Winter, best time to get a coco and paint to great music!

I have tried for years to figure out when I am most creative. Turns out winter has to be it. The cold weather, the hot beverages, and music just bring this nostalgia part of my college days out. Looking out the massive windows in the studio, into what seemed an almost forest in the middle of the city. Westmount is still a beautiful old historical you could say wealthy area of Montreal, and it's where I went to College. Fall was equally beautiful there. And I also, think fall is a great time to reassess and plan new projects. I am a winter baby, maybe that has something to do with it, or that I am living in a big city, (Montreal, Quebec), and so my love for winter is welcomed in order for me to have this time to cocoon and process new ideas or old ones. With the exception of shovelling in a blizzard, it's beautiful to look at, Christmas would not be the same without the snow, and countless of other things would not be possible if we did not have this time of year. Besides, the air gets filtered and cleaned, and it's a time where I circulate the air inside to clear it out naturally. Works like a charm in a studio.

Today is a perfect example of this. It's minus 21 Celcius, the sun is out and the sky is crisp blue. I get very energetic on days like these, and the creativity just flows effortlessly. If it was not for the vast amounts of organzing I had to do today, I would solely focus on starting my new painting. I bought this contraption last fall to motivate me. I never had one all my life. It's a portable eisle. I got it from an estate sale at a good price and it's barely been used. It fits lots of tools and paints in the drawer, and has brass stoppers to adjust to any painting size no bigger than 24-28" if I am not mistaken. Once you finish a painting, you can actually carry it still wet without issues.
It's perfect to grab and go. Currently, I have this setup in the studio for me to paint my little paintings on. Why not? It's more practical than the larger eisle. Besides, like anything new to me, I have to get comfortable with it. I plan to do this shortly. I will post pictures of the paintings to come. I also encourage every artist to get one of these portable eisles not just for landscape or nature painters. Julian is a French company is supposedly making the best ones, but Mabef an Italian company, also makes great sturdy ones. I was looking into larger eisels and have found some impressive ones online. When the time is right, and I move, I will consider either building myself another eisel or getting one online with a pully system. I am thinking longterm, who wants to play tetris with their canvas that weighs a ton? not me! so this is something I will look into.

To end this post for today, I welcome everyone to join my social networks to stay tuned. I am most active on twitter so you can reach me there @studiocosentino.
 

Color blocking in oil painting

I was inspired tonight by an painting I saw completely done in color blocking. It reminded me of the 70s somewhat, and with the bright purples and yellows and greens... the portrait came to life. I was thinking of going back to this for exercise and bring me back to dealing with values in shadows. It is very difficult to assess values in shadows unless your eye is trained to see color in strange places!
My next project will be to simply see color in and use color to shadow rather than use darks and glazing. Create the illusion using thick paint is rather challenging as well because light pigments require thicker paint, than dark shadows in oil painting.
I will post examples this week along with two finished paintings that are almost done.
Live, love, paint, meditate and bake on... :)

It's been a long time!

Hello fellow Artists and art collectors!

I have been extremely busy and have forgotten all about myself in the process. My painting took a rest, but I am getting back in action and will be posting here soon! New works and videos :) I purchased a videocam with the scope of filming my brush doing it's magic on the canvas. I CANNOT wait to test the cam on some daily paintings!

2010 is coming to end, and it has been a difficult and challenging year. Disappointments in life become a notch in the soul that either depress you further or they motivate you in ways to push you to resurrect into greatness, even if you don't know it.

I ask my readers one thing. There is nothing worst for an artist, than losing your creative juices and motivation. All of you out there who are suffering, or have personal issues or other...set it aside for one moment, and think about one good thing, just one simple thing. Your favorite color, a favorite food. Something that will crack a smile on your face. An old baseball card, a doll. I am thinking of my scratch-n-sniff stickers I used to collect right now...sigh. It takes just one good thing to set in motion a chain of other good emotions kicking in and before you know it, you will be painting or scultping or taking the best picture of your life.

If you want to get your juices back physically you can go running or you can always take a pillow and stab it to death, that can also work too :) make sure you stick the reference picture of what is frustrating you on the pillow such as your credit card bill, that helps too. Don't stab yourself in the process though or you won't be creating much after you have released your frustrations!

I bid you all good night, and I look forward to future comments on my upcoming works!

"Every tree needs a friend" we know Bob, we definitely know that.