30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 30!!!!

Looking West on the Broad Ripple Canal
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"

Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore,
so do our minutes, hasten to their end.

-William Shakespeare 

Woohoo!!!  Finissimo!

Now I can breath again... do laundry AND go on vacation!
Thanks to everyone (including my home peeps) for supporting me in this crazy adventure.

And now for my next creative project!

Join me for the Indianapolis New Year's Art Retreat
January 4, 2014
 

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 29

Always and Never the Same
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
12" x 24"

Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 28

The Light of Things
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"

Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.
-William Wordsworth

(I'm at the home stretch!  The end is in sight!)

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 27

Evening Light
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
4" x 4"

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

-Friedrich Nietzsche 

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 26

Illinois Street Bridge in September
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

-Henry David Thoreau

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 25

Life Imitates Art
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

-Oscar Wilde

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 24

The Artist Sketch 2
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.
-Gilbert K. Chesterton

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 23

The Artist Sketch
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things,
but their inward significance.

-Aristotle

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 22

The Center Sketch

At the center of your being you have the answer; 

you know who you are and you know what you want.

-Lao Tzu

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 21

Rose Sketch

Honestly one of the hardest things about this 30 day challenge is throwing the quickly done sketches that I do.  (I want to show you only the finished pieces, polished and smooth.)  Usually these are just warm ups to the "real" deal.  I can't get this...

A Rose By Any Other Name
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"
Buy Now on Etsy

...until I've stared at the subject matter for awhile.
So sketches can be an important part of the process, as my man Sargent can attest.

You can't do sketches enough. Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh.

John Singer Sargent

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 20

The Star in the Clouds
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

There was a star riding through clouds one night,

and I said to the star, 'Consume me'.

-Virginia Woolf

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 19

The Perfect Tree
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. 

Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful.

-Alice Walker

 

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 18

The Flight of the Bumblebee
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Acrylic on Canvas
16" x 20"

Inspired by Kandinsky's abstract works depicting music I created this painting of Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee."  It is all summer and honey and movement.  I started this one during the heat of the summer and have now added the final layer of thick oil paint.

I've never turned into a bee - 

I've never been chased by a mummy or met a ghost. 

But many of the ideas in my books are suggested by real life.

-R. L. Stine 

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 17

Apple Sketch

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.  Or a painting a day keeps the blues away?  Or the boredom... not that I am ever bored.  But this game is definitely keeping me busy.

I'll squeeze the cider out of your adam's apple.

-Moe Howard 

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 16

The Rose Wrapped Around the Briar
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"

They grew and grew to the graveyard gate
Where they could grow no higher
And there they tied in a true lover's knot
With the rose wrapped 'round the briar 

-Old-Time Ballad "Barbara Allen"

My favorite version of this song is by Sheila Kay Adams.  It is a sad story of quarreling star-crossed lovers.  Not that my flowers are sad... they are like the last hoorah before the fall of fall.

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 15

The Hands
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
Buy Now on Etsy for $195.

What does love look like?  It has the hands to help others.

-Saint Augustine

So my friend Dave asked me to create a painting inspired by one of this photographs and I chose this one.  For some unknown archetypal reason I made my woman pregnant... and she has some red beams of light emanating from her shoulder.  I'm not sure what it means except that she is a powerful figure.

Thanks Dave for the inspiration! 

Click here to see more of Dave's photos.

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 14

A Rose By Any Other Name
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"
Buy Now on Etsy for $165.

Juliet:

What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,

And for that name which is no part of thee

Take all myself.

Romeo:

I take thee at thy word:

Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;

Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
-Shakespeare

So I was almost desperate to come up with more names for these flower paintings.... and then I thought of this favorite passage from Shakespeare.  The point being that it doesn't even matter what something is called, but what it embodies.

Love?  Ha ha

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 13

Folk Tree
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Cut Paper Collage

So here we have more experimenting... and yeah, I know that this isn't technically a "painting."  But I have been reading a lot about German Scherenschnitte cut paper designs.  I am going to incorporate the style into my shadow puppetry theater project that I am going to start on next month.  This came together pretty quickly and was super fun, but I don't have the fancy pants super small scissors.  It is the fine details that make the Scherenschnitte designs so awesome.  Maybe I'll do a month long Scherenschnitte 30 day challenge and conquer this beast.

Did I mention that Scherenschnitte is fun to say?  Try it three times fast.

If you want to conquer fear, don't sit down and think about it.  Go out and get busy.

-Dale Carnegie

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 12

September Roses
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"

An idealist is one who,

on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage,

concludes that it makes a better soup.

-Bertrand Russell

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 11

Sketch of Roses
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil and Ink on Paper

So I had a friend who told me that he knew of another blogger who did a 30 day painting challenge and by the end of it that artist was doing everything in markers.  I thought this was funny and it made me realize that it has been quite awhile since I have drawn with pens.  So I created this drawing and experimented with adding leftover oil paint to it as well. 

That is one nice thing about this 30 day challenge- it pushes me to try some new things on the fly... especially since I am running out of materials and "need" to go to the art supply store.

Every great inspiration is but an experiment.

-Charles Ives

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 10

Sunset Over Indianapolis
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
4" x 4"

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

-Martin Luther King Jr.

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 9

Fall Creek
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
4" x 4"

I've said it once and I'll say it again... Indiana has this nice quiet beauty.  

It isn't majestic, grand or flashy.  

It is peaceful.  

And this little spot is smack dab in the middle of the city of Indianapolis.

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

-Mother Teresa

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge Day 8

September Flowers
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"

Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

 (This whole painting flowers business still feels new.  It has all of the awkwardness of a first date for me!)

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge Day 7

The Last Days of Summer
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
4" x 4"

For one swallow does not make a summer,

nor does one day;

and so too one day, or a short time,

does not make a man blessed and happy.

-Aristotle

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 6

Clouds Come Floating
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"

Clouds come floating into my life,
no longer to carry rain or usher storm,
but to add color to my sunset sky.

-Rabindranath Tagore

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 5

Every Sunset
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
4" x 4"

Know what you want to do,

hold the thought firmly,

and do every day what should be done,

and every sunset will see you that much nearer the goal.

-Elbert Hubbard

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 4

Fading Rose
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
4" x 4"

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying.

-Robert Herrick

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 3

Florida
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

So here is one of those paintings where I like how part of it turned out but not the whole thing.  I would prefer to crop it down to this image...

Lower Right Hand Corner of "Florida" Painting

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

-Aristole

???

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 2

Flower Power
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"

To see the world in a grain of sand,

and to see heaven in a wild flower,

hold infinity in the palm of your hands,

and eternity in an hour.

-William Blake

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 1

Orchids
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"
Original Painting available on Etsy

So today is day 1 of fellow artist Leslie Saeta's "30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge."  I am going to attempt (cough, cough) to do 1 painting per day for the next 30 days. I have a feeling that I am going to focus on flowers for this, but maybe not.  We will see where the muse takes me.

There are always flowers for those who want to see them.

-Henri Matisse