Picture books are perfect for someone like me who is so visually oriented. Until I did an informal study of those artists around me, I thought I was the only painter whose reading comprehension was stunted by books without pictures. When it comes to art books or periodicals, I spend all my time looking at the paintings instead of reading about what the art critic thinks. I think it is far more interesting studying how a brush stroke was made or how a color relates, than where an artist was schooled or what his or her philosophies are. Some of us like the nuts and bolts of our craft, I guess.
Recently though, I caught myself reading an article featuring an artist that simply painted trees in groupings. Composition-wise, they were not so different from my paintings. I was struck by the focus and the simplicity in those paintings, and I saw expressed in words what I had always thought to be true. Paraphrasing -take a moment at this one place, not one of spectacular beauty, but common beauty. A place we look at but rarely see. Light and color expressed in everyday terms.
