Keiko Tanabe - Blog: My Musings

Jurying an Art Show

5/9/2017 10:43:47 PM

(Photo courtesy of the Northwest Watercolor Society, in their 77th International Open Exhibition that I recently had the honor of judging) "We don't meet people by accident. They are meant to cross our path for a reason." - Unknown. I was sure meeting with Lin Holzinger was one of those encounters. Lin is a writer and an artist who publishes articles on San Diego-based artists on her website Art Trails San Diego. A couple of months ago, she and I crossed our paths in an art gallery where I was working as a juror of a watercolor exhibition. Jurying an art show can [...]

Plein Air or Studio?

4/2/2017 9:26:09 AM

"Everything that is painted directly and on the spot has always a strength, a power, a vivacity of touch which one cannot recover in the studio... three strokes of a brush in front of nature are worth more than two days of work at the easel." - Eugene Boudin When I became a full-time painter back in 2005, there was no question in my mind that landscapes must be painted directly from nature. I had no one telling me to do this but I started painting outside once or twice a week in the same year. With very little experience and almost [...]

Play to Fuel Creativity

2/24/2017 10:14:43 AM

"Serious play is not an oxymoron; it is the essence of innovation." - Michael Schrage My cell phone gets recharged every day but me? I have been neglecting myself a little too long, so when my Mexican friends got me out of my daily routine, which has been pretty grueling these months, to stay at a lovely seaside villa of one of them, I felt like a bird out of a cage. Days of enjoying being with friends, eating, laughing, dancing, feeling the sun and ocean breeze, doing whatever we wanted to do (in my case, it was plein air painting & soaking [...]

Too Sensitive? Yes, That's A Good Thing!

1/24/2017 11:53:10 PM

Dear artists, have you ever been told that you are too sensitive? How about "Lighten up," "Don't take it too seriously," or "Oh, you're overreacting"? When this happens in a daily conversation, how do you feel? If you feel hurt, you're not alone. I have been told all these on a number of occasions. Even a seemingly innocent, lighthearted remark such as "Just kidding" is not really innocent because whoever said it knows that they said something not so kind, rude or hurtful to you. That's why they have to say it to try to make you believe what they said [...]

Listen to Your Muse

1/2/2017 12:01:11 PM

Happy New Year! When the champagne glasses were empty and the confetti settled, I wanted whatever I'd do right after the year-end countdown to be representative of what I determine to work on to improve in the new year. So I went to my newly set-up studio and painted. A bit bleary-eyed, I just wanted to play and throw some painting ideas around that I had for some time but my brain (or the champagne?) was saying, it's a new year, a new beginning, so why not use some new colors, new brushes and new methods to do some crazy stuff. There was [...]

Stop and Think Why

7/17/2016 3:33:00 PM

Of all the choices we could make in our lives, we painters choose to spend a lot of time painting. There's got to be a very strong reason why we make that choice if time is indeed money. Of course before anything, there is or would have to be innate passion about the act of painting. That cannot be taught or forced upon because that being non-existence wouldn't most likely sustain us for a long time. For most of us, it's really that passion, not the aspect of it being a task, that keeps motivating or driving us. So let's make [...]

Dive into the Unknown

6/16/2016 11:17:53 AM

I have been a traveler most of my life, much longer than I have been a painter. A recent talk with a friend got me wonder how travel has been impacting my creativity now that I can call both painting and traveling my passions. Whether you are a fearless, adventurous type or prefer a more organized group tour, travel is all about getting out of routine to explore and discover the unknown. It usually rewards you with amazing experiences that enrich your life and makes you appreciate what you have in your life. When I travel, I am not keen on [...]

How to Get Out of A Rut

4/10/2016 12:11:26 AM

The artist's growth is not always upwards. Sometimes it feels like you can keep going up but sometimes you feel stuck or think you're moving in a wrong direction. As with any journey, the artist's journey has ups and downs and that's normal. I have accepted this fact now but in my earlier days as a painter, I did not understand this cycle of ups and downs or know how to cope especially with not-so-good times, which sometimes lasted so long. Some artists call down times an artist block when they experience a creative drought. They stop creating or cannot create. I [...]

I Didn't Choose Art

2/27/2016 1:36:48 AM

"So how did you become an artist?" - Almost everywhere I go, people ask me this question. Most of them seem to already know that I never attended art school and was establishing myself professionally in a totally different field. But in 2005 I quit my job in marketing to paint full-time and thus the question. Perhaps people find my career change interesting or even strange that I never studied art formally or never worked in the creative field before that. In response I usually tell them my story with a few anecdotes. However, in my mind there's an answer to [...]

London Calling - Making Art is Therapeutic -

11/25/2015 1:31:56 PM

After generations, London Calling (1979), a hit song by the UK punk rock band Clash, is still iconic of London. We still enjoy this song maybe without thinking too much of what the words really mean. I was a bit surprised to find out, however, when I read its lyrics because they actually portray a pretty gloomy state of their troubled times back then, and speak about their anxiety of the world going to pieces. When people stop and think about the words, it still sends us a message after decades. Perhaps that is what the songwriter intended. We often hear creative [...]

Just Paint for the Sake of Painting

10/28/2015 5:00:05 PM

The pure joy of painting - Isn't that the reason why we (painters) decide to paint in the first place? Without a doubt my artistic journey started this way. Then we may continue as our brain tells us that this is an activity worth spending our time with for the reward we get in return. To me the ultimate reward comes in the form of a joy of creating and expressing my voice visually. I believe that this is true with most painters, professionals and amateurs alike. It is this joy that motivates us to do more. It is simply [...]

Travel with a Sketchbook

9/8/2015 2:43:52 AM

I used to take a lot of photos when I traveled. Mostly for keeping memories but I also thought some day I would use these photos to make paintings from. Well, some got used for that purpose, but the reality is, when there were too many, most didn’t even get looked at… buried somewhere on my computer. Plus back in my studio after a trip I found it difficult to feel just as inspired as I did when I took the photo. Luckily I discovered the joy of plein-air painting early on and have been doing it almost from the beginning as [...]

Vienna III, Austrian Landscape Painting

9/21/2012 5:22:09 AM

If I was asked what would be the single most important quality in a painting for me, I would say a good design. Without it, the chance of producing a good painting would be very slim. But again, a good painting to one person may not be so to another. Beauty does lie in the eye of the beholder. That said, most of us intuitively agree on what constitutes a good design simply because we know it when something feels "right." I never studied the art of design formerly. So when I started painting, I knew nothing about principles and rules such [...]

Winged Victory

2/29/2012 1:22:14 AM

Often I get comments on the color of my signature. Ever since I started painting in watercolor, I've been using the same color to sign my painting that is fresh off the easel: turquoise. Why did I choose this color? It's my favorite, of course, but then again there are a few other colors that I've equally liked such as lavender and a few other shades of blue. To tell the truth, the decision was more intuitive than a well-thought-out one, but even on a unconscious level, I knew this color would most effectively reflect who I am. So what does the [...]