A history of Painting - now

While suffering with my eyes one morning I woke up with a picture in my head.
This was late December 2008, on a scale of 1 to 10, physically, i was maybe a 3.
I had finished with the shunt some 3 weeks earlier and my brain was thinking again, but there were differences that i was still exploring.
I really could not see.
I would group around in the morning for my patch to try to make sense of the world, but it was difficult.
I did not have any "prism" glasses to try to put things together. I was changing my patch over one eye every few hours.
I was not even thinking about going to work and actually was wondering if i ever would.
My swallowing was really bad and i was always choking and water was particularly difficult.
But this picture popped into my head.
This used to happen often, those were always my best works. They were what I call "inspired",
In my history, I would try to paint many things, some were good, some not so good. I learned a great deal from other works, particularly classical, but they used oils, not watercolors. I found older water color artists and was fascinated. Sometimes i would succeed, some times fail, but i kept it up. The period when all the artist in the local association did not want anything to do with me and I was selling a lot for a part time artist was when I would look at something and feel it. The feeling between me and the art association became mutual, they were working in a style by a local favorite, a Mr Sutherland. I did not like his style and of course, not theirs either.
Then there was this picture in my head that December morning. I had no choice, i looked to find my paints.

This was not everything i wanted, but it was a start and certainly better than the stuff i tried when i knew i had lost my painting ability.
I wanted suddenly to do something I had never done, a portrait in water color.
So first a sketch of a picture i found beautiful. I did not know this person, but was happy with the sketch.

Then someone i knew and was being kind to me while i recovered, also in mid January.
This was my first attempt ever at a portrait. My mother did portraits in oils and was very good at it. I was pleased.

I woke up wanting to create something i could only see in my mind. This was late January.

Remember, I have no glasses, so I am alternating my eye patch and working with full double vision.
Then another in February of something I could not see because I created the image to be in the past from what it is now. I have prisms for reading, but the vision is about 20.180 or so. I am using the patch more than the glasses.



Then a really ambitious project which was halted because of my return to work. it was large (20 x 30 in believe).

Now I see things and am inspired!




And this is where i am today!

Everything here is a mixture of watercolor board and cold press paper. I am having fun!