Wednesday 17 February 2010

Looking Through Someone Elses Eyes

"Essence Of  Lilac"
An experience on a scrap of paper destined for the bin when I started.

Last week I bought a spray of lilac to work from in my studio. I paint from life finding light is more magical to capture from reality than when working from photographs. This could be why there is a huge variety of colour in my work. I see "real" colour not the flat darks often found in digital images.

To relax and close a studio session I  placed colour on a scrap of old paper allowing it to flow . Then began to pick out lilac shapes. I soon became mesmerised by the tiny flowers in each lilac form. The scent was so intense I almost began to feel I was aiming to capture the perfume which was rich and dramatic rather than light and soft as the blossom.

This piece was painted deliberately for the bin. It had served its purpose into introducing me to wonderful colour combinations for the serious paintings and I discovered composition suggestions for a series also.

However when I shared this with others the feedback was glowing. 

One of the main setbacks when we look at our own work is we often see what we were aiming for. Not what we achieve.

Others only see the results and only focus on this.

We see the flaws.
Others see the beauty.

If only we could see our work through others eyes.See what they see and  feel.

Then we too may just see the beauty!


*************************


2 comments:

JANE MINTER said...

how true your words are jean ... you are so lucky to find summer flowers ... wonderful impact and array of colours .

Jean Haines SWA, SFP said...

I really am lucky in so many ways Jane, and more flowers appear each week! Thank you for such a lovely reply.