"When dawn spreads its paintbrush on the plain, spilling purple... ," Sons of the Pioneers theme for TV show "Wagon Train." Dawn on the mythic Santa Fe Trail, New Mexico, looking toward Raton from Cimarron. -- Clarkphoto. A curmudgeon artist's musings melding metaphors and journalism, for readers in more than 150 countries.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Why I paint

Art...I've been around it all my life, and it seems I've only recently began painting. Glancing back through old black and white photos makes me realize that's not so. 
I remember getting in trouble in grade school in New Mexico for drawing in class rather than paying attention. But it's only natural, growing up in the home of my Dad Terrence Miller Clark, who was an uncanny portrait artist from Oklahoma who could draw anyone and anything, and a landscape painter. His work hung all over our house when we grew up, and my brother and I still have much of it hanging on our walls or in storage.
I still have his old metal paintbox, with some aged oil paints, out in the garage and Susan has been urging me to try oils rather than just watercolors. I suppose that is in the near future. I do so love the smell of oil paint.
But I know I chose watercolors a few years ago because the opportunity arose to take lessons, I needed therapy, and I wasn't in "competition" with my Dad's work.
Still, I'm sorry it took me so long to "come back" to art...getting away from the type-A career-oriented workaholic I was. 
I found this 3" by 4" photo, dated 1947, of me with watercolors at age three and four in Fort Worth, Texas, , painting. And then here's Susan's 4.5" by 6.5" sketch of that. They both hang on the wall in front of me when I paint. 
I guess that's why I paint.


1 comment:

  1. Try acrylics, they dry quicker than oils but don't smell and are easy to use.
    Merle...................

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