Sherry Meidell – Page 7 – Sherry Meidell

Labels

June 29, 2022 No Comments

Tree off the beaten path (from my sketch book).

The left side of our brain wants to label things. That is a tree and this is how you draw a tree. And so you draw a triangle with a rectangle stump and your left brain says that looks good. Now paint it green. Your right brain is left not quite satisfied. Your right brain is looking at the shape the tree actually is. Our right brain is looking at the variety of edges, the angle that the wind is causing the trunk to grow and wait a minute, the color is not the green straight out of the tube. There might be some red popped in there. We need to look to see what is actually there.

Its the same way with people. We want to put them in nice groups with nice little labels. But if you take the time to really look and see, you see the beauty that lies within. That beauty comes from looking in there eyes and getting to know what lies inside. It takes time when we can’t just lump people into a group and walk on by. You get to know them as individuals. It takes some effort but the rewards are great.

Patience in Painting

June 22, 2022 1 Comment

Painting is like life and life is like painting. Some of the same lessons apply to both. I recently took a workshop from Stan Miller. His painting methods require time and careful observation. Sometimes in life we want immediate results. But to get results in painting, you have to put in the actual time. We have a picture in our mind of what we want our painting to look like before we start and when life or our painting is not turning out the way we pictured, we may want to stop, throw in the towel, rip up our painting and start over again. It is good to finish the painting. There is something to be learned by the actual finishing of the painting. Sometimes just by finishing we can take our painting beyond the throw away point and it becomes better than we expected. It is in the completing of all the imperfect paintings that we learn and become a better painter. We have to put in the time. Patiently. And with joy because creating is joyful.

Excerpt from Eating Crayons (Coming in October)

Finding Beauty Each Day

June 16, 2022 4 Comments

Some artists have a hard time finding something to paint. I find paintings all around me. There is so much beauty in this world. All you have to do is take the time to see it. You learn something from sitting out in the wind and hearing the ocean waves. You find out about place. You see colors you wouldn’t see from a photo. You smell the moisture in the air. Painting is a great way to capture a place. The above watercolor sketch is from my watercolor sketch book. Its a place to keep all those memories.

So now you’ve found the beauty, its time to be grateful. Grateful for eyes to see. Grateful for so much subtlety of color and grateful for brushes and paint. Grateful for family and friends to share it with. Beauty is all around us no matter where we are. We just need to take the time to pause, and see.

What beauty have you seen today?

Painting More Than You Can See

April 6, 2022 No Comments

There is the visual part of art, the trying to reproduce what you see out there in the world. It is also good to add the emotional part of the painting. You’re trying to paint two dogs by looking at the shapes, the angles, and where the lines intersect other lines. But you are also trying to capture something more. What else are you trying to say with your painting. What are the personalities of the two dogs? Are you capturing the nature of the dogs by capturing how the tongues lop out of the mouths? If you trace a photo, you get a stiff representation of whats in the photo. You want to bring the dogs to life. You want your painting to look better than the photo, more alive, more color.

Concentrating on shapes can help. Instead of thinking eyeball and drawing what your left brain uses to symbolize eyeball, you look at the shape. Your left brain might say to yourself, “Hey Self you don’t want a hair covering up part of that eyeball. You want to show all of the eyeball.” When having the hair cover part of the eyeball says something about the nature of dogs. “Hey Self, you need to show both eyes and make sure they look the same.” When you really want to show the unique shape of each eye and maybe you want one eye to completely disappear. ”Hey Self, those dogs have a lot of nice fur. They are furry. You need to make sure you draw each individual hair.” When your artist brain is saying, drawing every single fence post and every hair is boring. Draw the shape of the fur and describe the nature of the fur where it meets other shapes along its edges. Can you say something about the nature of the dog with an angle on it’s eyebrow? Can I draw a chain without drawing every single ring the exact same way? Shape upon shape and color upon color and suddenly you look down and you have a painting that excites you.

http://utahwatercolor.org

Paintings, Paintings Everywhere.

March 30, 2022 No Comments

Sometimes you sit back and go wow. I’ve got paintings all over the place. There were paintings up at Eccles in Ogden at the Utah Watercolor Society Two Star Signature Show. (Received Honorable Mention) There is a painting at the Cottonwood Presbyterian Church on The Good Samaritan. “Little Brother has made it into the National Watercolor Society’s Member Show in San Pedro, California. “Playing behind Bamboo is on it’s way to the Western Federation of Watercolor Society’s Show in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The original watercolor of The Cheap Boots and Shoes in Nauvoo, Illinois is on it’s way to a new home in Texas. The spring show for the Utah Watercolor Society will be up in Logan. The Dixie Invitational is showing “The Weaver” (watercolor 3rd place) down in St, George.

As an artist I love creating paintings. But also as an artist, I love showing my art to others. I love the opportunity to have others see the paintings that I have thought about, designed and splashed paint on to create visually the things that I find interesting in this life. It’s good to create and good to share.

So my facebook page has been hacked so beware of any requests or links that come from me.

What Do You Want To Say With Your Art?

March 10, 2022 2 Comments

So the picture above was taken from the inside of the back door of my son and daughter-in-law’s house. It says exactly what the creator wanted it to say. You can read the emotion in each word. So what kind of emotion do we want to convey with our art? And tied to that is what do we want to paint? What grabs our attention. What we choose to capture in a painting says a lot about us as artists. Some find great beauty in landscape while others try to capture the never ending beauty in the human face. I find beauty in painting a variety of things. My art is a witness of the beauty I find in each day that I paint.

“The Weaver” won third place in the watercolor division at the Dixie Invitational in St. George. I combined words with the painting. The words went around the edge of the mat. The words added to the art and added to the image. At Awana Wasi in Peru, they continue with their traditional weaving. What drew me to paint this weaver was the challenge to try and capture the strands of multi-colored thread and the weaver leaning over her work. All those threads come together in a beautiful design, just like each brush stroke combines to create the painting.

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