Start with Sky (Notes from Estonia)

A few weeks ago I was walking the cobbled streets of Talinn, Estonia and talking about art with Valerie.  She and I had just met -- I had booked her experience for a local guide for the city and a photography shoot.  The idea of being the subject of a photo shoot made me nervous and it was calming to talk about art together.  She looked to be somewhere in her twenties. and had gone to art school but was working a day job while doing the photo shoots in the evening.  I told her something of my story, a more circuitous path to being an artist.  I said that there was some advantage to coming back to art in my forties, knowing myself better and being less concerned with the opinions of others.  I also said that it was still hard, that I was often tempted to live in a state of comparison, where I was looking more towards what other artists were doing rather than being in my own process and practice of creation. 

Herbert Lukk -- View over Talinn, Towards the Harbor (1918)

As the sun slowly dipped in the sky (it was getting close to 8pm and the sun would burn brightly until almost 11pm every night) she would photograph me for a few minutes and then we talked more.  She also did acrylic or oil painting and had a lot of questions around watercolors. Just last week, at a friend's house, I heard the same sentiment that watercolors were harder than other medium for painting.  I have always gravitated towards that medium and have enjoyed the simplicity of the form -- the spareness of the paint and the need to be decisive with your brush.  It can also be something easily discarded, the materials are rather inexpensive.  Repetition or series can get you closer to what you want to create -- each version becoming more sure and clean in the brushwork.  The watercolor pigment changes as it dries and that gives the art its own breath, that it will continue to set as you put it aside and reveal itself to you later. 

Travel sketchbook with a visual memory of Finland

I gushed a bit over my love affair with watercolors and why they call to me to Valerie.  I told her that for my landscapes, the first thing I do when sitting to paint is just start with the sky.  It is an easy way to enter into the work, to let it take you where it is asking to go.  The sky could be bright and cerulean or stormy and violet.  The sun could be sitting high, as it was in the Talinn summer, or sinking into the ocean and creating a fantasy of evening color.  Once you see the sky, it can help you know where your landscape will be and then it just starts to take shape. 

It was a lovely experience to spend a little time with another artist, in a city rich with art and creative inspiration.  I enjoyed the way she captured me in that moment and I hope our conversation was as meaningful to her as it was to me.  What I wanted her to know the most is that art will be there for you and that you have time to create.  So much time.