Seeing a painting evolve – Artichoke Warriors – 2009 – digital painting – Dan Beck

In my experience, most creative processes require stopping, stepping away, and starting up again – sometimes a number of times.  The changing piece above shows the three major places I stopped in creating this work of art.

A friend of mine once remarked that as a child he thought that all music was just one song.  I don’t discount that view. Although it is easier to see one’s own art or music as a continuation of the same self expression – it is equally true that we are all part of the creative fabric of life.

Bringing it back down to this particular painting – all three versions are valid – but I didn’t feel like I was done until I felt like I had completed my task.  Songs are like that too – I can keep working on them until I am ready to move on.  They can be faster, slower, better, or worse each time I might play them, but they don’t tend to fundamentally change.

In the same way, viewing a painting can change each time we look as well.

Listen and View

• Feet on the Grass – since I don’t have any new recordings since 2007 – I figured I would share the last song written during recording at that time and what seems to have been my personal favorite – odd because it seemed too easy to write and too much like other songs – yet once recorded quite a different matter.
• Continuing the Original Painting – previous article and only other time I tackled artichokes – so to speak – interesting it also has multiple versions – I don’t generally save my stopping points.