Dare to Paint

I don't know how artists who paint commissions for a living do it, how they paint 'on demand,' so to speak.

It was all I could do to paint A Kind of Knowledge for Sylvia with the explicit target of pairing the colors with a particular book cover. Just that little bit of constraint and expectation—and, at that, only my own expectation—was plenty challenging.

Much less fraught for me is to paint purely from within and then wait to see what book or collector comes along to partner with what I've created.

I'm astonished and humbled by how much time and how many layers it took to get this little piece of real estate to a place where my gut said, Yup, done. So many misfires en route as I tried this and that. It's a wonder I dare to paint!

And yet, of course I dare to paint—so much engagement, so much to learn, so many captivating visual problems to resolve even when they're of my own making, so much life force wanting expression.

Cussing and Praying Are Not Mutually Exclusive
1.5 x 6"; acrylic, India ink, collage, and oil pastel on watercolor paper
abstract bookmark
2018
[sold]

Talking Nonstop Over Lunch

One of the ways long-time friend and fellow artist Sylvia and I try to close the 1000-mile gap between our homes is through books. One of us orders a book to give the other on a birthday or holiday and purchases a second copy for herself so as to have a shared reading experience. To have a book we could talk about at work over lunch if we still worked at the same place and still had lunch together every day, a luxury we have sorely missed for 37 years now.

I ordered us copies of Brené Brown's newest book, Dare to Lead, to honor Sylvia's birthday this month. Because her birthday will take place a couple of weeks before the book will be released, I wanted to also send something that would arrive at birthday time.

A bookmark, you suggest? Handpainted?

Awesome idea!

The challenge: painting a bookmark to pair up visually with the book, with only online images from which to work for color matching.

A Kind of Knowledge Beyond Any Way of Knowing 1.5x6"; acrylic, ink, collage, and oil pastel on watercolor paper abstract bookmark 2018 [gift]

I Could Have

I've taken the first bookmark of my series-in-progress and I've started developing it.

Perhaps I could have stopped right here, with these bits of print collage and nuances of paint added.

bookmark in progress

But, as those of you who know me might guess, I did not.

Wandering Down a Trail

Off on a new path today.

Same bookmark arboretum as previously, perhaps, but a different trail, with blazes of a different color.

So content to be following my muse and my paint brush.

started by journaling on a piece of watercolor paper

used a brayer and titan buff

added print collage;
mixed monochromatic colors with liquitex turquoise deep as a base;
used stencils and palette knife

resting place for today

Just That

What do I notice in this moment? Two ivy plants tucked in a tin planter on the little drop-leaf desk in my study.

I water them once a week, turning the planter around at each watering to give the back side a chance to be the front side. I notice midweek—today, right now—how the leaves have shifted, have reached with quiet reflexive strength of purpose, bit by bit by bit since Wednesday, toward the light coming from the window across the room.

Just that.

Like the Chrysalis Who Had No Idea
1.75 x 6"; acrylic, India ink, and collage on drawing paper,
mounted on card stock
abstract bookmark
2018
[sold]

Holy Cow!, Part 2

A bookmark can be a concrete object doing the literal job of marking the place in a book where you left off reading.

A bookmark on a computer can mark a favorite frequently-visited website. It's a little less concrete, more of a pixelated extrapolation of the literal.

Sometimes, though, a bookmark works symbolically—while it poses as a concrete, literal bit of matter tucked between book pages, more importantly, it marks the emotions of an event or a particular day—it's a tiny placeholder that takes your heart right back to a big feeling.

He Really Took Care of Me
1.5 x 6"; acrylic and ink on drawing paper, mounted on cardstock
abstract bookmark
2018
[gift]

Transposition

About a year ago I posted a rhythmic chant from camp days that periodically comes to mind:

Left foot, left foot,
Left foot, left foot,
Left foot, left foot,
        Right right foot!

As was the case a year ago, the words today transpose themselves, this time to the following:

Bookmark, bookmark,
Bookmark, bookmark,
Bookmark, bookmark,
          Post post card!

I'm feeling feelings today, yielding to many transpositions swirling around me.

Responding to intuition, to what I see in front of me, to what pops into mind.

Pushing Like a Storm Surge into Unexpected Places
4 x 5 "; acrylic, India ink, and transfer letters on drawing paper, mounted on cardstock
abstract
2018
[gift]

Holy Cow!

I seem to be on a roll with bookmarks. A series!

A short while ago artist friend Jen Walls exclaimed in writing, I am a HUGE fan of your bookmarks! Holy cow! Tiny masterpieces with a purpose. It doesn't get better than that!

Well, shucks.

Thank you, Jen, both for the accolades and for so succinctly summing up my love affair with painting these little paper playgrounds.

Yes, yes, yes. When I paint a bookmark, I celebrate and fuel both the poet and the pragmatist in myself.

Today's celebration:

The Smell of Cookies Baking in a Kitchen Three Blocks Away
1.5 x 5.5"; acrylic, ink, collage, and water-soluble pastel on drawing paper
abstract bookmark
2018
[sold]

Debutante

Went to the library to pick up some books which were on hold for me, and look! My new red bookmark has already made its debut!

Way fun.

partnered up : )

Connection

Have you ever been at a meeting or presentation of some sort, or in a class, with facilitated exchanges of information taking place among people who've never met before, and you know exactly with whom you'll strike up a one-to-one conversation—and make a lasting connection—the minute the formal part of the event ends?

Yep.

That's how I got to know Bo.

A birthday bookmark for you, dear friend!

Small and Still and Tender
1.5x5"; acrylic, India ink, oil pastel, and collage on watercolor paper
abstract bookmark
2018
[gift]

Another Fabulous Souvenir

Finding our way back from Lobster Cove to our cottage on Monhegan on one of our hikes, my dad and I met a woman walking uphill towards us toting groceries in a backpack and a gallon of water in each hand. The gallons were doing her in, and it was as she set them to rest on the packed-dirt lane that she struck up a conversation. A conversation that included her stating that she was an artist, she was living at Alison Hill's gallery up the road, turn right at the fork, did we know where it was?, stop by!

That afternoon I did stop by! I took myself up that road, turned right at the fork, found the gallery, found Judy, hung out with her, and talked art and life for a good forty-five minutes, laughing, exchanging ideas, asking questions, exclaiming, both of us barefoot in the hot August sunshine, walking back and forth on top of several works in progress she had taped to tarps on the huge deck at Alison's place.

Judy, thank you: meeting you = a fabulous souvenir! I'm bookmarking our afternoon together.

Barefoot at Breeze Studio
1.5x5.5"; acrylic, India ink, oil pastel, and collage on watercolor paper
abstract bookmark
2018
[gift]

Never Gets Old

Below, a current bookmark-to-book matchup that is sooo satisfying—I made the art as a monchromatic collage exercise for a downloadable Jane Davies workshop (Keys to Dynamic Composition) back in January 2016. Loved it then, love it now!

custom fit

I've been needing a good hand-painted red bookmark ever since I lost a previous favorite a year or two ago, presumably passing it along as an unwitting gift to the next reader of a book I returned to the library. So, today I grabbed one of the three pieces into which I cut yesterday's work-in-progress, and now I've got me a fine and dandy new red bookmark. Can't wait to see what book it first aligns itself with.

Never gets old, this love affair with bookmarks!

A Sleeve of Strawberry Candy
1.5x5.5"; acrylic, India ink, collage, and oil pastel on watercolor paper
abstract bookmark
2018

Back to Acrylics

New project.

I returned to acrylics today after feeling decidedly out to sea while trying my hand at watercolors for a week while on vacation.

Guess what? I still feel out to sea.

I forgot: I don't really ever feel like I 'know what I'm doing' when I paint.

Painting is always an invitation to come full-on and face-to-face with not-knowing.

Tally ho!

played with reds on watercolor paper

oh, not at ALL what I had in mind

kept fiddling—added more reds, some oranges, some ink;
pulled out my paint pens;
used my paper trimmer;
work in progress

The Pull of the Brush

I didn't go to Monhegan with preconceived notions of what I would paint. I suspected I'd stay with what I'll loosely call abstract expressionism but I was open to the possibility that I might want to paint representationally. The only thing I knew for sure was that I'd paint with watercolors.

Once on the island, though, I was surprised by how strongly I felt the following: I didn't feel called at all to paint recognizable scenes. I didn't want to paint Monhegan, I wanted to be at Monhegan and paint.

Early Morning Undulations of Trail and Cove
4.5x6"; watercolor and ink on watercolor paper
abstract
2018

Ironically, I arrived home to find in the mail the delightful gift of a representational, entirely recognizable scene of some Camp Takodah buildings, painted evocatively and to great effect, with watercolors, by my camp friend Jane!

Casual Elegant

On Monhegan, my dad and I made our own breakfasts, snacks, and lunches and ate them at our apartment at Tribler Cottage, but for dinner we walked the lane to the dining room at the Island Inn. In short order we learned how to snag the reservation that would give us the best chance at a window table overlooking the inn porch, the harbor, and Monhegan's little offshoot, Manana Island.

Dinner was an exquisite experience of 'casual elegant' each evening—with guests just a tiny bit dressed up, dark green bottles of artisan balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil perched on each table, an exhibit of Joan Harlow's oil paintings gracing the walls, windows open to the refreshment of sea breezes, and edible flowers bedecking each entrée.

---

A few edible flowers jumped ship to one of my watercolors.

The Air Smelled of Honeysuckle and Hay
7x9"; watercolor, ink, and water-soluble crayon on canvas paper
abstract floral
2018

Like Skipping

Painting this piece gave me the same feeling as skipping did when I was a child—the joy of being in motion, light of heart, agile, and playful.

I put down watercolor. Let it dry. Scribbled with an acrylic paint pen. Let it dry. Scribbled with ink. Let it dry. Created light and shadow with Neocolor crayons. Added dots with my white paint marker. All with no more thought than skipping down a sidewalk on a summer morning.

Patchy with Grey-Green Lichen
4x5"; watercolor, paint pen, ink, and water-soluble crayon on canvas paper
abstract
2018

Monhegan Madeleines

Each time I've taken a vacation since I began painting four years ago I've debated with myself: Shall I paint? Or leave my paints behind?

Decades ago I had an aha moment while on vacation at Takodah, realizing with sudden clarity that a vacation means to vacate—to leave, to depart from, to move away from—everything! All the things I'm happy to quit and all the things I love fiercely. So it is that I always try on the idea of leaving my paints at home.

But I never regret packing them, because each piece of art I create and bring back home—whether a sweet success or frazzled frustration—is a fully embodied memento.

For me to pick up one of those paintings is to return to the lived physical experience of creating it in my vacation setting—to the soft worn wooden cottage floor under my bare feet, to the bell buoy clanging north of the island, to the tang of late summer blueberries in my mouth, to the dry smell of late-August dust coming in the window from the lane, to the surprise of blue when I thought I'd loaded my brush with deep purple.

I can feel the brush in my hand, feel the granite gem of island that stands under me, feel the salt water that washes the island's every edge.

Sand and Shallows, Salt and Sawgrass 5x5"; watercolor and collage on canvas paper abstract 2018

Pressed Into Service

As previously stated, on Monhegan I had only limited tools and materials at hand, most notably watercolors, with which I am almost entirely unfamiliar other than having used them occasionally as a child and most likely a few times when my kids were little. Certainly not in the past four years of painting as an adult.

What could they do?

What could I do with them?

No way to know but to press them into service and follow their lead.

I felt mostly flummoxed as I started this piece. The experience felt flat. On the surface. Mechanical, if you will. A hand moving water and color over paper with a brush.

I didn't feel the inward reverberation of expressing myself—although, really, what else could it be that I was doing?—until I picked up my Bic pencil, Neocolor water-soluble crayons, and Posca paint pen.

Then, using my watercolor base on the page as a prompt, I felt animated, intuitive, in flow, present, in direct conversation.

Scribble, scratch, dot, dab, done.

Preoccupied with Light and Shadow and the Regular Business of a Summer Morning
4.5x6"; watercolor, pencil, and water-soluble crayon on watercolor paper
abstract
2018

Been Fishin'

Whoa. Following my vacation, I'm feeling a serious disconnect from social media.

And that is just exactly fine.

Further, it is just exactly fine that I didn't really connect with watercolor paints—the only paints I brought with me to Monhegan Island.

Here's experiment #1, in which I fiddled around on a postcard-sized bit of canvas paper. I didn't like the results at all until I scratched in some mark-making with a white pen and scribbled a bit with water-soluble crayons.

This Was Where the Sun Came and Lay
4x5"; watercolor, ink, and water-soluble crayon on canvas paper
abstract
2018

Parameters

Ferry.

Maine.

Monhegan.

Island.

Sky.

Trees.

Water.

Color.

Watercolor.

Watercolor paints?

That's what I brought on vacation with me when my dad and I plunked ourselves ten miles out to sea on a one-square-mile island for four days—watercolor paints, water-soluble crayons, and a few marking tools.

In the same way that if I were going to get anywhere while on Monhegan it would have to be by foot, if I were going to paint it would have to be with watercolors.

Alrighty then.

One experiment became this card, to which I added only four teeny bits of collage once I returned home.

Ridiculously
3x4"; watercolor, water-soluble crayon, ink, and collage on watercolor paper
abstract
2018
[gift]