Evening in the Hills

"In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing." 

- Vincent van Gogh

Direct Study From Nature

I recently read a article about Hudson River School Painter Asher B. Durand on the blog of acclaimed illustrator James Gurney.  Gurney writes:

Durand wrote that direct study from nature was the ideal way for the artist to transcend the limitations of tired compositional formulas, providing “the only safeguard against the inroads of heretical conventionalism.”

He defined conventionalism as “the substitution of an easily expressed falsehood for a difficult truth.”

Though I've never been particularly moved by the work of the Hudson River School painters, Durand's devotion to painting from nature really resonates with me and I feel a certain connection to his artistic convictions.  

Above are a couple of recent paintings done in the field as part of my continued attempt to grapple with those oh-so-difficult to express truths.  Though I'm not necessarily posting them because I think they are successful, but because they document the struggle and the journey.

Here's a link to the article:  Asher B. Durand

Seeing

"Anything under the sun is beautiful if you have the vision- it is the seeing of the thing that makes it so."

-Charles Hawthorne

Reflecting

What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and which reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered?

...You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.

-Annie Dillard

Finding Time

My wife and I welcomed our second child, Caroline, into the world on Thanksgiving.  So needless to say my time has been in much greater demand lately.  Still I've been trying to get some painting and sketching in when I can, which has meant utilizing my lunch breaks and time when the little ones are napping.  Here are some recent attempts.