Back from the east coast and feeling inspired from New York and Chicago’s incredible art museums. This little study is from a photo I took of an old tree along the Trukee River.

Riverside Tree - Oil on Canvas - 8×10

This had to be very quick.  After visiting all the great museums yesterday and this morning, I had to paint.  Wish I had my oils, but watercolor was the only practical medium this week.  Just as I finished this, a HUGE rain and wind storm hit (luckily, Barney’s was nearby .

After my meeting today, spent some time just walking around Times Square. No place like it! There were lots of artists working on the street, here’s a few.

As regular readers of this blog know, much of my focus is sharing ideas, learnings, insights…educating. While in Chicago today, for my part-time “day job“, the stars aligned on art education, even though this is a marketing event. There really is an “art spirit” (or Karma), isn’t there?

At a break between conference sessions, stars aligned when I met Lori Heinsman, founder of HelloCreativity and then later in the day listened intently to a speach by Nicholas Negroponte, a long-time technology visionary from MIT. Lori is focusing on supporting artistic development of children (in an era of every-decreasing arts funding in K-12), and Negropante is leading “One Laptop Per Child“, an effort focused on mass-producing inexpensive < $100 laptops (hand-cranked power, no less!) for children in developing countries. What an interesting intersection! Do you see the possibilities? Imagine millions of children isolated by poverty and georgraphy sharing their artwork and getting encouragement from mentors around the world.

Hello Creativity

According to their site, “Hello CREATIVITY is a free, online mentoring program dedicated to helping children build self-confidence through artistic expression and steady, positive reinforcement.” The way Lori described the site to me, children read feedback from mentors who help their artistic expression grow through online tools, like sharing photos of work, discussion, etc.
Read this page to learn about mentoring. I started mentoring today by leaving encouraging comments…Will you? Subscribe to their RSS feed to make it easy.

One Laptop Per Child

Nicholas Negroponte opened his speach today by mentioning that he’d just met with Jeff Bezzos the day before. Apparently Bezos is a big supporter of Negroponte’s efforts to help end poverty through education. In talking about how to get the average person involved (not just billionaire philanthropists like Bezos), he suggested the slogan,”buy 2, get 1″, of course a play on the “Buy two, get one free” sales pitch–but the end result is, a person in a developed country like the US buys one, and the other goes to an undeveloped country. Neat.

Isn’t this an inspiring idea? Imagine children in villages with no running water, no electricity communicating and learning with a PC. For a geek like me, the devices themselves are fascinating enough to write a dedicated blog post, but the reason I thought you’d like to know about it is the possible impact on the arts, and how a site like Hello Creativity (among others) will make it possible to broaden our online art community dramatically.

I don’t know yet how an individual can support OLPC, but if you like this idea, get started today with Hello Creativity and mentor a child.

NOTE: The dog sketch (pencil on paper) above was created by Skylar, age 6. To encourage Skylar, leave a comment here (and remember to be encouraging, nice! This is not a critque for an adult).

They call it “The Bean“, or formally the “Cloud Gate Sculpture“, a public sculpture by Anish Kapoor in Millennium Park, Chicago. It’s a beautiful thing. Huge.

I spent the day today at an industry conference (Forrester Research), so no time to paint. The sun was going down just as I got out, and it was windy and cold. Okay, enough excuses for not painting today! I’ll be off starting Friday, so I’ll see what I can do then. The only other goals on my agenda this week in New York is to visit the Met and the Hispanic Society of New York, where collection of art by Joaquin Sorolla is housed. I can’t wait to see that!

I’m traveling to Chicago 10/23-25 then NYC 10/16-29, any plein air folks in town then? I’m thinking of hanging out in galleries and museums and bringing a nice, lite watercolor kit–not my typical 50 pounds of plein air oil painting gear!

Maybe I’ll bring my MacBook and post some pics.

