Hi, welcome back!

I realized that most people never get to see what’s under the oil painting so I thought that I’d give you a quick peek, as it’s progressing.  As you can see, it starts with a charcoal drawing. Why charcoal?  Because it leaves a strong line that’s not too black. And it’s a medium that’s easy to shape.  It responds to subtle pressure, unlike a Sharpie pen.  It’s also a medium that doesn’t bleed through to the surface of the oil painting, like graphite can, if you used a pencil.

In its rawest form painting is a bit like cooking.  The ingredients are shapes, lines, masses of color layered over other masses of color.  And you have to assemble these ingredients in a certain order.  You can’t put the cherry on top of the cake before you’ve mixed the batter.  And each element is adjusted relative to how it exists in context to the whole image.

How do I decide what to do next or in what sequence?  The best analogy that I can offer here is that it’s a bit like dancing.  You have to learn the steps to a particular dance and master your technique.  It helps to be physically fit and have some rhythm.  It’s not good if you just can’t hear the beat.  After that you just feel it.  You follow the beat.  There’s really not that much thinking involved.  As a matter of fact, when I’m thinking or tensing, I step back or I leave the painting for days at a time and return with a fresh perspective.  Then I can really see it.

This month, January, marks my fifth year in business, my decision to paint full time.  What inspired me to do this?  A number of things led me down this extraordinary path.  But if I had to name a single person who inspired me to make this decision, it was a coworker I met when I was suffering from anxiety and working as a corporate consultant, her name was Angela.

Angela and I worked together on the same very politically charged government account as project management consultants.  When I think about it, I can’t even believe that I forced myself to work each day.  I found the work so incredibly boring and the management was dreadful.

Angela and I worked with a young, insecure, and power hungry consultant from New York. We were quite sure that she was sleeping with the boss. Ick!  And so we’d break the tension by laughing and making jokes.

Angela was one month older than me and she was recovering from stage four breast cancer treatments.  Her black hair framed her attractive face in a short-cropped curl.  I always wanted curly hair.  She told me that hers used to be straight too but that it was very common when women lost their hair from chemotherapy for it to grow back in curly.  This made me pause and I became thankful for my hair just the way it was.

Angela and I both were both deeply dissatisfied with our jobs.  I wanted to paint and I learned that Angela always wanted to be an interior designer. Unbeknownst to Angela, I looked at her one-day and thought, “why the hell don’t we just do it, why are we staying here?”

Angela and I moved on to different project management gigs. Hers to Hawaii and mine to San Francisco where I had an episode with a self proclaimed born again Christian manager.  One day he actually cornered me into my v-shaped cubicle at PG&E.  I woke up the next morning with a different resolve.

I could not again drive for 45 minutes, park, wait for the ferry, and sail into the financial district for yet another hour, one more day, not one more day of my remaining life.  I decided to quit, to find a way to paint, to live the life I was given, and to develop the talent that Wayne Thiebaud himself recognized.

I’m blessed to have another year ahead and I’m going to make it the very best that I can.  And I look forward to dedicating my first book to Angela.

Artist Ann Rea

A current large-scale private commission of the Mondavi Continuum vineyard is entering my next creative phase.  Over twenty field studies sit drying on the racks in my private San Francisco beach studio in The Presidio of San Francisco, an hour and a half away from their original inspiration.

Occasionally I do a wet test by gently touching the thickest paint on the most recently painted study.  If oil paint comes off on my finger then I know this painting is not ready to move.  It won’t actually be completely dry for about a year but I can transport them about 30 days after I paint them.  My fine art photographer just cringes when I deliver wet paintings to him so I’ll have to wait. But like always, I’m in a hurry to get to the next phase.

These field studies, measuring 16”x20”, will be photographed and then made available for sale on annrea.com.  I’ll offer my patron who commissioned the series the first opportunity to acquire these works, along with preliminary charcoal sketches that where created to compose the field studies. Then this newest series will be announced to all of my collectors.

Once these works have been photographed, I can edit and examine them from a different perspective and better select the field study that will serve as the basis for the larger and final 30”x 40” canvas.  This large canvas allows me to further evolve and explore the image I created in the vineyard, refining the color, composition, and proportions.

“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” I don’t know who originally said it maybe it was David Byrne of the “Talking Heads” or Frank Zappa, but I love the quote because I think it reflects common conversations had about art and wine.

And so what do art and wine have to do with one another?  In a literal sense, nothing really. But each can create a sensory and sensual experience and the wine maker and the artist share the enviable characteristic of passion.  And even though the market doesn’t need any more painters or winemakers we’ll always need art and wine that inspires.

