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By John J. Trippel For this period of life, my artwork is a work of the frozen moment. It wasn't always done this way. I used to work strictly from my imaginary characters and I would build up a scene to create a narrative moment of absurd caricatures in an imaginary place. It was a work of fiction but that has changed. Today and for the last year or so, I have been working from life depicting true places and trying to capture the feel and sights of real locations. All my paintings lately have had themes such as depicting local convenient stores or working and reworking a favorite coffee shop of mine. But the point is that I have switched to working on life as it really presents itself. From what I have learned, this often happens to authors and other creative, expressive people. We often change after reaching mid-life. These changes can range from a complete turning away from a younger rebellious style to a more moderate one or just becoming less of a radical person in a creative endeavor to becoming a little calmer in work and themes. I am trying to keep my interest in painting going so I have turned to working from life, which I find to be a good challenge for me. I sometimes have worked from my experiences in life as I did in "Over the Top". It's a stretch to render scenes and memories of my life's experiences and places of importance for that matter, when I was such an imaginative person. Many of my friends have uttered a fear of my giving up on making my caricature paintings, but I am not giving up painting. I only need to change what I am painting in order to keep my interest in doing it on a regular basis. I can always change back again, and I don't mean to say there was anything wrong with what style I was doing. Those paintings still stand with their biting criticism of people and lampooning of places, people and events as simple as waiting for the bus, but I do enjoy working more from life because it's something I haven't really done much of in my lifetime. I guess it comes down to doing something different in order to keep it interesting for me. And we'll see what happens when it happens. I'm keeping my options open, but for now, I want to discipline my hand/eye coordination for a little while. It's a learning process. |