"Vanishing", watercolor

STRANGERS I SEE

Have you ever driven down the street and seen people standing at a bus stop and wondered where they're going or what their life is like?

Have you watched cars passing by, or trains and thought about the life of those inside

How about your server at the restuarant who introduces himself.  What is his life like when he goes home?

I want to see them..really see them, not just nod or wave or smile.

How do I put this on a 2D surface?

Well, I've thought about this for many years.  I thought about making them invisible almost or eliminating parts of them or even just a blurring.

Now I"m going to experiment.  I've thought about seeing those no longer living as being behind a blue curtain.  You can see them in a blur but cannot touch.  Sometimes I think a hand or a foot sneaks out.  Sometimes I see them in my dreams....standing alone on an old deserted road, calling to me.  I always see my mother in the grey skirt and white blouse she wore so often.  I painted her once in watercolor, fading out the window into the background..

People look at artists and say "I could never do that" meaning the drawing technique.  When the real work is not the technique at all, but how it is translated from inside your head onto the paper.

I'm writing about this so that I will actually give it a try.  I hope some of you who read this will let me know if it is working, hat is if it makes you respond.  My finger is still numb and I don't know what it will do.  However, time is running out.  If I don't try now, I probably never will.

Stay tuned.

Defining Yourself

  How does a painter define himself when he is unable to paint?

So many years spent trying to figure out who you are and where are you going, only to find that by the time you figure it out things have changed.

Now, as I await gaining the use of my painting hand, I realize so much else has changed.  I got old.  Don't know how that happened.  I was dancing along through life when it suddenly caught up with me.

Now what!

My greatest problem was figuring out my next series and how to put it into a 2D format when everything changed.  So, am I still a painter?  If so, what do I say.  I was so busy for awhile, running the gallery, meeting people, working on business details, that I didn't have time to think "what next".  Now that I have time I'm afraid my creative energy is running out on me, chased off by pains of broken bones and knowledge that time is running out.  Man, I better make the most of it.  Right?

For a little while now I can't do much.  But the question is, do I still have it.  The business end of art got in the way.  Now that I'm free again, where will I go.  Who will I be?  Is what I feel relevant in today's world?

There are so many excellent painters today all over the Internet.  Some painting are so discordant....I really wonder what they're tell their viewer.  And realism has approached photography.  "Isn't that a wonderful painting...it looks just like a photograph."  Is that a compliment?  A goal?  A technical achievement, certainly.

I admit to being drawn to the weirder pieces.  People with birds for faces, wonderful pieces of light and amazing colors.  I really love some of the paintings I made in the past.  Paintings to make one think or point its viewer in a new direction.  If someone reading this is familiar with my work or my website, "franknueppel.com" let me hear from you.  Did I touch something for you?

Well, in another couple of weeks I will have to start over again.  Find a new road?  Maybe I'll find a way to show the unseen world behind what we see.  I've been looking for a long, long time.  Wish me luck this time before the clock runs out.