Wrinkles! What Wrinkles?

This morning I considered whether to run in the open air, to brace the cold and the wind, or to take the alternative and head to the gym in the warmth of the car. At they gym I could run in shorts and running vest in the warmth of the place. Outside I would have to wear thicker heavier running gear.

As I ran I found my heart uplifted almost mile by mile. First I watched the soaring buzzard as it scanned the fields below looking for its breakfast. Then I startled two deer, they stopped to watch me as I ran off in the other direction, no danger to them. Of more danger was the fox that ran alongside me sheltered by the bushes . 

Then sitting on the fencepost I saw the little Red Kite , it seemed maybe he had already had success in the hunting stakes. He looked at peace with the world, and did not flinch a muscle as I ran past. 

Next I watched the fresh pieces of wood drop from the tree and had to stop for a moment to look up and watch the Lesser Speckled Woodpecker at work high in the boughs.

Six and a half miles and I was home, warm from my exertion and ready to face my day.

The alternative, had I chosen to go to the gym would have been to run the same miles , but all I would see was my own face in the mirror in front of me as I pounded out the miles going nowhere. 

The mirror is never a pretty sight at the best of times.  The older we get the more we become conscious of age catching up.  

While out running, I am that 18 year old who loved playing music and dancing. I am the 25 year old minister who was told one day by his dear old organist that he was the boy who would never grow old. I am the  older man who stood at the top of the mountain and rejoiced in managing to run the whole way there without stopping. 

In the mirror I see the wrinkles of age, the pattern I have woven over the years with the life I have lived. 

Now had I ran on the treadmill I might now have been thinking about going for a haircut. Having run outside I am still that young man and I am going off to paint. 

I am what life has made me. I am not at all ashamed of the pattern I have woven. I have not allowed the blind tattooist to set his agenda. I have not let accident shape me or mould me . The wrinkles I see tell there story. 

The artist paints. We either paint a thing of beauty or we start again. The pattern of our life we are equally in control of, we do not paint without thought, we should not go through life thoughtlessly , letting accident dictate. No matter our age we are still in control. Whether we produce a an ugly thing or are a joy to be with is our sole responsibility. 

Wrinkles!!!! What wrinkles I no wrinkles. Do you??????

This is the very initial stages of what I hope will be a Pen and Ink of  Mont St Michele  in France. This is a place I love.  This is a complex subject and I may yet have to abandon but I give you this the first stage. 

Today I hope to go over the pencil marks and begin to add some shading. I am already aware that I have a few errors to sort, but having started in pencil I can do that. 

I hope my friends who read this have a lovely day. This is the day I spend time with my friends in the afternoon. We call ourselves, “The Last of the Summer Wine.” Those who live in the UK will know exactly what that means. 

There is Something Missing

It begins with a blank canvas, made ready with the application of the gesso that will allow the paint to adhere to the canvas. We stand and look at that blank canvas and in our mind we have the perfect vision of what will be there when we finish. Slowly but surely we work applying paint moving the paint to the shape we want. We stop and have a break while we contemplate the work in progress. Still in our mind we hold the vision of the finished work. “This one will be better than any other I have done before,” we think. “This time I will get it right.”


Slowly but surely the picture that is held in the mind begins to appear on the canvas. We step back, we look again, and we think and contemplate. As the work proceeds we move down the scale of brushes adding finer points here and there just touching it making the final strokes that will bring everything into place. At last we feel it is finished, we can leave it to dry and settle.

Our first thoughts are that it is alright. The trouble is as we look at it a bit further we see something that is just not the way we meant it to be. The painting is put back on the easel and paint made ready to make the adjustments needed. We tinker with it here and we touch it there. Step back and look and think it just needs a little bit more of this colour and a little more of that. At last it is finished. Again it is left to dry and settle. The next day we look again and wish we had left it the way it was in the beginning, but it is now too late. The damage has been done. It looks good but so often not as good as it might have.

There is a story of a young monk preparing the garden of the monastery for a very special event that was to take place that day. Over the wall there lived a wise old sage who watched as the young monk trimmed all the bushes taking great care as he snipped little branches here and there. He combed all the moss on the rocks so that it all lay in the same direction. He raked all the fallen leaves and made beautiful patterns in the gravel. After many hours he stood back to admire his work. He saw the old sage watching and said to him, “Is this not perfection?” “It is beautiful indeed,” said the old sage, “but there is one thing missing. If you lift me over I will show you.” The young monk did just that, he lifted the old sage over the wall. The old sage went over to the tree in the middle of the garden and shook it with vigour, shaking leaves to the ground. “There,” he said, “now it is perfect.”

Sometimes it is better to leave things the way they are, any interference from us only makes things less than it was before we started. To know when to work and when not to work is the way of Tao. There is often more gained by not doing than can be achieved by doing.

The comments about the chosen work of art can be viewed at:- AlongThe Firebreak

So Completed But not What I Thought.

Sometimes you just have to go with the paint and the heart and forget what the head is sayin. It is finished not too sure but I am doing no more other than maybe a further coat of finish.

Painting for others or painting for yourself.

I often wonder wether I paint for myself or for others. When somebody asks me to paint something just for them but leave me to paint what I think they might like it often works for me and them and the experience is a joy. I have completed a few commissions where this has been the case. Then there is those who ask for something specific. I find this so difficult I often reach the point where I feel I will never take another commission ever. So often this means that I have to try more than once to please the client. Then there are those paintings that I paint for me. The ones that give me so much pleasure where I can let the paint and I be in harmony. Some of these paintings never sell, some are painted over but ever so often I have no problems with people being interested in them. I have even had interest shown by a fellow artist and this humbles me and make me consider it something to enjoy and feel pleasure in.

One thing for sure no matter what category the painting is in it is a joy if it sells. it means others like your work. Then when the day comes to send them off there is a wrench at the heart strings as your baby leaves the nest.

The painting I have added to this blog is one of those I have been asked to to and pray it meets the requirements. It is different from the one the person liked as it would have to be I just hope enough of a similarity to bring pleasure.

A Painting that painted itself.

Every so often it happens the paint takes control and I end up with something very different from where I began. Yesterday was one such occasion. I was painting a landscape and at one point I was un happy so I removed as much of the paint as I could. The remaining paint shouted at me. At least one part of it did, this I added more paint to trying to leave it as it was as much as possible. Now I could see what I wanted to do with the rest. I kind of like the end result, not sure anybody else will but I do.