My painting studio and my writing room are not the same. I paint in the small shed/studio set off to the side of the house behind the carport and the large workshop. I’ve been putting this new place together since December, including new lights, and the numbers above are the specifications for the overhead lights. Painting is not just about paint. I write at my … Continue reading 5000K, 85-100 CRI
“Unsquare Dance” Colors of Jazz Collection ©2020, Molly Larson Cook 28″ x 22″ Acrylic on canvas Available I’ve been reading about paint. The thing is that the “art” of painting is about chemistry as much as it’s about art. I’m not a chemist. In fact, I failed chemistry and all it took to determine my inability to master chemistry was two days in a … Continue reading It’s About the Paint. Or the Music.
Skylark © 2019, Molly Larson Cook Acrylic on canvas Available I read today that studies show the people with the safest work during this COVID-19 crisis are artists and loggers. Well, now, as Tom Hanks might say, what do we make of that? I spent part of the day in my studio and can attest that it’s one of the best places to self-isolate. … Continue reading Artists and Loggers Staying Safe
“I Want to Talk About You” from the Colors of Jazz Collection © 2019, Molly Larson Cook I don’t just read books or blogs or news articles about art and neither should you. Like people in any working field, we want to keep up with what’s new or useful in our own but we also need to bring out whole selves into our work. This … Continue reading Jazz – and Other – Lessons
“If we suppress our wackiness we’ll seal off the source of some of our most truing impulses. Our potential will dwindle. We’ll no longer feel the sweet daze and speed of the push of it.” —David Greenhood, the Writer on his own Today’s post is a tribute to wackiness. Artists, writers, musicians, chefs, bus drivers…whatever your line of work, let a little wackiness come through. … Continue reading A Tribute to Wackiness or What Happens When All the Paint is Packed
“…when sky and sea agree to take one hue…” © 2019, Molly Larson Cook 22″ x 28″ Acrylic on Canvas When people ask me, I always say I’m an abstract expressionist, but the truth is those are just words. I’ve loved abstract expressionism since my teens but when I look at the pictures by famous artists and back at my own work, I see … Continue reading When People Ask Me, I Always Say…
“scatter the sky with my blazing heart” © 2019, Molly Larson Cook 18″ x 24″ Acrylic and ink Available You already know how much I love color – that animal that wags its own tail. My color chart is always handy and my paint box goes well beyond red, yellow and blue although I enjoy mixing my own colors from those and a few … Continue reading Scatter the Sky…Amy Lowell, Fictional Colors, Morning Mist
In my last post, I wrote about a change in the artistic weather for me as I left behind my Colors of Jazz collection and headed down an entirely new track. Oh, how we kid ourselves. After finishing the first two paintings (posted here earlier), I believed I was headed down the wrong new track and gave this a lot of thought. I longed for … Continue reading Constancy and Choice – The Tools an Artist Needs Most
Mexican paper flowers Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experience—buying bread, eating vegetables, even saying hello—become new all over again. – Anthony Doerr So I did. Left home, left country, left the familiar. Okay, I only did it for a couple of days over Memorial Day weekend, and it wasn’t far from my front door to the border of Mexico, … Continue reading Traveling with an Artist’s Eyes…and Heart
“Morning Dance” © 2018, Molly Larson Cook Acrylic on canvas, 24″ x 30″ “Painting is the easiest job on earth, until you get to the painting part.” Brian Rutenberg I’d like to meet Brian Rutenberg and if I ever get back to New York, I’ll look him up. I found this line of his on somebody else’s blog and immediately remembered Picasso’s declaration that … Continue reading The Painting Part — with Singing and Dancing
Art and Tulips 