Come to think of it, I haven’t been in NYC since 9/11.  It’s going to  be weird, seeing that skyline without the twin towers.  Maybe I’ll come up with a painting at the site…probably not.  It must be…I don’t know, certainly not a place to be “exploited”.  Is that what we do when we paint a location?  We do, don’t we?  I guess I’m speaking as (primarily) a plein air artist that typically paints “beautiful” paintings of “beautiful” locations.  Sorry if this is…cynical.

If I feel I can capture how I feel at the spot, I’ll capture it as best I can.

Having been back from the SLO show for a couple of weeks now, I’ve been taking a second look at some of my paintings.  I re-worked the painting below a bit.  This was a memorable day.  Late, bright afternoon light–low on the horizon, and so a warm orange color.  I joined Gordon Luce there, who’d been painting the area most of the day.

I’ve been corresponding with a possible buyer for this one (Deb), so it may leave the nest soon.

Morro Bay Marsh - Oil on Linen - 8×10

I’m hanging out today before my trip to Chicago and New York City next week.

My blog has been silent for a week. I think that’s nearly a record. I’ve been thinking and catching my breath following the end of a long “plein air” season.

The season runs from roughly early Spring to Fall. In that time, I participated in events like Hidden Villa, Vahona, Estes Park and San Luis Obispo. A lot of work, but hey, it ended well. So it feels like the day after Christmas. All the hype and work leading up to a big day, and then… And then… That’s the thing. I’m not sure what’s next. I know I have a winter off of plein air shows to focus in my studio, which provides me time to rethink things, relax and decide where I want to focus.

I had a great dinner with Brent Jensen the other night, who–in 2006–has done an incredible job (with Steve) of building his career. He’s now in some of the most influential galleries in the country. He’s also a great painter.

So, should I leverage my recent wins, advertise the hell out of it and get into some high profile galleries? To be honest, I think the answer is no. I’ve always been insecure about my art–usually under-pricing work (according to other artists), not applying to the best shows, etc–and I still don’t feel I’m ready. Do you ever feel ready to really push your art?

As the days are noticably shorter now (and colder, less sun), I will sequester myself in my studio and continue to focus on becoming a better painter. I’ll experiment and have some fun. I hope you’ll stick around and enjoy. I know I’ll keep learning from you, all the artists around me. Can you share your experience? When did you decide to focus on Marketing and growing your career? Did you have an “a ha!” moment?

Ed Terpening at San Luis Obispo Plein Air 2006

Even when I was a “full time” artist, I felt like–”when am I going to have time to paint?” I’ve got books, receipts, galleries to deal with, postcards, printers, ads, supplies to buy…yikes!

Now that I’m working part-time, the pressure to make money from art is off (hope the IRS isn’t listening…I should say less pressure). Seriously, it’s nice to not focus on galleries (I reduced my galleries from 5 to 2 this year, and perhaps one) and it’s working out well.

Click to enlarge–as if - from a favoriate blog - Gaping Void

Today was the last painting day of the San Luis Obispo Plein Air competition, the “Quick Draw”.  We were given 2 hours to complete a painting, followed by a live auction.

Yesterday I scouted out a couple of compositions and ended up painting the History Museum, one of the many built by the Carnegie Foundation in 1904/5.

I had a great time painting this building.  I was facing North, with the direct morning light hitting the wall at a 90 degree angle from me.  The result was a wonderful warm glow from reflected light on the entrance of the building.  I was also feeling great after last night’s win, so the painting came together really well.  I even finished half an hour early.  The painting was bought by an artist in the show as well, pastelist Dottie Hawthorne.

After a few hours off (and a nice nap!), we had another reception tonight.  Fellow artist blogger William Wray won Artist’s Choice for a great painting of an old Southern Pacific engine train and I sold two more paintings–one more, and it will be a complete sell-out!

The show ends tomorrow, then I’m off to LAX to pick up Mike for a week’s stay in OC and Ventura to visit family.  A week off sounds great about now!

SLO History Museum - Oil on Linen - 11×14″