Back to Being an Artist

My latest favorite painting .  I am getting pickier about my work.  I used to like/accept everything, but now I am  less accepting.  

This painting by Matisse was my inspiration.  

OK, I never really left being an artist, I just wasn't painting anything It is interesting how my eye was always looking for the art in everything while in Paris.  More so than usual.  And yet... I humbly admit, I still don't see everything the way that I'd like to. For example, I looked at the Metro station at Lamarck (near where I was living) and saw  nothing artistic.  Day after day, I walked to and from that "station" and saw nothing special.  Recently I saw a Facebook post by a young photographer( RL Photography)  who I have been following and she took this photograph of that station when she was in Paris recently.  

Totally charming, and yet I never saw it that way.  To me it was rather a dirty and ugly place.   I have a ways to go in the visualizing department.  

I dragged around my camera most days.  I took a couple thousand photos.  I like about four of them really well.  I really wanted to like a whole lot more, but there were always people in the way, or the weather was crummy, or the lighting was all wrong, or there were cars and busses in the way or, or. or.  

I am loving one photo that I took and today I blew it up into an 11 x 14" print on 13 x 19" Velvet paper.  I love its crispness and all the textures going on.