DON QUIXOTE

According to the earliest creators group of surreal art, the image you would paint is one that “attempts to express the workings of the subconscious”. Some proclaimed that if you didn’t dream it, it wasn’t actually surreal art. I believe my idea of surreal art has taken a little bit of a twist from its original definition.

I found, especially with my Don Quixote piece, that the painting itself could easily yet almost mysteriously create its own subjects and characters. It is almost like finding faces and creatures in the clouds and mixing them with the actions of a domino effect. You know, one change leads to another, and so on.

I started my Quixote piece with only a beautiful earthy color palette selected and a single detail, the bright red horizontal line that runs the entire width of the image.

After pushing in the dark tones on the lower part of the piece I simply added a little deep yellow and white to lighten and warm the upper part of the canvas.

After feverishly punching the paint into the canvas I sat back patiently and started to look for the “shapes in the clouds”. Brightening the highlights, darkening the shadows, and adding touches of color the art transformed magically. During the entire painting process I was being coached by the image itself. It seemed to tell me what it liked and what it wanted to be done to it.

And when I thought I was finished, I signed it.

But here is the real kicker.

Everyone who knows me would realize that I NEVER sign a work until it is done. Somehow with this one, I felt tricked by it … as if it had a life of its own.

After a couple of hours of trying to understand why it felt something was missing, I realized that I had created something that seemed to be the world through the eyes of someone else. A bold truly abstract world, one that could only come from a truly abstract mind. Like Don Quixote’s? Yes, that’s it … this is the world as seen through the mind’s eye of Don Quixote.

Just like Picasso and Dali I always wanted to paint a Man of La Mancha piece and voila here it sat in front of me without conscious effort.

That’s my take on … what do you think … is the guy crazy?