Pop art

Since people are going to be living longer and getting older, they’ll just have to learn to be babies longer. Andy Warhol

I picked up this ball the other day at a nearby park on a beautiful spring day. It was lying in the grass just outside of a ballfield, begging to be picked up and tossed around.  I had just bought a bunch of canvas panels from the art store, and knew this would make a good subject. I spent about an hour sketching and painting this.

Nothing symbolizes play like a ball. I think Warhol was onto something. You have to have an element of play and wonder to keep yourself in the game and off the sidelines of life. With so much entertainment  media like t.v., movies, video, its easy to be a spectator of life and not an actor. That’s what he meant about being a baby.

Pop artists like Warhol liked to take everyday elements that we see so much in our daily life, we stop seeing them.  The objects were taken out of their practical context in our day-to-day lives and presented as art.

Hanging by the moon

“We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side.”
Khalil Gibran

Sometimes to understand something, you have to move into its opposite. Shadows add depth and beauty to the light. To draw and paint something, you need a range of lights and darks. 

If you live in fear of if others approve of you, they are casting a shadow over you. The shadow side of humans has nothing to do with blocking light that the sun casts. Human shadows can be fears and illusions that people can’t get past.

Happy Memorial Day!

Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil.    
Thomas Paine

Seagrass duo

“If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeng the stars.”
Rabindranath Tagore

After I finished  this painting I realized it looked like a celebration of some sort. It’s an evening painting with the sun gone and the moon and stars out yet it looks so festive. I imagine  the moon was saying to enjoy all phases of your life,  just as we have phases of the moon.

Colorful creatures

There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who transform a yellow spot into the sun.
Pablo Picasso

Color is energy. Color is a vibration. Color is a part of the electomagnetic spectrum. Every color has a different wavelength.

I used a lot of green in this painting. Green is a soothing color. Its associated with  the heart and nature.  The last color we can see on the rainbow is violet.  Beyond that, the waves vibrate too fast for our eyes to see.

The butterfly keeper

The butterfly keeper is an archetype. Everyone has several archetypes. These are forms of energy.   Archetypes are guides that give your life direction. They are reflected in our desires and intentions.

A butterfly keeper holds onto things when they are in the cocoon or formative stage.  They have to be willing to let that go when the business, person or something else is in full bloom.

Blue-striped butterfly

“Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.”  Danny Kaye

I love zebra stripes. I decided to combine elements of zebras onto a butterfly. That’s the fun of being an artist. You can take elements of different things and collage them into something new. 

I once had a teacher say that artists create worlds.  Why just take whats already there if you shift it around,  change it and make it all your own?

Happy Mother’s Day!

A mom’s hug lasts long after she lets go.

To all you mom’s out there, I salute you. Where would we be without our mom? A mother understands what a child does not say.

This is my son and I when he was a baby. They grow so fast. He’s 13 now and taller than I am.  Life is a dance with time.

Life is a dance with each other. Life is a dance with the universe. To live is to dance. To dance is to live. Our first dance is with our mother.

Butterfly and snake

Butterflies allow the wind to carry them forward. They symbolize new life, and letting go of the old.

The snake has to shed its old skin to survive. The snake has come to be associated with death and rebirth.

In shedding your skin, you are transforming your life and being born again. This is the meaning of the meeting of Eve and the snake in the Garden of Eden.  A great transition in life through new opportunities and changes occur when new knowledge is gained.

Here the snake offers a gift to the butterfly in the form of new knowledge and insights. The butterfly is ready to receive this wisdom to move forward.

Owl and dragonfly

Animals live by voices we shall never hear.

Many creatures can pick up on different tpes of energy in the environment that humans can’t.

A dragonfly eye has 30,000 lenses. An earthworm’s entire body is covered with taste buds. Seahorse’s have eyes that can move independently. Many creatures have hearing and eyesight far beyond what humans have.

It would be interesting to live in the body of a creature like an elephant, dolphin or flying insect for a little while to see how they perceive the world.

I used acrylic paints on canvas paper to paint this duo.