A few months ago I attended a music and wine pairing sponsored by Rubicon Estate and the San Francisco Luxury Marketing Council. The winemaker paired each wine with a different piano solo.  This creative approach made the tasting so much more enjoyable and the wine that much more accessible.
I thought about why that was.  And I think it’s because people simply paused long enough to get in touch with their senses and perception and to just trust their preferences.
I met a sommelier who appreciated and insightfully discussed my paintings. It came as no surprise to me that he was a former music critic.
I’m very interested in this concept of creating a starting point of conversation.  Of opening up perception by tuning in to more sensory channels.
If you’re a wine writer and or sommelier interested in creating art and wine pairing at local events and or writing about the experience, please contact me to collaborate.

Artist Ann Rea

When I paint, in order to paint well, I have to be completely present. It’s very similar to practicing meditation except I’m moving. Focused only on my visual perception I’m scanning and comparing shapes, values, and the colors shaped by light in front of me.

People ask if they can watch me paint. It’s like asking if you can watch me pray.  No.  It’s not a performance. Although I will admit that I have performed for the camera, kind of like a cooking show.  The producer of NBC’s “In Wine Country” wanted me to paint an entire painting while be filmed, and interviewed, and adjusted, and during taking several stop and start takes.  “Are you kidding?  Sorry, I’m just not that talented.” I replied.

What I did do was create the same image in three stages of development.  During the first takes I whipped out the charcoal sketched canvas, the next takes I took out the half done piece, and then I left the final strokes of the most finished piece.  It looks like I did it all in one take.  But really I’ll paint several field studies and then I’ll edit them.  If they don’t make the cut they’re destroyed.

I’m painting this week in my studio, sketching and trying out new painting techniques and approaches.  I have to block out this sustained time to develop work.  There are very few emails or phone conversations.  I always feel more centered after I completed a painting that I’m satisfied with.  That’s the best word I can use to describe what it’s like being in the zone when I’m painting, centered and relaxed.

When is the book coming out?

I’m working on it!  Soon.  Very soon.
 My book was actually born out of an abandoned book project.  I completed over 100 paintings of Sonoma vineyards that were to be featured in a book for a major winery, a very BIG winery, maybe even the biggest. Wink. Wink.

It sure seemed like a wonderful opportunity at the start.  I even met with a top editor at Chronicle Books.  We had lunch, twice. But like with so many corporate sponsored projects, the priorities revolve.  I was handed to one brand manager and then another, and then I could hear the sound of crickets chirping.  They didn’t care about art, they cared about their reviews and the politics that threaten what little job security they have.  Can’t say I blame them.  The project lost momentum. Then it was just plain deserted.  Leaving me, holding the bag.

Based on the enthusiastic response to my work and continuous national media attention fueled by word of mouth I decided to redirect my creative energy.  I was still determined to create a book, one that I could control, one that I would be proud of, and one that would not be tainted with a tired marketing message from a major winery.

So I decided to take my lemons and make some damn lemonade, and the idea of “Colors of Terroir, and artist’s tour of Sonoma” was born.

Last year I was commissioned as a surprise birthday present to paint Bob Proctor’s garden, host of the move “The Secret” and author of “You Where Born Rich”.  I was flown to Toronto and hung out with the man who appears on “Larry King” and who coaches Ellen DeGeneres.  And while I was there he coached me a bit.  Through Bob I met very notable authors, including Mark Victor Hansen co-author of “Chicken Soup for the Soul Series” and Peggy Mc Coll author of “Your Destiny Switch”.  Last year Jonathan Fields profiled my business in his book “Career Renegade” published by Random House.  These authors, along my friend Leslie Harrington, an amazing book designer and art director in London, convinced me that the very best path to take was the rapidly evolving and exploding path of self-publishing.  Traditional publishing is in fact withering.  So really, it all turned out for the best.
The content for the book is now complete.  The layout and editing is underway. And this is my book.  Nobody’s book but mine.

Now I’m beginning the sequel, “Colors of Terroir, and artist’s tour of Napa.”  This book will feature the privately commissioned paintings I create in and of Napa, no more corporate involvement.  I already have two patrons whose paintings will be featured in this book.  Now I’m looking for the rest.  So if you own a Napa vineyard, or you simply enjoy wine from a Napa vineyard, and you would like to commission a painting, and help sponsor this project, I’m currently accepting applications for 2010.

Giving Thanks

I’m so thankful that my list of collectors is growing because of referrals from other enthusiastic collectors.

It’s time to review my business plan, particularly my marketing plan.  I’ve committed to doing this annually. I keep track of how I receive business and an overwhelming and increasing amount of my business is coming through referrals. My list of collectors is growing because of referrals from other enthusiastic collectors.  And several referrals are coming from people who are not yet collectors.

This of course is the very best, the absolutely the most enjoyable way to receive business. And who wouldn’t like more?  So I thought about how I could encourage referrals and yet demonstrate my sincere appreciation for referrals I do receive.

So as a gesture of sincere appreciation for referrals I decided that I would like to offer 10% credits.

