Suggested Further Readings and Related Materials

How-To Books • The View from the Studio Door: How Artists Find Their Way in an Uncertain World • Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Watercolor Ted Orland Marian Appellof, editor Image Contiuum Press, Santa Cruz, CA & Eugene, OR 2006 Watson Guptill Publi ca tions, NY 1992 isbn# 978-0961454753 isbn# 978-0823056491 • The School of • The Art Spirit Abstract Expres sion ism Robert Henri, compiled by Margery A. Ryerson Icon Editions, Harper & Row Publishers, 1923 University of Press isbn# 978-0064301381 (pbk) Berkeley & Los Angeles, CA 1996 • Finding your Visual Voice isbn# 978-0520086111 (pbk) Dakota Mitchell with Lee Haroun • The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell Northlight Books, Cincinnati, OH 2007 Stephanie Terenzio, editor isbn# 978-1581808070 Oxford University Press, 1992 • Watercolor Bold and Free isbn# 978-0520221796 Lawrence C. Goldsmith • The Society of Six: California Colorists Watson-Guptill Publications, 2000 Nancy Boas isbn# 978-0823056637 Press 1997 • Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about isbn# 978-0520210554 (pbk) Oil Painting • The Last Flowers of Manet Marian Appellof, editor Robert Gordon and Andrew Forge Watson Guptill Publications, NY 1993 Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, NY 1986 isbn# 978-0823016068 isbn# 978-0810981645 • Conversations in Paint: A Notebook of • Elmer Bischoff: The Ethics of Paint Funda men tals Susan Landauer, with introduction by Bill Berkson Charles Dunn University of California Press, 2001 Workman Publishing, NY 1995 isbn# 978-0520230422 isbn# 978-1563056642 • Bay Area Figuerative Art, 1950-1965 • Celebrate your Creative Self Caroline A. Jones Mary Todd Beam San Francisco Museum of Modern Art North Light Books, Cinncinati, OH 2001 University of Cali for nia Press, 1989 isbn# 978-1581801026 isbn# 978-0520068421 • Interpreting the Figure in Watercolor • The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life Don Andrews Twyla Tharp Watson-Guptill Publications, NY 1996 Simon & Shuster, NY 2003 isbn# 978-0965555906 (pbk) isbn# 978-0743235273 • Powercolor – Master Color Concepts for all Media • The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Mythos Books) Caroline Jasper Joseph Campbell Watson-Guptill Publications, NY 2005 Princeton University Press (reprinted 1972) isbn# 978-0823042609 isbn# 978-0691017846 (pbk) Bob’s Library of Favorites (for now) • Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation • If You Want to Write Joseph Campbell and David Kudler Brenda Ueland New World Library, 2004 Graywolf Press, 10th Edition, 1997 isbn# 978-1577314714 isbn# 978-1555972608 • The Mythic Image • Art & Fear Joseph Campbell David Bayles & Ted Orland Princetown University Press, NJ 1981 Image Con tin u um Press, Santa Cruz, CA 1993 isbn# 978-0691018393 isbn# 978-0961454739 Creative Bobisms…

• You cannot wait until you get better. Do the best • When you mimic another’s work, you won’t need you can now, today. And you will get better at what to accept the “blame” if it doesn’t work out. you want to create. • Also, some artists copy another’s work because • I’m not good at a lot of things but it never stopped they know HOW to mimic. But they will never me from doing my best work. know WHY the artist does what they do. i.e. They • I practice warm-up painting exercises daily. can mimic but they can’t create. Before working on large formats, I paint several • To do great work, don’t try to paint a good paint- small “what if” paintings to teach myself about ing. But instead, paint a painting to show how painting. interesting a painting can look to you. • Good work habits and daily painting routines will • In painting a new series, it’s less about where lead you to your next best work. we stand as an artist… but more about in what • Right now, you are the best of who you are. Your direction we are moving. work will not get better by itself… And you are • When your painting starts to speak to you, don’t the closest person to your next best work. interrupt. • Remove the concept of “fear of failure” and the • Don’t let others limit you because THEY can’t concept of “fear of success” from the creative imagine doing it themselves. process. Add instead, “what if” to your creative • Ask yourself, “What sort of painting would I make self – I’m more interested in what I don’t know if I knew it would be great?” than what I know I can do. • Talent is only ONE ingredient in painting. Love of • Passion is more conducive to a creative result painting, insatiable curiosity, plus not striving for than tech nique. perfection are a few more ingredients. • You get more creative by doing more creative • When considering our world news and its current works, not less works. condition, today’s painter, when compared to a • My biggest creative breakthroughs arrive unan - top sports fi gure, I say, “This is no time for the nounced during my non-logical, unfath omable starters to be on the bench.” Painters – go out thinking process. there and paint! • While I am doing my work, I am aware of the fact • Failure is a good reference resource – it shows that there are 1000s of other artists right now in you the outer edge of your current capabilities. their own studios going through the same mind- • Look at your painting. What were your inten tions? chatter and fears that I’m going through. Simply, Was the pleasure of your painting experience ap- artists learn how to proceed, or they don’t. parent in the result? • Believing you are creative is 50% of the creative • The question is not… what is life? The question process. is… what is your experience of living? • You are an artist. And you’ve always been an art- ist. So now it’s time again for you to start painting like an artist. • It’s never too late to be what you might have been. • If we all did the things we were capable of doing, we would, literally, astound ourselves. Anyone who doesn’t change his mind doesn’t have one. Robert Burridge • If you have to ask the question, the answer is ©2007 Robert Burridge always YES. RobertBurridge.com