M.E. BAILEY ART: Exploiting The Rare

Wecome to M.E. BAILEY ART . . . .

Here you will find adventures in painting. . . . Victories, absolute defeats, frustrations, highs, lows, lessons learned, commentary and thoughts from me and other artists.

As an art instructor, I don't wish to hide the fact that I crash and burn often. I will always be learning. So, it all gets shown here . . .good and bad. Every painting we do counts in the learning and experience process. The failures actually are much better teachers than successes. Every piece made is a teacher. That's the fun of it: the challenge to learn.

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Monday, June 29, 2009

Exploiting The Rare

"Violet and Mustard"

oil on canvas panel, 8 x 10 inches

It is a rare thing when nature gives up something so extraordinary that a painter feels he must return over and over and over. That is precisely what has happened over the last two weeks.
The blooming vetch full of violet flowers is under painted with yellow mustard flowers and bright yellow orange poppies. Yellow and Violet? How perfect is thaaaaat?!!

When nature hands us lemons, we make lemonade. When it hands us roses over and over again, we keep making bouquets . . . .and never for a moment taking it for granted.

So, it has been bouquet after bouquet as I trek to the meadow expecting to see the flowers burned out and gone and being surprised each time to find even more color! Normally, at this time of year, such a meadow has turned golden and dried out. I don't know why it isn't happening this year, but it is a rare occurrence. I may never get the chance to see it again. So, I MUST paint it!

I have done ten paintings of this site and may yet do more. Am hoping to produce one of large scale . . .30 x 40 . . . .to truly exploit this rare event.