I am an artist because I love the materials! My work is primarily in watercolor and recently in collage and acrylics. I have myriad tubes of paint, papers of every size, pattern and texture, silky brushes of all shapes and sizes, and COLOR! Using these materials is the best part. I started when I was 9 (on Saturday mornings at the Milwaukee Art Institute) and have continued intermittently since then, with time out for family raising (three daughters and six grandkids) and school teaching (third and fourth grade). I used to have trouble getting started -- the proverbial artistic block, but now I seem to have more ideas than I can finish. Much of my work is representational. I paint lots of living things: landscapes, florals, vegetables and fruit. In addition I find inspiration in the architectural components of my travel photography. Travel in many parts of the world and diverse artistic traditions have influenced my current explorations in abstraction. Working in the abstract has helped me to hone my compositional skills. My collages have multiplied into series as I investigate the multiple facets of an idea. Over time I have learned to steer away from meticulous planning. Instead I leave room for the unexpected, the spontaneous juxtaposition or the experimental. Less can be more; suggesting an image can be more successful than specificity. And I have realized that a great deal of creative time is spent looking and evaluating what's recently appeared upon my paper. While it may look like I'm standing around doing nothing, it's really painting! TRAVEL PAINTINGS Travel motivates much of my recent work. My creative spirit is sparked with the novelty of surroundings no longer ordinary. I look with new eyes at small details generally overlooked or unnoticed in my day-to-day existence. No doubt there are equally exciting views in Northern California as in Tuscany, Turkey, Bolivia or Japan, but they don't have the same allure! When I return from a trip, I search through my photos for interesting shots. Often I take compositional layouts from one photo, and details, figures, or color choices from others. I use artifacts and textual materials that I've collected enroute -- ticket stubs and newspaper articles, brochure illustrations, stamps, maps and menus. These things are glued on or under paint, and glazed to become part of the painting. I've been using rubber stamps, wooden print blocks, and various resists to texturize my work. Sometimes I look to traditional local art for ideas. I have spent many hours in art museums around the world, and purchased more than my share of postcards in museum shops. I seldom send them -- instead I hoard them and pin them up in my studio space. Over time, they insinuate themselves into my unconscious and eventually make their way into my work. All in all, I try to convey the atmosphere of a locale and the feelings or emotions that the environment elicited in me. That's a tall order -- sometimes I am more successful than others. Occasionally, these travel paintings have a very long gestation period . . . it can take years for successful paintings of a new locale to emerge! Website design by HYPERSPHERE ©2006 Sandi Adams. All rights reserved.