#travel painting

[crosseyedcricketart]

stevenson, alabama.

5” x 8” / oil on paper / april 2023

ko-fi | patreon | website

[mzgillin]

making my way back.

On a rainy January evening at beginning of this year, 2023, I drove downtown after work to meet up with a friend. Our goal: plein air painting. It was the first time I had done that in a long, long time.

I used to do that kind of thing pretty frequently. In years past, I would venture out with a sketchbook, a watercolor palette, and a friend to create some slice-of-life art while catching up over sandwiches or lemonade. I maintained a small collection of fountain pens that saw regular cleanings and refills. I had a library of pocket-size sketchbooks that I decorated with stickers or random adhesive labels. I started a YouTube channel to post timelapse videos of the process. I participated in a few art exhibits and sold some original pieces. And I dreamed taking trips to unfamiliar cities, sketchbooks in hand, to produce a new batch of paintings to sell, gift, or hang on the wall.

I never quite achieved a level of skill and ability that I was satisfied with, but urban sketching and painting gave me an exciting way to experience the world; it gave me a chance to practice being present; it gave me a way to never feel bored while waiting in line.

There's this weird thing that happens in life when you get disconnected from something you love. It doesn't happen all at once. But I started feeling it, here and there. I noticed it when I would page through my sketchbooks and find them unfinished, with the last sketch dated months or years in the past. I noticed it when I picked up my fountain pens and found them all dried out, unable to produce a line. I noticed that my brain preferred the constant dopamine hits of social media rather than the slow, methodical process of making art.

It's sad, isn't it? You make all this progress and gain all this momentum, and then you slowly start losing it until you don't even recognize who you used to be. Maybe it was the plague of 2020 that shut down my travel habit; maybe it was two years of working from home that got me too accustomed to my own space, and less interested in wandering through cities with a bag full of art supplies. Maybe it was moving into a house and needing to focus on renovations and maintenance. Sure, I had a good time exploring some other areas of life during that time. But I felt like I had lost part of myself.

~

A few years ago I read through Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes. It's a haunting and often disturbing tale with no shortage of thought-provoking scenes to dig into, but there's one aspect of the story that was particularly meaningful to me.

When Dream is released from his decades-spanning captivity, he quickly sets out on a quest to retrieve his totems of power. He needs his pouch of sand, his helm, and his ruby, each of which have been scattered across existence and have fallen into the wrong hands. And every time Dream gets one back, he regains some of the strength that he used to possess. He becomes a little more of himself.

Maybe it's silly, but that's kind of how I feel when I refill the fountain pens and clean off the watercolor palette. That's how I feel when I sort through a box that's been cluttering up my space and discover some old art supplies I forgot I owned. And that's how I feel when, despite all the frustration in the process of "knocking the rust off," I find my way back into plein air painting and get one that I'm really happy with. It feels like I'm getting a part of myself back.

(I may not teleport between planes of existence or do battle with mind-controlling weirdos, but, you know. Let's not take the metaphor too far.)

I didn't end up particularly happy with my painting of the Goshen Theater. I found myself struggling with the same artistic challenges that I had struggled with in years past, when I was last doing this regularly--lines that aren't clear enough, watercolor mixes that aren't strong enough, the lurking worry that I don't really know what I'm doing. But I was back out there. I was back on the street with a sketchbook in my hand, catching up with my friend as she worked on an acrylic painting of the same scene, chatting it up with pedestrians who wanted to take a look at the art in progress.

And as such, I think I reconnected with a part of myself that had been asleep for a while.

I hope to continue. I hope to keep painting this spring and summer as I work my way back into the habit. I hope to apply for a couple of art shows this year, and I hope to have created enough paintings throughout the summer that I actually have some pieces to show. And I hope to keep writing about my paintings here, as a way to think through the process of what I'm doing and learn something about myself on the way.

Thanks for reading. I'm new here, but it's good to be back.

M.Z. Gillin

[artmill-danaan]

Morocco

[christianfrederiksen]

Titanic Potential. Oil and acrylic on linen. 80 x 100 cm. The icy peaks of the Greater Caucasus looming over a river notorious for flash floods. For now the Kish River is just a trickle, allowing cows to wander through the gully, and an artist to take advantage of the view. The mountains are patterned like the geometric mirrors found in the Palace of Sheki Khans, in order to relate the power of the mountains (which can wash away the town) to the power of the Khan (who can sever the hands of the artist who decorated his palace). This artist reminds me of Tural (@moyufov), who struggled to become an artist against the opinions of family and society, and of the Titan Prometheus, who was exiled in these mountains. The cows walking between the artist and the mountain refer to Tural’s grandmother, who supported his dreams by selling milk and cheese. Most of my pieces are for sale! Email me to arrange a purchase or commission: christianf.illustration@gmail.com

[annehayward]

Puerto Ángel

Oil on Cavas

5 x 7 inch. 2022

[travelswithmyart]

Jemaa El Fna in Marrakesh

Jemaa El Fna in Marrakesh

[lilblueorchid]

Some paintings with nice memories affiliated to them on twitter. Since twitter's fate is unknown rn, i just wanted to say I had a really fun journey there. I'm truly thanksful for all the love I got there from many strangers who took a few sec out of their days to stop and look at my silly art haha. It greatly helped me like my art and myself, since honestly, both are linked. I also met so many people and made so many friends. I tried to find as much people back here as I could. Anyway. May we meet again guys. Thanks for the ride on twitter. ❤

[389]

The Erlkönig Hanno Karlhuber, 1993

German, b.1946- Oil , 70 x 100 cm.

[freshdreamlandwonderlandsworld]

[magpie-trinkets]

continuing that "maya tries to contact claire" post, i present you the post-Spirit of Justice follow-up

[emirkocturk]

Gidelim buradan koş enis koş. kaçıp gidelim bu çağdan zira bu toprak seni de beni de bağrımızdan yutar..

[honeycocoanut]

@ bbycai

[vintagecamping]

Art students painting hoodoos.

Banff National Park, Alberta

1957

[piuriem]

[namocchi]

My first portfolio pieces ;u; practicing time of day!

[marlowe-art]

hey um i think something weird's happening to the sun? no i don't mean the eclipse, i mean it seems to be uh. pluralizing?

sometimes i like to draw things based solely on the "hey wouldn't it be fucked up if this happened?" principle. this is one of those times.