Shore Looks Right

Sometimes it is difficult for an artist to communicate verbally to non-artists. Like the retired airline pilot I was talking to on the phone today. I was describing waves and beach colors in terms like "warm and cool colors" and "atmospheric density at the horizon", etc. It was clear that these descriptive terms were confusing him.

I followed up with an email and images to help explain.

Sea Birds © 2016||Dot Courson 

 I’ve noticed that with every ocean or body of water there are defining characteristics of atmosphere, light and colors that set it apart from all the other waterside settings around the same time of day.

Sunrise Sunset ©2018| Dot Courson

The Gulf Coast is soft and light in warm and cool pastel colors and usually has smooth elegant waves. Also, one views the water from a beach or up on beautiful sand dunes near sea level at (eye level) and it feels like the horizon is very wide.

Coast is Toast (Gulf Shores Little Lagoon)  ©2016|Dot Courson Art 

Pemaquid Point, Maine ©|Dot Courson

Contrast that with Maine which is only described as "soft" when it is in a fog- otherwise it is hard as it’s rocky shoreline  and the colors are stronger in the choppy water. It’s natural shore is usually viewed from a more elevated perspective, with the viewer looking down more, so you paint a lot of the surface of the water and it's flatter plane. 

Being aware of those things area important for me as an artist in order to give it a legitimate “sense of place”. 

Communicating about art is important to me as an artist and I'm not sure why because it can be confusing and seem ambiguous to non artists. But collectors still need explanations sometimes to fully understand artistic vision and appreciate art. Sometimes we have to try to resort to their language.... and if you can not communicate in words....send pictures! 

“We’ve now reached our cruising altitude of flight level three-three-zero. I’ll go ahead and turn off the seat belt sign…”

Dot Courson is a full time artist and teacher in Pontotoc, MS. View here website at www.dotcourson.com for recent work, show announcements and workshops she teaches.

Painting my Life's Story: Digging Deep

A collector from Chicago wrote me today asking for more detailed information about another one of my works. I've never met her, she bought one of my paintings years ago in a gallery that represented me at that time. Her questions made me wonder if others would like more information about me and the inspiration behind my paintings.
 I know my work is contemporary in one sense.... but it comes across as nostalgic as well. That is an unusual combination these days.
It's only contemporary in the way that I paint. It is ALL nostalgic scenery and I do not make excuses for painting what is real to me and my life. It is who I am.. I OWN the fact that I paint in a way that expresses my personal narrative, my internal story, and what a scene feels like and personally means to me.

Here is my note back to the collector about this painting today:

Pathway Home 12x24, Oil ©2018|DotCourson

Dear _____,

Was just thinking about you after emailing you the larger sized image you requested and wanted to tell you how important you are to me as a collector. When you look at one of my creations you looking INTO it differently and I really appreciate your level of interest. It shows how enriched and aware of art that you are above the average collector.

I hope that the enlarged photo allows you to see the layering and stippling of the paint and how the painting designed to allow and compel  one to slow down and explore the journey to the center of interest ....and move into the painting. But I hope you appreciate the scene (as a whole) more.
Pathway Home tells a lot about me. It is another memory of our many moves when I was a child after we left our original home place that looked much like this scene. I have always felt I was searching for a pathway back home and paths are re-occurring in my work, someone recently pointed out to me.  I've been thinking about why that is since it was not intentional, but something I'm apparently compelled to place in much of my work.
Maybe it is because when I was a child we sold the original home place where my paternal grandparents lived for generations. I loved that place. Afterwards, we moved form house to house to places we would rent  for a few months at a time.  I remember traveling around as we’d look for a new place for our family to move to and many times I would see abandoned houses like this one that reminded me of our ancestral home and I would be drawn to it... thinking it would FEEL like home. That is the scene I painted and my feeling was that this could become a warm and cozy place to call home.
Let me know if you want Pathway Home.

Dot 

Blog Footnote: Going home is a universal feeling. We all intuitively know we belong somewhere else, and I believe God made us that way on purpose! :-)  Since childhood I also always felt my life would get better and better and am a realistic optimist.  I'm so blessed. As a creative person, seems we artists are ALWAYS on the move and "seeking out" pathways and embrace change as a sign of personal growth. I dig deep as an artist; the world is full of artists digging shallow.

Me age 11

Visit my website at:  https://dotcourson.com/

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Email artist@dotcourson.com or pone 662-517-3100 to arrange a visit.

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Dot Courson has Two Art Blogs

I have two art blogs...

 

It was not planned... 

Grab a glass of sweet tea and pull up a chair. Here is how it happened:

First I had a website is with FASO and it's at www.dotcourson.com . For many years there was not a blog associated with it.

Then FASO administrators added a place for BLOGS- so I made that my main website. It is at  www.dotcourson.com/blog.
Here's the latest blog post there:

Having my new blog with my main website very convenient-  but it's leaving behind YEARS of blogs that I've done here on blogspot! 

You are currently on my blogspot site with lots of older blogs (Notice the archived files from past years on the right.)

Actually I manage a 3rd blog! It's about Plein Air Painters of Mississippi that I started several years ago to post Mississippi events because there are lots of Plein Air events in our state and no central place to post them.
The limiting factor to blogging anywhere quite honestly is TIME... Frankly, I had rather paint than tell everyone what all I'm doing. But I need to blog because I love having YOU along,...so I hope you will continue to join me in my adventures in painting around the south.
Hope that clears thing up! Now that I've blogged.....it's already 5:00PM. Cheers!

