Memory, John Carlson and skies

14 x14 pastel on paper (not sure which)

Ah...my memory quest continues.  I used no cameras, photos, or plein air...just my memory of this place out by Needwood Lake. This time I think I created the glow between land and sun..that air the makes me say 'ahhhhhhhh" The reasons I paint..           
The upper sky maybe needs work.

Now for a little more Carlson.
A great deal of knowledge must be acquired through direct observation before the memory can function unhampered.  There would be no sense in advising a beginner to work from memory, when he is still struggling to master his means.
"It is the difficulty with which sublime things are achieved, that accounts for the rarity of them," says Spinoza. A thing that anyone could do without trying is a horrible nightmare to those creatively gifted. Fun lies in the trying. In the trying we are learning all about the means. Without knowing it, we are even developing our own particular style- one that will forever stamp us as individuals, aside from any expressive idiosyncrasies or choices we may develop. 
As we progress, our work becomes more intensely absorbing. We almost live in a world apart. In memory work we relive our experiences and the effect they produced on us.  We enthusiastically endeavor to put on canvas what we saw and felt, and in this way also unconsciously employ an original handling. The mind is dealing more with expression of thought than with the clever application of paint and we now enter into the realm of true art.

Don't you LOVE reading Carlson??????