Each time someone refers a new collector who purchases an original work of art that someone will receive a 10% credit towards his or her acquisition of an original work art.  So if someone buys an original painting for $3000, the person who refers him or her receives a $300 credit towards an acquisition of an original painting.

To make it easy, there’s actually a referral link on each detail page that says, “Love this? Send this to your friends.”

I also decided that if I wanted unlimited referrals that I would make the credits unlimited.

I can’t offer this forever, so I’ve decided it to offer it until the end of 2009.

People often ask me, “Why do painters squint?”  They squint, or I squint, to simplify what I’m seeing.  When you squint down you’ll notice that most detail disappears.  When these details disappear I can focus my attention on breaking down what I’m observing into a few simple and coherent shapes.

Squinting is not helpful in determining the color I perceive.  I have to keep my eyes open and relaxed, not fixated or staring, when I want to observe color. Colors darken when you squint.  Give it a try.

Simplification of what I’m seeing is necessary before I can translate my observations into a number of related shapes and forms.  These forms are what I’ll render on canvas.  Not the tree, the road, the sky, or things or ideas but forms.  I’ll pay particular attention to edge of the forms too.

Squinting at my subject allows me to reduce details to simple patterns that I can manage.  That’s what I’m doing.  I’m simplifying what I see to it’s essential essence of form and light.  Light shapes a form in space.

I never squint at my canvas.  I will work on it and back up from it several times during a painting session.  This allows me to see the “big picture”.  I can see the canvas from various distances as its developing and I can see my work in relationship to my subject.

Fortune magazine, May 14, 2007

Who’s your PR agent?

I get asked this.  The answer is, I don’t have one.  I’ve been very fortunate to receive local and national press recognition since I started my business (painting full time).
I’m so appreciative that I continue to be featured in the national media, most recently on “Fine Living” and in “The Wine Enthusiast“, “The Tasting Panel”, “Practical Winery and Vineyard Management” and “Fortune” magazines.  This year my blue ocean business strategy was profiled in “Career Renegade” by Jonathan Fields, published by Random House, a great book and a great guy.
And watch for me on NBC’s “In Wine Country” this season!
Why?  I think there’s two reasons.  It’s not because I know how to write a press release or that I have a publicist or PR agent.  I hold the intention that I will receive favorable press; call it a goal, law of attraction, or mindset.  And when I’m interviewed I just tell the truth, I just tell my story.
Two weeks ago I received a call from a gentleman in San Francisco who said,  “You don’t know me but I read your article in Fortune magazine.  I saved it and now I would like to commission you to paint my vineyard as a surprise anniversary present for my wife.”  I love being part of these surprise plots.  The article was entitled “The Practical Painter” and it was published on May 14, 2007.
It was a collector in Chicago who recommended me for the story, Carol, a real estate attorney.  I received an email from the Fortune writer, Anne Fisher, letting me know that she loved my work and my story but that she had one “iron clad” qualifying question, was I over 50?  The answer was and is no.  She said that her editor was requiring this because of their readership’s demographic.   She had to pass.  I wrote her right back and I politely insisted that she should do the story and that she should ask her editor again.  Twenty minutes later she wrote me back to say that they had “changed the iron clad rule.”
I’m my own agent.

Maybe it’s helpful that I don’t know the rules?

Read the “Practical Painter, Drinking it All In.”

"Vacant" Ann Rea, oil on canvas (sold)

When a collector acquires my work I always like to ask them how my paintings make them feel.  Because that’s why we acquire art, because of the way it makes us feel. It’s the same reason that we listen to music, because of the way it makes us feel, makes us move.

The universal response that I receive from my collectors is that my work makes them feel happy, yet calm.   It’s really rewarding for me to know that my work is having a positive effect on another person.  I used to feel very differently but suffering can inspire beauty and creativity.

I actually didn’t paint or draw anything for over seven years.  I was fighting my own artistic self. I believed that it wasn’t practical to pursue a creative career and I longed for stability and comfort that I didn’t believe I could have as a creative.  I swallowed negative ideas and stereotypes that stifled my creativity.  Those years were filled with lots of sadness and anxiety. In fact, I developed severe anxiety that included immobilizing panic attacks.

In it’s simplest definition, I characterize depression as a preoccupation with the past and anxiety as chronic concern about the future.

What does this have to do with my paintings?  Everything.  No amount of pharmaceutical or therapeutic intervention was curing my condition.  So when I decided to paint again it was with whole new purpose, I decided to use my painting as art therapy, it was a last ditch therapeutic measure.

With no intention of selling or even showing my work, I began to paint again as an active meditation to calm my mind, a means to alleviate my anxiety.  My artistic focus was light as it is expressed as color, my goal to capture the still beauty of color. The objects of my focus were contemporary still life and then plein air landscapes.  Hence my tag line “savor the colors of a moment.”