Welcome to my open studio on the internet. 

Within these pages I present and discuss various aspects and ideas that form the background of my work. 

I work concurrently on a number of different series of paintings:
Landscapes,  Oceans, Skyscapes, Archetypal Color, Ancient Caves, and portraiture.

The process of creativity.  You too can do this!

Everyone is creative.  Some people say, "I don't have a creative bone in my body."  It isn't true.  We all have a talent for something.  My cousin doesn't think he can draw because he does things that look like Cezanne and he wants his pictures to look like Rembrandt.  Cezanne is very good.  So is Rembrandt.  We should not compare ourselves to other artist.  Be open to see what it is that you do naturally.  I try to get people to see the quality of what they do naturally.  No one makes a mark like you and why should you want to draw and paint like someone else?  If everyone in the history of art wanted to make paintings that only looked like Rembrandt, where would Monet and the Impressionists ever be? 

Of course, if you want to draw like Rembrandt, it can be done.  It would just take lots and lots of practice and patience.  Perhaps that is what people lack.  But this is a quest!  Rather than look for results too soon, engage in the quest.  The Journey of Development. 

Creativity is natural to all human beings.  It's only because of the traumas in childhood (huge to the child, but perhaps only a thoughtless comment from an adult) that causes most people to shut down and give up on their inborn creativity.  Yet, throughout life, there is a nagging desire to do something and it lingers along with a feeling of sadness and loss.  It does not have to be that way.  Just take a step toward uncovering your natural gifts. Of course, you will have to put in some work to develop your talents.  (My mom told me as a child that it was a sin not to develop a God given talent).  And there is frustration along the way.  You might look at my paintings and say, 'how lovely' but I can tell you that I suffer and work very hard some times.  Instead of giving up when a painting does not turn out the way I think it should, I push it to the limit feeling, 'well, if it's ruined then I have nothing to loose and can wreck it even more.'  I try everything I can think of, pushing the paint around, taking a tooth brush to the painting and scrubbing paint off, adding more paint until finally there's just no more that I can do to it.  Sometimes they turn out.  Sometimes they don't.  But the ones that do not turn out as my understanding of the moment calls "to turn out well" actually have qualities that months and months later I can see and realize that the struggle I was going through was a new form of painting trying to burst forth from the unconscious and the struggle was with the conscious mind trying to over ride the possibilities with old ideas.  Be open.  Don't throw anything away.  You might be surprised by how good something is once you have set it aside for a time and then come back to it.  Or, maybe you will learn a new technique that you can use in another piece.  Everything has value.

One teacher said that art is nothing more than correcting 1,000 mistakes.  Never give up.  And, don't throw things away either.  The art historians of the future will be very sad if you do that.

When I come to a difficult place of seeing and what is called hand-eye coordination, that is, getting my hand to draw what my eyes see, and I am having a frustratingly difficult time of it because I can see so very much more than what my hand seems to be able to capture, I remember two things:  First, it does not have to look exactly like what I am seeing.  I try my best to get it that way, but the beauty of a painting is not in photographic realism, the beauty of a painting lies in the feeling of the painting.  Second, my Tai Chi teacher said this to me many years ago, "If you say that you cannot do it, I will believe you."  Ah, never say, "I can't ..."  Rather, say, "I can do this."  "I can do this."  "I can do this."  I repeat that an inner mantra when I am doing something that is for me really, really hard to render.  I can do this!  And, I can.  So can you if you but believe in yourself just a little.

Sit back sometimes and look at what it is that you did do.  Maybe it wasn't what you were trying to do, but it has worthy attributes of its own and maybe your subconscious has an idea that you are not yet able to see.  Put the picture away and look at it in a year.  You might be very surprised at how good it is.

Don't work the life out of painting by diddling and diddling at the same place.  When a passage gets difficult, let it rest for a while, work on some other part of the picture or start another piece and come back to the difficult passage on another day.  Keep at it and if it does not turn out.  Do another one.  There's a great story from Japan about a man who commissioned an artist to paint a picture of a fish.  Years went by and still the man was waiting for his picture of a fish.  He went to the artist and said, "I want my painting of a fish, now!"  The artist took out a brush and deftly painted a beautiful picture of a fish.  The man said, "Well, if you could do that, why didn't you get it to me sooner?"  The artist then went over to a closet and opened the door.  Hundreds and hundreds of paintings and drawings of fish fell out.  Obviously, the artist had been working for years doing painting after painting until he got it right.

Never throw your art away.  At the very least, give the pictures to friends.

