Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Time Trials






OK, so speed isn't necessarily the most important thing in art, but this is an example of a painting done in under two minutes on a moving bus.

In the late 80's I was on a bus tour of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales with Margaret, Evan and my parents.  I constantly found myself observing beautiful landscapes through the window of the moving bus. So I set up my little sketch book, a 4 x 5 inch mini, and my watercolors, and after looking at a landscape as we passed it, tried to memorize the details of a scene. In this case, a lovely rural landscape on the road from Edinburgh to Leith. This little exercise of taking "mind photographs", then putting them onto paper became a favorite pastime of mine on the trip and sharpened my observational skills. Try it. It's a fun exercise, but you've only got two minutes! 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dennis,
Amazing! I really like this painting, and it is hard to believe that you did it in only two minutes! Of course, that's two minutes and a lifetime of painting and drawing experience that preceded this. It is still inspirational to me. I need to sit down and try to do something creative that takes 'only' two minutes. Thanks for posting. Quite nice.
Jimm

crustypiman said...

Dennis,
Amazing! I really like this painting, and it is hard to believe that you did it in only two minutes! Of course, that's two minutes and a lifetime of painting and drawing experience that preceded this. It is still inspirational to me. I need to sit down and try to do something creative that takes 'only' two minutes. Thanks for posting. Quite nice.
Jimm