Why Am I An Artist? 2

When my mother died it was for me, as they say, a game changer.  I don't like that word by the way, game-changer, and almost never use it.  I just find it trite and useless and way overused but for this post on my dear little blog we shall turn a blind eye, shall we, Gentle Reader?  Grief is in itself one of the most intense processes of the human universe.  And can also be one of the most creative processes.  As I was emerging from my mourning coma I began to draw.  It isn't that I had quit drawing while she was dying.  I actually was executing some passable bird drawings in coloured felt pen ink and some I gave away as gifts.  Some samples of my choices of birds:

 

 

etc.

I knew that I could do better and that I needed to do better. 

When my mother died I returned to art therapy, doing abstract doodles as a way of working out grief and loss and discerning my internal processes.  Eventually they morphed into beautifully rendered abstract drawings.

Then one day a local artist told me to get serious about painting.  I bought some acrylic paints and some small canvas boards and got to work.  My first works were very modest in scale and in quality.  They were for the most part abstract experiments for getting me time to get used to working with colour and gain some experience in composition.  I really didn't paint anything noteworthy for the first year.  I graduated to canvas during this time and went from abstract to tropical birds alternated with colourful motifs of the Jerusalem Cross and other motifs based on the iris of the human eye.  Some were interesting, even well done, but still no cigar.

I would have to say that towards the end of that first year I painted a composition on a four by three foot canvas of nine hyacinth macaws

  This is an image of a similar painting rendered some eight years later by me.  Still available and even though it has been shown often it amazes me that still no one has had the good sense to buy it.

The original hyacinth painting was snatched up by an architect, courtesy of my new agent, who commissioned three more similar paintings for a hotel he had designed:

 

Crimson shining parrots

red-capped parrot.

The proceeds of this dandy sale and commission paid for my first vacation to Costa Rica which became for me a life altering experience.

Sweet!
masked shining parrot