Karen Herman
What a privilege to be an artist! For me, it all starts with the mental ingesting color, form and line of the subject, then dancing to create a painting that will beckon the viewer into the inside of two dimensional space. What a ride! I’m almost always smiling when I’m in this space and working alongside others who are on their artistic journey.
Creating art in my view, is mostly about seeking and synergizing this energy and play. I’m impatient, and for better or worse, I prefer speed and brightest of colors to pictorial accuracy. But when I have my head screwed on right, I’ll start with a sketch or two and look for the light source to better understand the play in light.
I love composition that vibrates with movement. For me, color goes on almost immediately in disconnected splashes as I look to discover what excites me about the subject. Then I work to create connections between colors, form and line in a composition that hopefully will move and make sense to my eye, and ultimately, to other viewers.
Sometime I get bogged down and frustration creeps in, only to be sometimes followed by a breakthrough, and back and forth. In any case, as an artist, I’m learning to see and slow down maybe just a little. Above all, I appreciate good teachers and the varieties of approaches to artistic creation that my colleagues and I bring to the two dimensions we are given.