#2934 "Sunflower Bouquet for a Winter Day"

 

#2934 "Sunflower Bouquet for a Winter Day" 
18 X 14 oils on smooth panel.
Started 11:00 am Friday, March 7th, 2025

#2933 "Sunflowers Endure" was very wet with thick oils. I had to set it aside and start another project. Another masking tape "bar code" was added to the support bar of the studio easel. That explains the 2934 tag added to the right in the following photo.

I selected another photo of Singleton sunflower photos from the afternoon of Friday, September 25th, 2020 and kept going. The smooth mahogany panel was cradled on a frame made by my Dad. The painting surface has virtually no tooth to grab the oils. This strongly encourages one to place the right colour in the right place and then leave it alone. That is exactly the approach required to loosen up my brushwork after the detail of the bird portraits. 

Further to the question: Why paint at all? Another answer that I typically provide is to learn and get better. The saying may go that "practice makes perfect" but I have already addressed the fallacy of "perfection" in the story behind #2933 "Sunflowers Endure". Practise enables one to improve on their skills! I think it is unreasonable to expect to execute a painting worth half a billion dollars after doing fewer than twenty works. Certainly, Leonardo da Vinci was special and I do not claim to be. 

Herbert Simon and William Chase in a study of expertise that was published in a 1959 American Scientist essay wrote: "There are no instant experts in chess—certainly no instant masters or grandmasters. There appears not to be on record any case (including Bobby Fischer) where a person reached grandmaster level with less than about a decade's intense preoccupation with the game. We would estimate, very roughly, that a master has spent perhaps 10,000 to 50,000 hours staring at chess positions." 

Malcolm Gladwell followed with "Outliers: The Story of Success" published by Little, Brown and Company on November 18, 2008. He wrote that "success is impossible without the opportunity to become successful no matter how hard you work." Furthermore, Gladwell writes that "people who get opportunities early in life have a huge advantage over those whose opportunities come later in life." The theme of "Outliers" is that "the amount of practice necessary for exceptional performance is so extensive that people who end up on top need help. They invariably have access to lucky breaks or privileges or conditions that make all those years of practice possible." 

Being "on top" of your craft might sound wonderful but are you happy? Gladwell suggests that not only Olympian talent and unimaginable hard effort are required to get there but also lots of luck and help from others. The odds are very much against an artist being able to make a living from their art during their lifetime. 

To achieve the 10,000 hours of intense artistic practice would require more than five years of 40-hour weeks. Simultaneously, the artist must expend large amounts of disposal income (from where?) on high-quality painting surfaces, mediums and brushes. Also consider the cost of frames, entry fees, hanging fees, gallery commissions and travel expenses. The cards are very much stacked against the independent artist. A healthy amount of good luck and a wealthy patron as suggested by Gladwell would be essential. 

This explains why I was a nuclear physicist turned meteorologist for more than 35 years. One never really retires from the weather, as I am constantly immersed in my own natural laboratory. During my meteorological career, I merged art and science, analyzing and diagnosing patterns in remote sensing data that revealed the dynamic features controlling the weather. I published a great deal of that research through COMET in Boulder, Colorado. Now in official retirement, I merge science into my art and just keep going. 

Each painting is another step on my artistic journey. I am currently taking step number 2934. Each stride has been an opportunity to learn something and hopefully get better. My journey started in 1966 so in 2025, I have been adding to my hours to reach the "grandmaster level" for 59 years, more or less. For sure, there were years when I was unable to create as much as I would have liked. Even if a nominal five hours is allotted for each painting, that tally is 15,000 hours - bingo. I have spent many months on just a single painting while some plein air works are done in 15 minutes... 

There are a few messages that emerged during that lifetime of creativity. Here are the ones that I feel are the most important out of hundreds of possibilities: 

• Art is work. 
• Be bold.
• Paint en Plein air and surround yourself with nature.
• Squint your eyes and get rid of the detail to see the essence of your inspiration.
• Do not empower anyone to judge what is good or bad in your art. Doing so permits someone else to steer your path of discovery and experimentation. 
• Never apologize for your art. 
• Learning is trial and error and full of mistakes. Anything that does not work out in your eyes is simply a positive guidepost to mark your journey. Fear of making a mistake discourages adventure and experimentation and personal growth. In truth, there are no mistakes but only learning opportunities. 
• Your artistic trip is yours alone. Embrace it. You can't go anywhere new by following someone else. While teaching, I focused on materials and approaches to art and emphasized self-expression. I discouraged copying styles as those belong to that individual. Be yourself because everyone else is already taken. 
• Have fun. 
• Be humble, helpful and kind. 
• Never dicker about price… Art and life are about respect. 
• Finally, life, like art is not a competition. We are all recycled. Be happy for the success of others as well as any you might enjoy… but be happy.

I may add to this list but at the moment, these are the ones that mean the most to me. These axioms comprise the real messages of life that I was trying to get across while I taught art...

I was using up to three separate palettes in an effort to keep my colours clean.

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint 2024 Collection. Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2025. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick