Today It's Stink Bugs

Mother Nature had a good cry yesterday. She rained all day. Today is gloriously cool and fresh, and I'm beginning a new painting. I've been thinking about creative voice, wondering "What is my creative voice?" What is it that I need to express? While prone to flights of philosophical reverie, my artwork is rooted in an objective style. I want to bring us all closer to what's right here in front of us. No escaping into visual expressions of weird, subjective, psycho-babble for me. Those internal sound tracks are best left to dissolve into the ether whence they came. HERE we are! Let's not miss it.

I'm quite enamored by the rocks and plants and creatures that I live with. And being a very slow painter, in love with the process itself, I photograph what I can't carry into my studio such as the play of light and reflections. I also collect reference material like books on insects and some such critters as one might encounter in our locale. And of course, the internet is a treasure trove of information. Today it's Stink Bugs. I've perused my insect books to find a bug the right size, shape and color, as well as– just who might want to live in my painting? And so we have Perillus Bioculatus, better known as Stink Bugs. I've been reading about them and I think this one will be very happy living amongst the leaves and grasses in my new painting.

For the past two days I've been checking my drawing, removing extraneous lines, making sure I visually understand each line– does it indicate a light area, or dark? A hard edge or soft? I'll be drawing even as I paint, but still I want to be familiar with every nuance of my image before I begin. Familiar not only with the lines, shapes and patterns, but with the emotional memory of it. What draws me to this image? How do the senses react?

I aspire to experience things as they truly are. In other words, to experience directly, to let go of the story spinning, and just be here, now. I guess THIS is what my images are about. Perhaps they can remind you of what is here, now in your life and world.