Blog 3:18:18 Copyright 2018 David Limrite Artist Teacher Coach Mentor Bringing Life.jpg

A new approach which went through several stages which I will discuss below. This piece was mostly collage and paint, which was not working at all. I managed to breathe some life back into them with a new attitude, more energy and passion, and some subtle, but beautiful line work. 16”x 12”, mixed media on wood. © 2018 David Limrite

“Do search. But in order to find other than what is searched for.”
Richard Diebenkorn, Artist

Breathing Life

As I continue to create and head in the direction that I think I want my work to go, I learn more and more about art making and, more importantly, I am learning more about myself. Amazing how that works, yes?

I am currently working on a small series of four 16”x 12” pieces. (See photo above). After focusing on painting for the last several pieces, I brought collage back into this work in the hopes that it would push me further down the road towards being able to create more abstract figurative work.

I enjoy working with collage and particularly enjoy sandwiching pieces of torn paper in between layers of drawing and painting. However, after working this way for awhile, I began to notice that the images were just sitting there. Doing nothing. Saying nothing. I felt as if I was moving further away from what I wanted, rather than towards my desired outcome. The work felt stiff and was definitely missing something.

In my desire to breathe life back into these pieces, I realized that I had the opportunity (and obligation) to breathe some life back into me as well. It was my attitude and approach that was wrong. It was not the fault of the collage and the paint.

I was creating a more abstract figure; however, I realized that what was missing in these pieces was my emotion and passion. So, obviously that was not showing up in the work. Lifeless approach, lifeless art.

I further realized that, while abstracting the figure has become more important to me, it is actually emotion that is my true subject matter -- which means that the emotion and passion has to come from me.

I found myself wondering how great it would be if I could create paintings that had the same passion and emotion that music seems to be able to express so beautifully and passionately. Now, that would be something to be able to achieve in my art, wouldn’t it?

Allowing myself to be a bit more out of control while I paint (which I wrote about last week) has been a good start towards achieving this goal. Now, I need to work on creating with more emotion and passion, and injecting that into my work.

This is gonna get good.

Best,

David

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Explore contemporary figure drawing, painting and mixed media using graphite, charcoal, pastel, acrylic, and collage. Experiment with different approaches for developing the human form such as realism, expressionism and abstraction. Emphasis is placed on observation, structure, line quality, volume, composition, technique, experimentation, and originality. Discussions, art historical examples, and demonstration are all a part of the curriculum.

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