OK Sunset

A good friend of mine regularly sends me absolutely gorgeous sunrise photos he takes from his lake house deck in the great state of Oklahoma.  Beautiful images of beautiful moments frozen in time via the wonder that is an iPhone.

Even with a beautiful reference, I admittedly did not want to shoot for photo realism or a literal approximation of the photograph.  It was more enjoyable to capture its essence and make it my own moment frozen in time via the wonder that is abstract painting.  I have to confess the reference photograph is more beautiful than my interpretation of it, but I learned a great deal more about how to use tools like a paint scraper instead of traditional paint brushes to quickly apply large amounts of paint to the canvas in what you might call an impressionistic manner.  

There is so much to learn about painting, but also about seeing.  As Henry David Thoreau noted:  "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."  It is what you take into yourself and interpret for yourself that really separates us from the animal kingdom.