I drove up to Brisbane this morning from the coast to do a couple of things. One of them was to go to Eckersley’s Art Store to buy some art supplies… you know… paper paint charcoal etc. Can’t seem to go away for long without my art supplies. And if I find myself away from them for too long… I simply have to smoke out an art supply store and get my fix along the way!
I’m writing this from a little place called the Room With Roses. It’s a beautiful room in the middle of the city. A haven from the madness out in the street… and a quiet place to put down some thoughts.
[water not wine... remember it's lunchtime! grin]
I was just sitting here sipping my jasmine green tea and enjoying a yummy piece of passionfruit strawberry cream sponge cake and got to thinking about cake and life… and this is what I came up with.
PS I know… give me a piece of cake and I go and get all philosophical. Can’t help myself [chuckles]
PPS And yes… I know… it’s lunchtime… but hey… life is short… we eat cake first!
LIFE IS A PIECE OF CAKE
If life would be a piece of cake
with heart and soul and such to bake
the choice would be a simple one
We’d make it light and full of fun!
Strawberries cream and fruit of passion
pinkie poised… the height of fashion
we’d lift our teacup to our lips
and savour life in giant sips
If life would be a slice of pie
with pastry crisp and never dry
we’d slice it into giant bits
and let it go right to our hips!
Cherry pear or chocolate flute tin
No matter what the pie is baked in
We’d scratch our head in times to come
And wonder why we’d chosen… plum?
Just think…
If life would be a pie or cake
Oh what fun to negotiate
Imagine life upon a platter
Nothing else would really matter
So bake your cake and please don’t wait
there is no time to hesitate
then grab yourself a large cake knife
and enjoy right now your slice of life!
I fell in love with Sweet Addiction the first time I heard it.
It was a couple of days before Christmas… andLa Belle Femme was in the early stages of conception. I had received a commission for a large nude painting in landscape format. So not being someone who does things by halves… I decided instead to paint three! [I know... I know]
As I was sketching out ideas… and deciding on how I would approach the series… this piece of music dropped into my email inbox via Facebook.I had it playing in the background on my laptop… and listened to it over and over again. I never tired of it. Before long I was completely beguiled by the sound. It was indeed a “Sweet Addiction” [grin]
The making of the Music…
Sweet Addiction was created by Daniel Marolla… a young man who is definitely going places! He created and recorded this piece of music one afternoon in mid December using [keyboard drums and base guitar] an Mbox and Garageband… then shot his video for You Tube from the built-in camera on his laptop and edited it in Final Cut Studio. If all that sounds like double dutch… well… don’t worry. Just listen to the music… it will speak for itself!
The making of the Art…
The first in this series was initially a commission. The paintings were relatively large for watercolour at 76cm x 38cm – [that's 30" x 15"] with the figures approx. 1/2 life size. It was so much fun working wet into wet in the initial stages… just allowing the paint to flow and directing it where I wanted it to go.
It’s fast… it’s fluid… it’s free and wow… you just gotta love working in watercolour!
Willow charcoal of course… adds another dimension. It’s a style I have been working on for a couple of years now especially in figure and life work.
The pics were taken on my humble little Panasonic Lumix and assembled as a slideshow in iPhoto. I purposely kept the photos edgy and a bit blurred by movement with [perhaps] some “debatable” degree of success!
And of course… iPhoto is no precise science but that’s about the extent of my techie expertise at this time. I am however willing to learn. Note to self: Get Final Cut Pro… there has GOT to be a better way! [Grin]
By the time the three paintings were done… the music had weaved it’s incredible magic into them all.
Consequently… what you hear and see here is the end product of an [unintended] creative collaboration between paint and music. It was entirely unintentional of course.
Daniel could not have known that his music would so happily “belong”to these paintings that afternoon in December when he brought this music to life! He was afterall on his own creative tangent … and the paintings did not [as yet] exist! But somehow… still… the paintings and the music seemed strangely made for each other!
Enjoy the clip! Let me know what you think… leave a comment here!
Click here to see “Turning over a New Leaf 1 – Jan 08″
Another year has come and gone… and for me… the one just past enjoys an especial significance. In many ways it was the year of learning lessons the hard way. And those lessons continued right up until [and beyond] the stroke of midnight on New Year Eve.
The last lesson of the year was a hard but necessary one. I won’t go into detail… but I can now honestly say I have emerged into the new year with newfound wisdom and understanding… and a deeply profound respect for myself. Nothing is ever for nothing as they say.
For me there is now no looking back… except to acknowledge the life journey that has brought me to here and has made me [so far] who I am… and to express my deep appreciation for the people who have walked the path with me and encouraged throughout… especially over the past few months as I have struggled to gain equilibrium in all things. They have helped to weave the rich blanket of love joy wisdom and optimism that now surrounds and fortifies me… and I shall be ever grateful to them for that. I am so very blessed.
I found this version of Auld Lang Syne and instantly loved it. It brought back so many enchanted memories of my strong Celtic upbringing under the influence of my Mother’s large extended family. My grandfather… a lovingly belligerent Scotsman [who danced the highland fling, poured whisky and butter into his bagpipes to prime the bag and who year after year swallowed the threepences my Grandmother lovingly mixed into the Christmas pudding] would regale the family with copious long winded recitations of Robbie Burns.