Love,

Dot

Workshop notes: Painting Landscapes

I recently taught a workshop on landscapes and wanted to share a few slides with you... 

 I LOVE teaching! I taught here in Pontotoc in January.The group was great and we had fun. Thank you to all the attendees.  Jackie helped me welcome 14 artists form TN, AL and MS.

My next workshop is in Greenville in May with the Delta Art Association. Hope you get to come! Here is a link to details.

Here are a few tips straight out of my workshop handbook that I use when I teach. I love to share, but all images are my paintings, and therefore are copyrighted ©2013  Dot Courson Workshops. So feel free to use and share these- I encourage it as a matter of fact! -  but I require you attribute the painting and slide images and painting to me please. : )

Value planes. ©2013 Dot Courson

Arial perspective. ©2013 Dot Courson

Movement in painting. ©2013Dot Courson

Please leave comments below. I love hearing from you! 

Happy Painting! ~ Dot

A Year in Review with Photos

Dot Courson's 2012... 

told using Photos:

Painted this in January 2012-- Sold it in December 2012.

A solo show at Caron Gallery in March. This ad was in American Art Collector Magazine.

A book of my paintings - Landscapes of the South: The Paintings of Dot Courson - published  in February and available from me.

Two of my painting demos (one shown on the bottom left corner) were done in February and will be published in this book Creative Freedom by artist Maggie Price. Published by North Light Books this year!. Pre-order HERE.

  

Invited to the Southeastern  Plein Air Invitational in April 2012 - my 3rd year in a row.

Beginning a painting while teaching en plein air this spring. 

My daughter's work and mine in a show at Northeast MS Community College in the fall of 2012.

One of my early paintings that the Mississippi DAR showed as part of a slideshow of my work in Washington DC this summer. 

In April I was in Florida at the Women Painters of the Southeast show.  I led a paint out for the WPSE group at the Cummer Museum grounds. I ended up featured in Plein Air Magazine's online magazine!

See the sign with the balloons?  My painting was reproduced on the sign on the street announcing the Women Painter's of the Southeast show at the WPSE show in Jacksonville, FL at the Corse Gallery in April 2012!

We took the whole family to the beach at the end of May!!!

My daughter and my own work was in a book that came out in the spring. Gaining Ground Sustanibility  Institute publisher.

I picked up my Natchez Trace Triptych from Governor Haley Barbour's office when he left in January. It had been there 3 years. He accidentally signed the front of it with a sharpie!....So I removed his signature with alcohol and a Q-tip. (see this painting below in Senator Wicker's DC office where it is on exhibit for now....)  

My Natchez Trace Triptych behind Senator Roger Wicker's offical Senate office desk in the Senate Building in Washington  DC . Installed Summer 2012.

 We hosted Bob Harper from Colorado (image above) and Lori Putnam from Nashville (image below painting roses)  for workshops here in 2012. 

I taught a 3- Day workshop for the the Delta Art Association. 

A little 6x8  plein air painting I did during the year. ©2012 DotCourson

Anne Blair Brown of Nashville taught one of our 3 hosted workshops here for us in Pontotoc in April. 

This came out in the Tupelo Journal before my solo show at the Caron  Gallery.

Plein air painting in my backyard was my favorite place to paint in 2012!

Painted some this year with my daughter artist Susan Patton shown here...

Plein Air Richmond, VA in the  Spring

I was one of the artists from the US and Canada invited to be in the Plein Air Richmond. I cannot do it in 2013 as I think I'm going to be in FRANCE  in June with the Women Painters of the Southeast. I'm on the board again and an officer again in 2013.

One of my paintings I did while painting in the Plein Air Richmond, VA in June of 2012.

I was in the Mississippi Painters Society show this year and won a ribbon. 

A tiny little painting I did while studying with Marc Hanson in  MN.

Went to Minnesota to study with Marc Hanson. This is his work that was  the cover in  SW Art Mag. in Nov, 2012 after that workshop. He moved to Colorado this year. That was a lot of fun!

A bunch of us painted with Quang Ho in Nashville after meeting him in Indianapolis, IN in November at the American Impressionist Society. ( I was on the AIS committee there and it was a lot of work but lots of fun.)  

Last painting to be finished in the studio in 2012.

My last commission in 2012.

One of my last paintings this year! This will be in American Art Collector Maganine in February 2013

My limited palette this year. BTW- It's going to be published in an upcoming BOOK that Dick Ensing is doing on artist's palettes!

Reminiscing. 9x12 Oil ©2012 This was a gift painted by my daughter Artist Susan Patton. She gave it to Jackie for Christmas this year. It's of his uncle Donald Courson and his parents Bill and Billie Faye Courson. So proud of Susan! 

Surprised when a friend found my work in the Dec. 2012 issue of Mississippi Magazine - and very happy they gave me credit by mentioning that it was my painting!  One of my earlier large landscapes, -Peace in the Valley- in the middle photo above shown over the mantel in a collector's beautiful home at Old Waverly in West Point.

That is some of my blessings in 2012...........Happy New Year!!!!