Art, Sport and Summertime

Summer brings vibrant colour, lazy warm days in the garden, a sense of renewal and growth. I love to get away exploring new places, or take a fresh look at familiar surroundings in summer light. Summertime is filled with family gatherings, having spontaneous bbq's with friends, long bike rides followed by ice cream indulgence. What? doesn't everyone have ice cream after a bike ride?

You may have noticed an introduction of cyclists and runners in some of my latest landscape paintings. 
Melding a few of my passions, still maintaining the landscape feel, the person being secondary.

We spent a week cycling in the mountains in May, great inspiration for painting. I have welcomed and enjoyed the response from these new paintings.  What a tremendous varied cycling and running community exists all over the world!

I participated in my first duathlon last week. A lovely harbour setting in the morning sunglow. While waiting for the start gun, I was thinking of the similarities in sport and art, between races and exhibiting artwork. Training for endurance sport is mostly about 'getting the mileage', trying to stay healthy and balanced,  getting out the door, whether you feel like it or not. Painting is similar, if I waited to be ' inspired', I might produce only a few dozen paintings a year, and I might eat my weight in ice cream. I apply the same philosophy to painting as I do training for an endurance event, do the work. Sit at the easel and paint, put the miles in. Some paintings promptly get trashed, a few are painted over, and sometimes, magic happens and it all comes together.
Endurance events are similar, sometimes things go wrong, but sometimes, magic happens and you win. Well, not me, but someone does. 

Racing, or shall I say, ' participating in an event' is similar to exhibiting artwork. Endurance multisport training usually involves hardly ever training your three sports together in a workout, or training the full distance. 
That is left for race day. You have to trust on race day that all of your training has prepared you to go the full distance, to complete each event smoothly, efficiently and hopefully, pain free.

I rarely see my artwork all together.   Usually, the paintings remain hidden until an exhibition. Once displayed, I am viewing for the first time a body of work that may have consumed months, or even a year of my time. I have had to trust that it will all come together, that it will ' sing'. If I  have done my job well, I can see the evolution, the improvement, and trust the hours of hard work,  & focused energy, will pull and connect with the audience. The paintings themselves will be alive with energy and spirit, that will last beyond my lifetime.

Happy Summer!
d.