A View From The Grand View Opus 1

A View From The Grand View Opus 1

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Self-Doubts and Criticism

The spring weather is here at The Grand View Ranch, and with spring’s beauty arriving, there are incredible compositions to paint. Today’s painting is just one of many views that caught my eye at the ranch, and I painted it during a demonstration at the May workshop. With each workshop, I learn more about what art is, and why so many people feel intimidated when they are creating art.

Let us examine the enemy within ourselves that creates our doubts and fears about our ability to be a successful artist. Where does this self-doubt come from, and why do we have it? Most of our self-doubts and criticism originate from experiences that happened in our childhood, and we make it to mean something important about ourselves. For example, if you were five and you drew a horse, and your mom said, “That’s a funny drawing of a dog,” you could have felt that everything you create will be criticized, and could have decided that you will never let that happen to you again. When we listen to the internal story that we created when we were five, we are influenced by the strong opinions formed at that young age about the world and ourselves. Self-doubts are real and powerful and can stifle creativity. It is important to recognize where the story comes from, and go on creating.

If you want to paint great trees in a landscape, here is a secret. Notice the setting sun behind the trees in “View from the Grand View Opus 1,” and how it provides an interesting effect as the light comes through the holes in the tree. If you paint the sky first, and then lay a tree on top of it, the effect will look flat and not real. If you paint the trees first, and then paint the sky and the sky holes in the tree, every sky hole can be a different color and value, because the holes vary in value according to their size and the consequent amount of light they admit through them. The smaller holes are darker or grayer than the larger sky holes which are lighter in value and similar to the sky color and value surrounding the trees.

I want to thank you for all your emails asking when the next blog and painting would be posted. I am inspired and touched by your interest and comments, and am happy to say, that after a busy month of Workshop preparation and website construction, I am eager to resume posting my blog for you.

The Grand View Ranch will have a new web site this week; we will provide updated information about it as the week progresses. I hope that we can build a community of artists that can share information with each other.

If you know of any artists that might appreciate being included, let them know about this blog.
I hope to offer more painting tips as this conversation continues.

If you have questions that you would like me to answer, please don’t hesitate to email me anytime. I welcome your feedback. Stefan_Baumann@yahoo.com