, musicians, writers, etc.), just slog through regardless? I suspect there are as many opinions about this issue as there are anything else…

Here are my two cents on this subject. I read a blog by writer, Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like an Artist, and Show Your Work! and he had some advice which I found very helpful. Kleon referenced a quote in his blog at http://www.austinkleon.com, from February 9, 2017 in which the writer, Goethe, said” “one ought to every day at least hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”Kleon (2017), states that in this quote, we find the emphasis on appreciation, rather than production.   It might seem like a counterproductive concept to many of us, who live in a workaholic 24-7 Western culture. And this mentality is not limited to the corporate world, it has even dripped down into the creative community where we often find articles about, being more efficient with our studio time and the importance of drawing or painting every day. And as an art student at McDaniel College, I had a teacher who always emphasized that art students should work on multiple projects every week, and that production was the key to their artistic growth.

In my experience, the pressure to produce art every day can get especially high for me when an art show deadline is looming or if I am working on a commissioned piece for a client or an art project for an art class. And while I would be the first to agree that if you want to get better at something you need to put in the time every week, daily if possible, whether it’s learning to play piano or learning to paint and draw, it’s also important to know yourself. Are you someone who really needs to buckle down and work on a creative project every day, or are you a workaholic who needs to schedule in breaks to refuel and recharge your creative batteries? As for myself, I am giving myself permission to take some much needed time off and read a good book, or go to Borders and read some art magazines to try and get my passion for painting back once I complete this painting. How about you, fellow makers and creatives? How do you recharge your creative batteries to make paintings, write poetry, sing songs, etc? I’m open to suggestions and would love to hear from you in my comments box.  

It’s been a very challenging week and I am working under a tight deadline to get this painting completed in time for the March 2017 box show, TAG Squared. I’ve been fighting with myself trying to find the motivation to get this painting started and to do my best work. This is not usually a problem for me, and is, I fear a sign of burn out.  I find it hard to give myself breaks when I need to, and then comes the dreaded burnout and lack of motivation that is sure to follow if I don’t take time off.

This week I started by priming the birch wood 10 x 10-inch canvas with gesso. When that had dried, I painted in three values of acrylic paint of white, gray and black, which was based on my three value sketch from last week. Today, I began blocking in color and deciding on a color scheme. I also changed the composition of the book and decided to use a different illustration than the one I had originally chosen for the open pages of the book. Here is my progress so far.

If you want to read more about the purpose of the show, TAG squared or need directions or office hours of the gallery go to the following link: http://www.theartistsgalleryfrederick.com/.

I am a little behind this week with blogging, but today I am taking the time to catch up. Last week I talked about my artistic process and how I created a sketchbook of inspiring artwork and used an older sketch from a previous art project that never got off the ground, unfortunately. I also talked about how I collaged all my favorite ideas from my sketchbook to make a digital collage in Photoshop.

Today I chose one of the digital collages and started a three value sketch. Here is my work in progress. My next step will be to gesso my canvas with two coats of gesso. When that dries, I will transfer this sketch and begin the acrylic painting. I have two weeks to paint it before it will be dropped off for display in the Box Show at the Artists’ Gallery in Frederick, MD, so I really have to get cracking! Here is a link to the gallery if you are interested in learning more about the art show: http://www.theartistsgalleryfrederick.com/.

Just a quick note to let you know my artwork will be on display at Spin the Bottle Wine Company in Frederick, MD until the end of February. I will have original art, and art prints for sale. Attached is a post card about my art show.

My oil paintings will be displayed at Spin the Bottle Wine Company in Frederick, MD. The paintings are selling for $100 each and have been custom framed. I will be at the shop on opening night from 3- 6 pm. The artwork will be displayed until the end of February. For directions or information about hours of Spin the Bottle Wine Company, follow this link: http://spinthebottlewinecompany.com/.

I forgot to mention, here is the citation for Emily Dickinson’s poem, There is no Frigate like a Book: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/there-no-frigate-book-1263. You can read the poem in its entirety there.

Last week I started to talk about my artistic process. This week I am continuing to work my artistic process for a piece I plan to exhibit at the Box Show at the Artists’ Gallery in Frederick, MD in March. I started this process by revisiting a series of sketches that  I had created for another show called Wild Imaginings a few years back. However, life got in the way and I never did finish the idea. But now I am revisiting the idea and developing it into a painting. So this week I am in stage 2.

I started a book of inspiring images that I culled from Pinterest and Google image searches and pasted them into my sketch book. Then I combined these images into Photoshop, using the sketch as a springboard to develop my composition.

My topic for this piece is to illustrate how reading can unlock your imagination. And my inspiration for this piece is primarily from Emily Dickinson’s poem, There is no Frigate Like a Book. The following lines captured my initial inspiration and gave me some concepts and images to work with pertaining to journeys, travel, imagination and creativity. Here are the first few lines of Dickinson’s poem:

There is no frigate like a book (1263)

There is no Frigate like a Book  
To take us Lands away,  
Nor any Coursers like a Page  
Of prancing Poetry –   
This Traverse may the poorest take         
Without oppress of Toll –   
How frugal is the Chariot  
That bears a Human soul.

Several years ago a custom art client of mine mentioned that he was looking forward to seeing what “magic” I would come up with in the painting I was working on. Hmm, and yes, while there is an element of “magic” in art making, for me, the process is really about a combination of imagination, hard work, determination, and a system of organization I use to flesh out my ideas for a painting or drawing…My basic system to create artwork starts with creating a sketchbook of ideas in which I attach printouts of artist’s work that inspire me, and then I select images from Pinterest, Google images, books, or my personal photo collection, that illustrate my concept. Then I make a collage of these images in PhotoShop. After that, I start making three value drawings of the subject, in which I shade the subjects in values of black, gray and white, using pencils or soft pastels. My final step is to create a color “sketch” in watercolor or acrylic paints to select what color themes I want to incorporate in the work. With color, I try to think about what mood I want to imbibe the artwork with. Is it mysterious, happy, nostalgic, sad, angry or some other emotion that I want to communicate?

Case in point. I am now working on an art project for an art show I regularly participate in called, The Box Show, at the Artists’ Gallery in Frederick, MD. See the following link to learn more about this year’s box show: http://www.theartistsgalleryfrederick.com/copy-of-february-2017-associates-sh. It is a silent auction art show that is open to the Frederick, MD community, meaning that there is no jury to approve or reject the work. So I am back to the drawing board so to speak, and I am utilizing this very same strategy, starting with the sketchbook, looking for pictorial ideas on Google image searches and Pinterest, and yet, I am feeling stuck. Although I have an idea, I am not feeling excited about it, after starting to print out some photo references. And so I have decided to do something I usually don’t do, and that is to look at old sketches for projects that I never finished.

Today I returned to some sketches for a call for artists that was issued some years ago at the Carroll Art Center in Westminster, MD, called Wild Imaginings. And I felt excited about finishing the sketches I had started making several years ago.  I collaged the ideas in Photoshop today. I felt not only excited, but I could also “see” how the art would look as a finished piece. In this artwork, I am illustrating the concept of how reading can unlock your imagination. I reference several sources here for inspiration, such as the sculpture by Bart Walter, “Wild Imaginings”, http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/multimedia/photogalleries/cct-landmarks-september-october-2014-pictures–034-photo.html and Emily Dickinson’s poem, There is no Frigate Like a Book, .https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/52199. I have attached some of my initial concept sketches for this piece.  Stayed tuned for the continuing saga of my art process! 

Here is a new oil painting that I have been working on for my Spin the Bottle Art Show. All paintings will be for sale for $100 each through my Etsy website, http://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtofSchmidt.