Originally from Northern England, Alan Norsworthy has been a photographer since the late 1960's.

He moved to Canada in 1973 and has made Guelph Ontario his home for the last 24 years.

" I remember visiting the CN Tower in the early 70's and the guide said that as far as you could see in any direction is the best farmland in Canada. That comment echoes down the years as I watch subdivisions eat up the landscape."

The area around Guelph offers up a plethora of rural images which Alan captures with his artistic vision. His work covers everything from macro photographs of flowers, sweeping landscapes, historic buildings and old abandoned farms in both colour and Black and White.

"This is where I find my inspiration, I have a need to show people the beauty I see as I walk the woods and fields of Southern Ontario"


Sunday, March 9, 2014

The One Minute Sketch


Yesterday I began a journey, a journey back.
Yesterday I had my 'first' lesson in watercolour painting.
Constance, my teacher, a very accomplished watercolourist in her own right has been cajoling me, poking me with a metaphoric stick and pushing me towards this day. 
Yesterday I gave in ...

But I had been preparing, recently my friend Patrick loaned me yet another book:
Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland..
In that book I saw myself:

You see in 1994 'the pen ran dry' and I put away my brushes, paints, paper and all the accouterments of my art. 
I quit, or did I stop ?
" Quitting is fundamentally different from stopping. The latter happens all the time.
Quitting happens once. Quitting means never starting again-and art is all about starting again"
So, I stopped, for 20 years. Now it's time to start again.

But oh its hard and it's frustrating. I look back at what I did and I look at what I do now and wonder,
Why? 
Will I ever be able to paint and draw again? 
Can I get back that which is lost?

Again words come " you are as good today as you can be"  that is not as good as I once was .... but tomorrow will be different, "tomorrow I will be as good as I can be tomorrow."
"An artist's career always begins tomorrow".  ~James McNeill Whistler

p.s To some, the one minute sketch may look like a scribbled mess but to me I see life, 
to me I see the essence of a person, 
to me I see a beginning..

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