My Grandmother for her part had just enough of the Irish in her to make her a truly unique remarkable and entirely lovable human being. She had a saying for everything.
One of her particular favourites… brought out when our friends may have let us down… was
“May your real friends have champagne and your sham friends have real pain”
although just secretly between you and me… I doubt she would have been capable of inflicting pain on anyone… save for the pain of too many helpings of her homemade strawberry icecream… or too many servings of mulberry pie… the berries for which my uncle would be dispatched to scale the backyard tree.
One day my Grandfather…noticing the ruckus high up in the tree… came out firing his 22 into the branches expecting a snake to drop out. Alas…my Uncle… who survived the assault shaken but unscathed… did not entirely escape the wrath of my Grandfather for hurling expletives from the tree followed by “It’s ME you silly old buggar… it’s ME!”
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE … let’s make it a great one!
Join me on You Tube (see below for the link) but read this first!
Well it’s been a crazy week of revolving doors for me as new doors swing open and old doors slam shut . Generally speaking though that’s great news… and a sign that things in my Universe are starting to shake out!
You know… it’s kind of fun to stand back and watch from a distance all the action happening in your own life. Letting go of outcomes and allowing things to just be can be a bit scary at times… but it’s fun nonetheless. And I could get used to it. [Grin]
The global economic climate (not to be confused with climate change per se- grin) has given everyone quite a bit to think about. But for creative artists of all persuasions (be they painters potters or musicians) the struggle to do well at what we do well… has always been pretty difficult. And historically nothing has changed.
Vincent Van Gogh was creatively and financially supported throughout his entire career by his brother Theo. He never sold a painting. We may well laugh now at how wealthy he might have been in his own lifetime. But he wasn’t. He was a man ahead of his time. But no-one really got that. Not even his fellow artists. Especially not his fellow artists. Consequently without the creative endorsement he craved… he was condemned to continually question his own worth as an artist.
Sound familiar?
The upshot of course was that Vincent finally sliced off an ear and died in a garret with two bullet holes in his stomach partly because he couldn’t handle it anymore. He gave up. And it’s easy to give up on a world that doesn’t know that stars are blobs of swirling bright light circling the evening sky… [grin]
Creative spirits live in a world of their own. There is no clear direction forward for us… not to mention… very little endorsement or feedback for what we’ve already done.
Yes… we know what we want. But what the rest of the world wants is an entirely different matter. Complicate that further by saying that much of the rest of the world doesn’t actually know what they want… orwhat they like [without being told]… and we have one very perplexing problem!
In the end… fame and fortune pretty much comes down to the “hype” around the product… and not necessarily the product itself. The people who eventually gain recognition… are not necessarily those with the most talent… but those who are best able to bring their product to the marketplace via the best most expedient method.
But this is all terribly left brain stuff. And most artists (well the creative ones anyway) are incredibly right brain orientated. That’s what makes them… surprise surprise… so darned creative!
For my part… well… I don’t want to be famous but I do want to get my stuff out there. So that means I have to spend at least some of my time in the left brained world. It’s a funny nuts and bolts place to be… but it can be a whole lot of fun as well.
Check out my new You Tube clip here.
It was a challenge to put this together and the best fun you can ever have all by yourself in iPhoto and on YouTube. Would also like to thank Paul Simon [the voice and lyrics of my childhood] for the use of Punkey’s Dilemma… the cornflake song… what a great little song it still is!
For my part… I just want to paint and write… live… laugh and love. Whatever comes after [in/around and between] all that… who knows and who even cares? It’s my life. And I’m only going to get one chance at it. I make mistakes like everyone else. And have suffered probably more than my fair share of sadness. But I am also blessed in so many ways.
And the great thing is I am finally beginning to realise that absolutely nothing is ever set in stone. Doors open and close all the time with intermittent regularity. And all that’s required of us is a willingness to step through the next open door to see what’s on the other side. It’s as easy as that! *wink*
The real prizes in life go to whoever opens the most doors… and investigates as fully as possible their own individual potential. There are no guarantees we will survive this life… in fact… it’s a pretty sure thing that we’re not going to make it out alive!
So heck… while we’re here we may as well give it our best shot. With or without any thanks… or claps… and regardless of the heckles… [or the people who would persist in placing obstacles in our way]
Doing our creative thing… whatever that may be… is our gift to the world as much as ourselves. And you never know… maybe someday… someone… somewhere…. might just get it and go WOW!
If not… well… we had a whole heck of a lot of fun doing whatever it was we got to do!
Didn’t we?
Would love to hear your comments about YOUR creative life and experience. Drop me a line here!
Oh… and before I forget… the 2010 Universal Artist Calendar is now available for immediate shipping over at RED BUBBLE [in case you didn't get that already LOL] Okay… that’s enough shameless self promotion for me… back to painting… writing… more dreaming *sigh* :-)
[water not wine... remember it's lunchtime! grin]
Artwork & Images © 2010 Jean Burman
Artwork & Images © 2010 Jean Burman
Cartoon Pen & Watercolour 
Join me on You Tube (see below for the link) but read this first!
Cartoon Pen & Watercolour
Cartoon Pen & Watercolour 
