It has been a while since I last posted. I have recently started putting my paintings on Instagram, and it reduces the urgency to write something about them. But I am determined to keep up my numbered log, so here is a recent painting.
This is an invented landscape, approximately 45×30 cm in size (oil on panel). I am particularly happy with this outcome, mainly because of the rich, nostalgic green that popped out of the marshland rushes in the foreground.
Pessoa wrote:
What’s primordial in me are my habit and manner of dreaming. The circumstances of my life, solitary and quiet since my childhood, and perhaps forces that go farther back, moulding me to their sinister specifications through the obscure action of heredity, have made my mind an endless stream of daydreams. Everything I am comes down to this, and even what seems farthest in me from the dreamer belongs unequivocally to the soul of one who only dreams, as intensely as possible.
Pessoa, Fernando. The Book of Disquiet
Thanks for visiting!
Fruitful Dark 
This painting is so gorgeous, love the sky and the sliver of light, sublime. Aha! you caught the IG bug as well, I don’t blame you, I can upload a photo and write a brief sentence or two within a couple of minute and there you go. Here on WP well, it takes enough time to where I feel stressed by the time it is done. The added plus is that I can align up my photos to the actual painting, less stress there. How do I find you on IG?
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You found me!
I quite like IG, but find it can be addictive. Currently disciplining myself to post and check once at morning and once at night and live life the rest of the time with my face to the sun, not the screen! Thats the engineer in me! Many thanks for your kind words on my painting Margaret
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Exactly! that is a very good idea, I should try that. Life is too short to be glued to the screen!
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I am reminded of the scenery in some of the wilder parts of Scotland – and it’s a feeling here, not a depiction. Nor do I mean the Scotland of mountains and steep-sided glens; this picture is with its back to them, or most-of-the-way up something, at a point where the scenery evens out. At the horizon, which is close, there is a lochain, but immediately there is a peat-trench that has filled with water; both reflect the same patch of intense blue overhead (but off the scope of the canvas), emphasising the connectedness of something to be reached and something that is impeding.
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Thanks Marie. I am often attracted to Highland landscapes and peat bogs/moors. They seem to have that warm/cold colour combination I am after.
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There is so much here to comment on, Fritz! Most important, of course, is your painting. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at your posts. I wonder if you have taken time to look back at what your were painting just six months ago. Your painting has changed dramatically. You’re much more comfortable with your brush and with colors. And no longer constricted by what you’re looking at. It feels like what your see with your inner eye is now being expressed in your paintings.
And please, please don’t stop writing. Your posts always make me stop and think. I’ve ordered The Book of Disquiet because of this post. The quote you cite is indeed disquieting!
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Thanks so much Nadia. Yes, I have sort of left some of my inhibitions behind in painting. Probably at some point lost at least a bit of the need to paint “pretty” pictures – a huge risk for me but it proved quite liberating at many levels. The journey, however, is still continuing and the pull of the pretty is still strong!
Thanks again for your comment and for visiting. Glad to hear you enjoy the words also – I have been considering moving entirely to Instagram but perhaps one or two posts per week would at least find some interest!
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I’m with Nadia — I hope you’ll post on both platforms. Why not! I can look at instagram but having a dumb phone instead of a smart phone, I cannot interact with it. And I like looking at things on a computer screen anyway because the images are bigger. Plus all the poetry! You cannot deprive us of our poetry fix.
Did you say somewhere what your id is on instagram? How does one find you there?
Fabulous painting above. And I love the passage about dreaming. Dreams tell us so much about our lives and unexpressed thoughts — the things we need to know about our lives, about what’s going on around that one hasn’t been totally aware of ….
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Thanks so much Aletha! On Instagram I am @fritzjoosteartist I like the brevity of the interaction on Instagram, but it could also be just shallowness.
I did a quick check this morning, and the number of “likes” that paintings get seem to be given by the following number:
Number of Likes = (Number of Followers) / X
where X = between 6 and 15
Next holiday, I think I will do a proper conference paper on this! But seriously, I am careful not to read too much into “likes” – they are not an indication of how good my work is. For that, I rely on the feedback from people whose art and opinions I value – a form of deeper discussion. Like the ones you and I have had here on WordPress.
So, I will continue posting here also, albeit a bit less frequently perhaps. Many thanks Aletha for the encouragement, and I am so glad that my prose and poetry selections are read by the likes of you and Nadia!
…now back to those instagram likes…how many do I have now…
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