art lessons

Art is life. Life is art. Faith is artistic.

~

Remember the negative space; my highschool art teacher taught me that. He is one of the few high school teachers whose wisdom has stuck with me through the years. I can still picture him, though I don't remember his name.

The negative space is important; it's that space around the subject of your art piece. In my case, it's the space between the subject and the edges of the canvas, and I think about it in every piece I do.

Like in this one:

I really wanted to give the impression of laying down, so I put the body on the bottom, and placed the drips so they would draw the eye further down, leaving all that space above for dreams.




(Ignore the watermark, by the way. It's not on the painting.)



Negative space - space that is unfilled, but important in its emptiness.

In my life, I need more negative space. I need more unfilled space, because it's important. I need to schedule unscheduled time, time in which I can just... be. We remember, as parents, that children need unstructured play time as part of their developmental requirements, but we forget that adults, too, need to just relax sometimes. It's good for our mental health. I don't do it enough.

Today I was thinking about all the gods and goddesses I've researched, over the years. I set out, as a teenager, looking for one or two (or however many, really) deities who I thought I could really get to know. I didn't wait: I didn't leave any negative space. It wasn't until I stopped looking - overwhelmed by mundane life and unmotivated to continue my spiritual questing - that deities began showing up in my life.

Go figure.

I've always remembered my art teacher's advice when I wanted to create art. Now, I try to remember it in my daily life.

~

I'm gonna go ahead and count this as my "A" post for the Pagan Blog Project.

Since I got a late start 'n all.

And if you're interested, check out my other paintings. Link is on the right side of this page, just down a bit. "Art by Eala." Go ahead, I'm assuming you're curious. Plus I'm doing a giveaway this month.

Who doesn't love free paintings?!

Why yes, yes that was, in fact, a shameless plug. Thanks for noticing!