Last night I had one of those moments. The kind where you feel totally lost, not really knowing even if you really know how or why you should paint. Like, what's the point. Been here, done that. Its in my head, so why do I have to actually put it on canvas. I know I can. It would just be wasting paint. Why not just savor the fact that I can if I want, but I'm not going to paint. I rebelled and tried to resist against having to actually say anything on canvas. "I'm an artist, I can do what I want" , I said.. .. but wait, ... maybe I'm chickening out here. Maybe I'm afraid I forgot how to be spontaneous. Maybe, because I don't have any tangible subject matter to rely on, I am trying to worm out of something I may fail at doing.  
  About that time, I got really pissed at myself for thinking like an amateur first year student. Then I realized, its doesn't mean anything. Paint, don't paint. I can if I want, or not. There is no bad art, there is just art that didn't happen because you didn't want it to. 
So, with that thought in my head, .. I decided to start the process. With the first brushstroke it broke the doubt. I felt absolute certainty that I would paint despite my resistant mood. It was as if,  the more I painted, the more that voice saying I cannot, got weaker and weaker, and faded into my artistic furor that now dominated my everything of the moment. It was total rejection of that idiot voice of doubt. 
 Now that I look back at it, I realize my getting pissed, is what pushed me on. I rebelled against uncertainty and I parted company with it. Wether the work I did is good, bad, or ugly, I could care less. It was the fact that I did it despite my mood. Mood does not dictate when I paint. I do. 
Anyway, .. here's the piece. 

There's a place I go sometimes to sit, doodle, drink coffee. Its called "Juice n' Java". I just happen to doodle my way into a pen and ink sketch one day of the table in front of me. When I got back to my place where I paint, (formerly known as a studio) I transferred it onto canvas. I followed up on this theme, by painting various coffee shops around the county. The exhibit of the originals spanned the area as they showed from town to town, coffee house to coffee house. Some of the paintings are long gone now, but I do have prints of these to remember them by. And, I still go to that same place to doodle and have my coffee. And, now as I sit in this cafe having my cup of joe, I can look up on the wall, and see this very image framed on the wall, just above where I sit. How cool is that? 

The Coffee House
8x10 Signed print from original painting
available at:   russpotak.etsy.com

A place I might have been, a remembered walk along an early winter road, or an impression that lasted long enough for me to paint it. All of the above probably played a part in this painting. 
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Its not about the representation, its about interpretation. 
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To say something with a way in which it hasn't been said. To reveal. Art should tell us something that isn't obvious. It uncovers nuances and lets us peer under the veneer of life. 
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Not all paintings speak to people equally. Some hear nothing, some more, and some a lot. 
That is the way of art. 

Early Winter on a Rural Road
5x7"
acrylic on canvas

see my work at: russpotak.etsy.com

So not having any idea of what I'm going to paint, I just take this paper, cut it to a size, and affix it to a board on my easel. 
  Then I get out some colors, mostly some primaries and started to put down some red, then blue, in a random fashion. I began to see a form, abstract in shape, but nevertheless a diverse form. So I went with that. I got to a point where it congealed to an interesting subject. Once I saw that it was of interest to me,
I left it alone to live. 

Paintings don't need finish, they need to take root in their own way. Once the work begins to live, its a fragile thing.  I hate it when I persist in getting in the last word on an already evolved piece.  Restraint from dabbling is necessary at this point, unless the intent is to dabble. 
Anyway, I called it,          
 "Configurations"
 8x8 inches
 acrylic on paper

Winter on Cheshire Lake
8x10
acrylic on canvas panel
$100
russpotak.etsy.com

Living near a lake in the Berkshires, has it stellar moments. Like when the ice fisherman are out on the lake as well as some ice skaters too. The low sun in the afternoon creates some beautiful patterns on the snow and ice. The mountains deepen in shadows and the sky turns a salmon pink and orange. This is my interpretation of that moment of the day as I was there sipping on my coffee.

Stretched this canvas by hand, and wasn't sure what I was going to do on it. It was last winter, and I was intrigued by the open barren fields just getting their first snow covering of the year. I kind of liked the way a lot of earth colors still peeked out and the bare bones look of the landscape. I did a quick sketch, then headed back to the warmth of the studio to work on this piece where a hot coffee was waiting.  I particularly like the way the colors play out on this painting. Some ochres, pastel blues and pinks, all in a low key palette. Like winter itself. Saying it with less. 

Winter Landscape

                                                                             16 x 20" acrylic on stretched canvas

                                                                              available through: russpotak.etsy.com

I wake up, make coffee, and rummage through my sketch book, or head out to get new sketches. It's certainly not rocket science, nor is it a major preparation process. I just see life and respond to it, in the form of a painting, in whatever way I have to. Impressionist, expressionist, abstract, etc. I don't spend a lot of time planning. I save that for grocery lists. So, I'll see something, or feel something from what I saw or experienced, and just start laying in some lines with paint or just painting randomly trying to formulate my vision. When I get to a certain point, where I feel its said, .. I stop. I am not one of those people who stop after every little facet is completed and accounted for. I don't want that. I want unfinished elements in my work. Its those areas that add mystery, exploration and life to the work. Why should I tell it all? What I leave out is just as important as what I put in. 

So, in this piece, I had gone down to the lake and did a quick pencil sketch... very loose, as to what I felt I wanted to remember in the subject. Then went back to the studio, and just started painting. A line here, a bunch of color there. All semi defined. Thats enough for me. 

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note:  This is just one way I approach my work. Sometimes, I have no idea what I'm going to do. I just start messing around with the canvas to see what develops. Some blue here, a line, yellow, a shape.. and so it begins.