Audacity. A special friend recommended a book, a lovely, beautifully written book, not about how to paint, but how to see, to look, to imagine.
Its Green chapter shook me with this sentence: "Real art happens when we step out to the unknown, venture into new territory, and take a chance on where our senses will take us."
Last year's ocean scenes had done that for me, as I dove into learning how to paint the movement of water. Is the water sucked back into itself or surging forward? Is it thin and filled with sunshine or dark and lurking?
Just small paintings, getting into the rhythm and feel of moving water.
Until . . .
I was staring at a 24x24 drawing on the easel, wondering why in the world I thought I could do something this size, this complex.
Until the Green chapter said . . .
"Artists, above all, have to know themselves, to find the one thing they need to express at that moment. Find it and go after it as if nothing else in this universe matters. Painting--like life--requires courage, faith, and a bit of audacity."
So I knew why, and "Audacity" earned its title.
(An Artist's Way of Seeing, by Mary Whyte, digital version on Kindle.)