Be aware that art is blissful when it works and painful when it does not.  The pain of an artist reaching to do something that is just beyond reach is excruciating.  Recognize that.  But don't let it make you stop.

How to establish a work ethic

When I graduated from college an author told me how to get a body of work started.  He said to set up a table somewhere in the apartment that was dedicated to art and to sit at it for five minutes each day.  He said, "Get some pencils and a little paper.  You don't have to do anything while you sit there and you should not try to do anything 'important'.  Just sit there.  What will happen is that you will pick up the pencil and probably make some marks on the paper.  Don't judge and don't try to be doing anything.  Just let yourself 'be'."  What happens, day by day is that you do start to make marks on the paper and the five minutes turns into ten on it's own.  You will begin to get engrossed in something and maybe an hour will pass.  But, when you are starting out if you say to yourself that you must sit for an hour and do something, it will never happen.  An hour is too long.  Start small.  Start with an amount of time you can commit to.  Five minutes.  Really.  It does work.

Goethe wrote: if you want to accomplish something, just begin.  I believe the exact quote is: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

Set up an area in your house or apartment that is dedicated to your creative process.  Put things there that you will use.  A drawing pad.  Crayons.  Pencils.  Not a lot of expensive things.  Just enough to get started.  Then make an appointment with yourself to simply sit there for 5 minutes each day.  You can do that.  Don't try to do anything while you sit there.  Just sit.  Maybe you will pick up the pencil and make some marks on the paper.  Allow yourself to play and watch the adventure unfold.

I am available as an organizational and creativity coach.   My rate is $60/hr.

Drawing lessons are $25/hr.

 If you want to teach yourself, I recommend the book "Drawing on the Right Half of the Brain"

Videos of painting sites in Golden Gate Park and wave studies from Ocean Beach.

The mural project has been ongoing for a number of years.  It began with a small room box to create interior murals.  The box turned into a miniature stage set for photo-dioramas.  Lately I have been using photoshop to combine numerous photographs of a site and compositing  large panoramic photographic murals from those photographs.  I call it "painting space".  If you take a photograph that is only a portion of what a landscape painter would include in a painting.  The murals I have been creating are photo renderings of what I would put into a landscape painting from the site of the photograph.

The Dancing Ladies
Encaustic on Paper
11" x 15"

Horses
Encaustic on torn paper
11" x 15"

The Black Cow
Encaustic on Egyptian Cartonage
14" x 18"

I always wanted to get a rock-like surface for the encaustic series of petroglyphs and  Lascaux paintings.  In 2007 I brought a ten-year process to fruition with the use of cartonage, an ancient Egyptian method of surface construction to create something that looks like a rock.

About the encaustic process.

Finding the mental and emotional states required to gain communion with higher realms of being requires a certain amount of meditation practice.  I have a few of my favorite techniques listed on my de-stress meditation page.

The 4 Minute Meditation is easily done and, since it takes but four minutes to complete, can be done by just about anyone.  It's a start.  (The link will take you to YouTube.  To come back here, press the back button on your browser, or, stay on You Tube and investigate other meditation videos.)

If you are curious and would like an authentic Buddhist course, the Tibetan Buddhist site, AroBuddhism gives an internet email course in meditation

Another site for meditation practice, this one from the Taoist tradition, is Spring Forest Chi Gung.  Master Lin is one of the best healers I have heard of. 

When I began the series I felt there was 'something' of great beauty that was just beyond my reach and understanding.  I painted for three years, blindly, drawing purely from feeling.  The feeling was that there was some great beautiful thing about flying in the sky or images of flying in the sky.  I divided the picture plane into the Golden Mean and then put ground colors below and sky colors above.  There was also something about clouds that stirred me.  I painted for three years, one picture right after another; searching.  Always searching for that 'something' that moved within my heart just beyond awareness.  Then, one afternoon, like a bolt of lightning, the memory resurfaced and I was transported in lucid reality recalling a near death experience I had as a child. I laughed afterwards because, of course, I had been flying in the sky and that was what the feeling was all about.  These pieces are from that period of remembrance.

Acrylic, Watercolor, Pastel, or Charcoal

Priced beginning at $250

8" x 10" photograph $120

Images can be captured from old slides and placed into a new format using Photoshop   

A couple of friends asked me to do portraits of their pets.  Working with animal faces is quite fascinating.  There is intelligence there (as any pet owner will affirm), but even more interesting is the fur covered face!

If you have questions, comments, thoughts, ideas or would like to purchase art, please feel free to contact me at info@patpreble.com