Autumn and Inspiration

[Donald Maier]

Autumn is my favorite time of year. Today is my 64th birthday, and I can remember many birthdays when I was out painting on location in places like Yosemite, when I would schedule my vacation time to the end of October. As I look outside in my front yard here in Georgia, the leaves on the trees are all turning color and are at peak right now. Red dogwoods and yellow/orange maples against a bright clear blue sky. The outdoors are an inspiration to me right now. It is time to get back out there and paint.

 

It has been a very busy summer for me. Beginning with our trip to Ireland to participate in the Art in the Open festival held in Wexford on the southeast coast. We were there for 18 days staying with Greg Long in Dublin for the first few days, painting up there, and then going down to the festival in Wexford for the remainder of the time where we were put up in a beautiful 4 star hotel by the festival committee. I did over 40 watercolors and a few pastels on this trip. We met so many great people and truly fine artists. Here is a photo of me set up painting a bar front at the Quick Draw event held in a square called the Bull Ring. My wife Suzie is also in the picture being partially covered by the sign.  I am happy to say that my 16"x12" watercolor won best of show for this event shown here too.

Me and Suzie painting in the Bull Ring at the Quick Draw event in Wexford, Ireland 2011.

Not the best photo, a bit blurry and off color, shot at the show through glass etc. But at least I have a record of the painting to show.

 

After returning to Georgia from Ireland, Suzie took off for a 6 week trip to Malaysia, her home, to see her family. This left me alone for a good bit of time to fend for myself. I lost some weight, badly needed, by eating one or two meals a day instead of 3, and to stay out of trouble, began a series of oils, large and small, of wildlife, done from photos of mine and off the internet. I usually do something to them, such as change the background or pose a bit, so as not to copy the photo too exactly. Obviously, this is not plein air painting, but August/September can be brutal here in Georgia and I did not venture out in that heat at all and opted to stay in the A/C of the house/studio and paint while watching baseball as much as possible. During a 50/60/70% off sale on stretched canvases last year where if you buy more than 10 canvases, it drops to 60% off and 70% if you buy more than 20, I ended up with over 50 canvases after making two trip to buy. (Little did i know that they run this sale every few months)... anyway, I thought I had better get busy and use them before I get too old. Some are 40"x60", the largest size that will fit inside my truck. Here is one of my new "studio oils" too.

I lost count of how many new oils I had completed while she was away, something over 20 though. This photo was shot with my new Nikon CoolPix L120 camera that I bought to improve the image quality for reproduction as prints. If you were to zoom in you can see every stitch of the fabric. Very nice. Exactly what I needed and not too expensive... only $250. at Walmart. You should try out the Print-on-demand program on FineArtAmerica. I sold 4 prints just this week alone! See post on the forum tab about my "Strategy for selling prints of FAA". It really does work and provides a nice supplemental income.

 

Again, it is time now to get back outside and paint the Autumn foliage. The cool crisp air is so invigorating and the colors are wonderful. But really, the key thing here is, STAY BUSY. Don't sit idle for too long waiting for inspiration to hunt you down and whack you in the head. Often we need to force it by reluctantly doing a painting and having the work or experience itself become the inspiration to do more. Before you know it, you have several new paintings to show. Just try to have the mindset that your best work is yet to be done and just maybe this next one will be it.

Now, get back out there and paint.

DM