Inspiration Fridays! What’s on your list?

What’s on your list?

Seven Figures – oil on canvas – 24”x48” – Gabriel Mark Lipper

“Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.” – Stella Adler

Not sure what’s on your list for the Holidays but I imagine it could look something like this:

1. Decorating the Christmas tree.
2. Hanging outdoor lights.
3. Shopping for gifts.
4. Wrapping presents.
5. Writing and sending Christmas cards.
6. Preparing a Holiday meal plan.
7. Baking cookies.
8. Cleaning the house for guests.
9. Dragging out the holiday decorations.
10. Cooking dinner.
11. Hosting a Holiday party.
12. Attending Holiday parties.
13. Making a music playlist.
14. Doing craft projects with the kids.
15. Checking in on the budget.
16. Volunteering for your charities.
17. Buying or hunting down a Christmas tree.
18. Trimming the Christmas tree.
19. Back to the store for more lights that actually work.
20. Cooking Dinner.
21. Why not make some homemade Christmas ornaments?
22. Classic Christmas movie night.
23. Reading Children’s Christmas stories.
24. Organizing a Secret Santa exchange.
25. Buying Christmas pajamas.
26. Going to a Christmas Eve service or mass.
27. Cooking Dinner
28. Taking a family photo.
29. Sending out a family Holiday letter.
30. Planning a Christmas breakfast.
31. Making a Christmas wreath.
32. Shopping for dinner ingredients.
33. Christmas puzzle so that your table is permanently unavailable.
34. Attending the Christmas concert or play.
35. Making hot chocolate and marshmallows.
36. Preparing Christmas stockings.
37. Late night grocery shopping for candy canes, oranges and chocolate.
38. Throw in some poinsettias, they’re on sale.
39. Making a holiday punch.
40. Cooking Dinner
41. Spiking the punch
42. Wrapping presents to send out in time.
43. Forgetting them in the back of the car.
44. Making a holiday calendar.
45. Assembling a nativity scene.
46. Creating a holiday playlist that isn’t so sad.
47. Crafting a Christmas centerpiece.
48. Arranging the mistletoe.
49. Taking kids to see Santa.
50. Going ice skating.
51. Taking Advil. Swearing off ice skating.
51. Knitting or crafting holiday gifts. Why not?
52. Making a Christmas Eve box. (I don’t even know what that is but here it is!)
53. Lighting Advent candles.
54. Organizing the back of the car.
55. Planning a holiday potluck with the neighbors.
56. Thrift shopping for Christmas sweaters.
57. Making a holiday scrapbook or album.
58. Freezing through the Christmas parade.
59. Making a snowman that’s more like a snow sculpture.
60. Organizing holiday-themed games for kids.
61. Visiting a Christmas market.
62. Attending a tree lighting ceremony.
63. Crafting homemade gift tags.
64. Cruising the neighborhood Christmas lights tour.
64. Making mulled wine or cider.
65. Skipping Dinner
66. Hosting an impromptu Christmas brunch.
67. Organizing a holiday bake-off.
68. Making Christmas fudge.
69. Crafting a holiday-themed door wreath.
70. Buying tickets to a New Year’s Eve party.
71. Leaving the Christmas tree out for the Boy Scouts.
72. Returning the gifts that were in last year’s size.
73. Writing thank you notes for gifts received.
74. Cleaning up after Christmas parties.
75. Storing holiday decorations.
76. Cooking Dinner.
77. Planning activities for kids during Christmas break.
78. Preparing a Christmas ham.
79. Roasting chestnuts for the vegetarians.
80. Organizing a Christmas cookie exchange.
81. Crafting a Santa’s workshop scene.
82. Planning a sled ride.
83. Taking a quick trip to the Emergency Room.
84. Setting up a hot cocoa bar.
85. Buying batteries for toys and gadgets.
86. Preparing and freezing make-ahead dishes.
87. Organizing a Christmas caroling group.
88. Talking to the officers about the noise complaints
89. Setting a festive table for Christmas dinner.
90. Arranging a Secret Santa for coworkers.
91. Remembering that you work alone.
92. Crafting a holiday-themed mantle display.
93. Cooking Dinner
94. Organizing a Christmas-themed scavenger hunt.
95. Making a holiday-themed floral arrangement.
96. Looking for clothes that still fit.
97. Making a trip to the liquor store.
98. Shopping for new clothes
99. Forgetting all of the gift certificates
100. Setting New Year’s resolutions.
101. … oh, and painting.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed and feel like there is not enough time to fit it all in. And if your list is anything like the one above, you’re probably right about that. As the winter closes in around us ( at least for the northern hemisphere folk ) let’s not forget the most important thing on the list! Naps.

There will be time to paint in January. Fill your season with creativity and love. And try to sneak in a few sketches.

