Art of Don DeLeva

Counting social media "likes" is a fruitless and harmful habit if  you endeavor to create from the Heart.

Sometimes it feels like you are the only one around. Congratulations your in the lead. Artist Diego Velázquez Year 1652–1653 Medium Oil on canvas Dimensions 127 cm × 98.5 cm (50 in × 38.8 in) Location Kunsthistorisches Museum , Vienna Artist: Velázquez (Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez) (Spanish, Seville 1599–1660 Madrid) Date: 1651–54 Medium: Oil on canvas Dimensions: Overall 13 1/2 x 15 3/4 in. (34.3 x 40 cm); original painted surface 12 7/8 x 15 1/8 in. (32.7 x 38.4 cm)

Creating without a story? Is there a such thing? Everything made seems to have a story with it, a shovel has a story of purpose. A story has the purpose of a story with a lesson or entertainment. Even rocks seem to have a story of history and ingredients attached to them. Finding the story in what it is you are creating will help you to recognize when the work is finished. 

It is hard to see how your art really looks in reality. First you have to know the difference between delusion and what it real. Then you have to let your body do what it wants to do and find a common ground between muscles and brain. You can honestly feel when the mind is controlling the body too much, its subtle but you can feel it.

Creating everyday, convinces the critique that they might be underestimating the importance of your gift. the Curly Brace, drawing, 4x6 graphite   

It is hard to differentiate between what you think you are saying and what you are really saying. I have found the less I try to explain the people who interested always seem to ask more questions. 

People often ask what does this painting mean? If you answer definitively, you will lose their opportunity to interpret the work for themselves. If you ask what their interpretation is, they will ask you the question once again. This is because the do not want to have the wrong answer. How can they be wrong when there is no wrong answer... unless you made one?    

As you walk on your path through your real life adventure realize you have 5 scenes. Should you lose your way of seeing the path realize you can feel your way down the path. Should you lose your seeing and feeling you can follow your hearing and smell. The path doesn't disappear we only have to try using a different scenes to find it's direction.

It is hard to see the path you are on. However there are roads that are less traveled and they are just as adventurous and war torn.

Without passing on the billions of opportunities to do things I wanted to I could never have been able to accept the challenges of 50 opportunities I lusted after.  Angle of Psychosis: Oil on panel, 1915 24x32

As to the saying "practice something for over 10,000-hours and you will be at a world class level ." Maybe... But it seems to me that 10,000 hours of practice makes you a world class practitioner of your field. Why not talk off your watch and feel what the master feels instead of the student. Huxley's Dream: Acrylic and composition leaf on panel, 6"x 12", 2017

 Using abstraction can either confuse and lose a viewer or get them to ask themselves "How do I look at this painting and what is it saying to me?". Empower your audience, give them the opportunity to think and create their own reality. Bison Kachina: Acrylic on wood, 6/15/19, 4" x 6"      

Ideas and their fruition take time. Just like trees you have to water them, prune them and nurture them. Once they are created make the effort to finish them otherwise they will always be unfinished.

Listening to advice is tricky. You really are the only one that knows the answer for sure. For a long time people told me my paintings unfinished. They sure felt finished to me. Heavily sanded out images suggested abstracted human portraits coming out of white noise static. I still did not share their view of what they felt was missing. Then one day it struck me, I am not an illustrator. I never wanted to tell the viewer what to look at and explain it in detail so as to steel their personal interpretation. Mystery is fragile, so is the mystery of own personal world.

You can tell when you are creating from a place of deliberate intent. A voice comes into your head and starts to dictate the evolution of the outcome you are predicting. Make a curved line, now make a second curved line that connects both lines at each end. Now make a dot in the middle. There, your eye is completed. When you create from a place of no intent time disappears with seemingly no evolution of creativity. Meaning there is no going through dictated steps to creating you just happen to find the image that already exists. City Night: Acrylic paint on Masonite 2017 

The color you see in your work is not the light your photo your takes. The focus you see in the viewfinder is not the view the camera captures. Making sure what you think you see can not be denied is your job as the artist. WIP sketch one: acrylic on wood, 

The mix of thought, feeling, physical skill, mood, physics and memory rarely come out literally, even in the 10,000th hour of painting. By this time you will have made some sort of compromise and agreement with them all. This is called your style.

Don't worry about over working a painting. It is the only way of knowing when you should have stopped.

My images are vary fragile and I loose them quite often by over painting. Some times I get to a place were I feel have to make a decision. In one hand I feel the work is not done. In the other hand I feel that no one will know the difference if it is complete or not so I can stop. But if it is calling to me for more work then loosing the image is a risk I am willing to take in order to create something that looks fresh and still being created.

Sometimes when my conversation with a painting gets to be too literal I use sand paper as a way of showing just a glimpse of a message. It's like not understanding what someone said or not hearing the complete story. You invest yourself in the paining by assuming and inventing the details you didn't hear or were generalized by the story teller. I Feel Shine : acrylic on wood 7"x8" 04//06//2017

For me looking at written words is intimidating.  I literally see them as a tiny, extremely abstract shapes of larger shapes, like scraggles of hair or loose foam clumps with abstract specific meanings and context. I speak with images,  shapes and color that get their context form intuition and self knowledge.  Untie the connection between seeing and the accepted definitions of what you are looking at. Rich The Snippet: Drawing, graphite on 100% rag paper. 8.5.2019 BAI  Feel the image, explain  it like you can't see.   

i am really just an art history geek. Who wanted to make a contribution to the world of art. My goal was honesty. i honestly believe studying the past has been a hindrance and a path forward in finding a voice. It lead me to realize that everything i create uses my voice because i can't be anything other then my own delusions.  Don Deleva, Rossetta Threshold To The Past , 2014 acrylic on panel. collection of  David DeSilva 

Portraits of people in their cyber self image. This is a drawing called Starlet Your Hard . It is 5x7 on rag paper. This portrait is about how a synthetic ego solidifies once a person starts to gain a social identity and how the branding process helps them to build a person of who they think they are online which then is supported by social media. Born from ones and Zeros,  purchased at MoNA, Museum of Northwest Art, Laconnor Wa. 2019 art acution. This painting is about a person beginning to teach themselves programming and how to create a persona online.