Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Nanci Erskine - Artist


Nanci Erskine's subtle paintings aren't done plein air, but the sketches they are based on are done from life, sometimes outdoors. She's been focusing these past few years on flowers and vines.

If you click on "Previous Entries (Select a Month)" you can read posts from earlier this year. Here is what she wrote about John Grisham:

"Watching an interview with Charlie Rose the other night, I realized that my previous connection between writing fiction and making a painting was somewhat flawed. Sure, there are some strong similarities with the writing life and process….I have been a somewhat slow painter, because of all the reworking and rethinking that might go on, and I always likened this to letting your characters tell you who they were, etc.

Grisham writes about a book a year, seems intent on the storytelling, more so than great characterization, and has a pretty efficient system. . .but when asked about how he spends his time, getting ready to write, Grisham pointedly said he spent a lot of time outlining. The times he has short-changed it, he writes himself “into a corner.”

A light went on in my head. Since a new theme emerged a couple years back, I hadn’t really gotten back into the habit of committing to the preparatory sketch/composition. I used to do monotypes for this purpose.

In the crunch of time- deadlines etc., I went with a beginning that seemed pretty interesting, only to paint myself into lots of corners.

Now this is not the same as declaring that I want to know exactly what a piece will look like even before I begin- far from it. Only that the arrangement, color, and idea the painting serves, when thought out in the beginning, gives me more to stand on."

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