8paint Inspiration Friday 21 a week Sketches

I always try to keep a sketchbook handy. #21aweek

How do you stay creative during the Holidays?

What’s on your list?

December 8, 2023/by Gabriel Lipper

Inspiration Fridays! Is it Ugly or Honest?

Inspiration Fridays

Is it Ugly or Honest?

At the Moulin Rouge – oil on canvas – Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec – Art Institute of Chicago

“I don’t belong to any school. I work in my corner. I admire Degas.” – Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

I saw this painting in person for the first time at the Art Institute of Chicago over 16 years ago. I was wandering through the vast rooms, enjoying the impressionists, when it reached out and slapped me across the face. This isn’t a pretty painting. It’s powerful and sarcastic, rich, and direct. It’s beautiful, but it’s not easy.

Lautrec invites you into a world that you may or may not want to be a part of, and then with unblinking eyes, dares you to look away. But if you’ve ever seen this painting in person, you can’t look away. This is the story of people with everything and nothing.

It’s a story that I spent much of my young and middle adult years, trying to re-create in my paintings because it resonated so acutely with the way that I viewed the world. It’s raw, unflinching and honest. It’s also not afraid to be a public joke. That’s why it’s a masterpiece.

After Toulouse Lautrec’s death, the foreground portrait on the right of the under-lit English dancer May Milton was cut from the canvas along with the lower portion in hopes that it would make the painting, more accessible and palatable for prospective buyers.

Cropped version of At the Moulin Rouge before repair.

And this is what artists continually will have to contend with if they are creating honestly. The world isn’t always ready. They want to cut away those parts that might make them uncomfortable. We all do it. And in doing so, we risk giving away the most innovative and beautiful parts of ourselves. The parts that stand out and stand alone.

Eventually, the painting was carefully knit back together when the short-sighted gallerist found that Lautrec’s work was soaring in value.

And so it is with our own work. If we let our need for external approval outweigh the truth of what we are making, greatness heads for the nearest exit.

Lautrec was born into an old and wealthy family but suffered from a recessive genetic bone disease that made his legs unusually short. This misfortune was likely due to the aristocratic tendency toward “marrying well“ which often meant marrying each other, in order to keep the money in the family. With plenty of financial support, but living in a society scandalized by his deformity, Lautrec was an outcast.

He found his peers, and a modicum of acceptance in the artists, entertainers, brothels, and bars of Montmartre. It was here that the wealthy and destitute shared space, and even some of the same pleasure and pain.

When I see a Toulouse Lautrec painting I can see some of that pain coming through. He was often photographed dressed as a clown and would regularly make disparaging light of his stature and appearance. Maybe it was this pain that allowed him to paint with such honesty and detachment.

“I paint things as they are. I don’t comment. I record.” – Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

When we are inspired to paint. Remember that our inspiration is a gift. If we begin by second-guess and asking if that gift is OK instead of moving forward with excitement and gratitude, we risk homogenizing the richest parts of our work. So the next time you find yourself asking “Is this ugly?“

Leave room for the possibility.

“Yes, this is ugly, but it is beautiful too.“

Is it ugly or honest?

December 1, 2023/by Gabriel Lipper

Inspiration Fridays! Have you carved out time for your art?

Inspiration Fridays

Have you carved out time for your art?

When I travel, even for a family holiday, I always bring along a sketchbook. I’ve found it an incredible way to make it through the festivities unscathed. I love seeing family and friends, but sometimes I need a buffer. Pulling out the phone is tacky, but no one seems to mind my sketchbook.

“The journey not the arrival matters.” – T.S. Eliot

This time I managed to pop in into the Hipbone Art Studio in Portland OR. The studio has been running continuously as an uninstructed drop-in studio for Artists to draw and paint from life for 35 years. With as many as four modeling sessions a week, this place is incredible. This time, the model was Achillea, a professional, circus performer with cut, defined muscles, and beautiful acrobatic poses. Do you want to learn how to draw and paint the figure? Move to Portland.

(or take my online Learning To See course coming up in late February)

1.5, 5, &15 minute Sketches from my session at the Hipbone.

When we travel, it’s easy to put aside our dreams and passions. We are already traveling after all. The road doesn’t need to be an excuse though. Creating artwork in a new environment is always invigorating not to mention challenging. Scrounging up supplies, meeting new people, it can definitely drag us out of our comfort zone. The thing is, life is full of interruptions, and it’s important that we interrupt it back. Instead of creating a list of shoulds, have-tos, and I can’t yets, carve out some time in between your turkey and stuffing, and go make some art.

Do you bring your sketchbook when you travel?

How do you create during the holidays?

Have you carved out time for your art?

November 24, 2023/by Gabriel Lipper