the exuberant love and determination it takes to be good at the painting thing

"Towards Heaven" (Black branches climb white bark towards heaven-Bobby Frost) 10x57 Oils on Wood

"Cool White Aspen" 18x24 oils on Panel

Whew!
Hello Friends,

I have been having such an amazing brain crushingly good time traveling, learning and of course painting. I just finished up the Fantastic Elio Camacho workshop in the Gorge. We painted from sun up to sundown -no joke(see example below), and learned so much about seeing and finding color.

The biggest thing I learned or was reminded of was the exuberant love and determination it takes to be good at this painting thing. That was what I picked up from Scott Christensen's workshop also. These guys are so focused and work so hard and love every minute of it. I think I work hard, but let me tell you my standards have been raised through the roof. During both work shops I would just fall into bed each night exhausted from all the hard work and art's education over load, but many nights I couldn't sleep because my mind was still racing with all the new information and the shear excitement of all the possibilities.

Landscape painted Plein Air, alla prima-"Sunrise at the Oregon Gorge View From Vista House" 16x20 oils on Panel
Same Day July 18 2008

Landscape painted Plein Air, alla Prima-"sunset at the Oregon Gorge View From Vista House" 10x20 oils on Panel

It has been crammed into us that we have to give up so much for our art, but these two artists showed that art gives back 10 fold if we are willing to put forth the all the effort.

Scott has an amazing house, property and studio and unbelievable fame, Elio gets to travel sharing/teaching people about what he loves. And they are both great and very generous guys and a real pleasure to be around, the joy they feel from what they do is truly contagious.

I'll talk more in my blog down the road about more specific things I learned and post some of the paintings I did.

http://www.blog.eliocamacho.com/
http://www.christensenstudio.com

www.michaelorwick.com

All the best,
Michael Orwick

Orwick Arts

http://michaelorwick.blogspot.com/

I have some of the new plein air work on my web site http://www.michaelorwick.com/