Eleventh Hour Studio Fun

Yesterday was a busy day, with several metaphorical brush fires popping up requiring my attention.

A number of intentions fell by the wayside, and I thought painting might also get postponed. Then, unexpectedly, a little pocket of spaciousness opened up as the day was coming to a close.

In the process of looking through my studio supplies to see if I had any watercolor paper, I bumped into an 18 x 24" sheet of high quality drawing paper which I'd covered several years ago with a monochromatic 'chaos layer' of greens. Evidently, I tucked it back into the pad of paper from which I'd extricated it, so I could find it and play with it yesterday!

I forgot to photograph before chopping it up but here's an after-the-fact photo.

In short order, I did a bit of veiling

and then got down to the business of neurographic doodling. SO calming and engaging. The dimensions of this piece are very satisfying to me, as is the piece as a whole. Nonetheless, I'm thinking I'll continue to play with it, to experiment with the neurographia in new-to-me ways. 

Stay tuned.

work in progress
4 x 8.5"; acrylic and ink on drawing paper

Softnesses

The sea has always 

whispered to me, 

all down my life 

it’s been there. 

And with that endless 

restlessness 

come other sounds—

seagulls shrieking and 

mast wires clinking as boats shift; 

pebbles turning and 

waves tapping sea-worn rocks.         

         —Jules Hardy, Altered Land 

Saltwater Whispers, Sea-Worn Rocks
5 x 7"; acrylic, ink, and watercolor pencil on card stock
abstract
2022

On the Fly

I was really hankering to settle in with some linework and rounding of corners Wednesday afternoon but I was on the fly, prepping for a day trip to Maine the following day.

I circled back to the idea of wanting to try my hand at a neurographic painting on a neutral atmospheric background, an idea that had caught my attention a few weeks ago.

Only got as far as the neutral atmospheric background. 

a start

 

At the Water's Edge

I spruce up yesterday's messy-middle work in progress—I mix colors to match early layers, paint additional layers for more depth, bring more fullness and polish to the piece. I get out my ink pens, sharpen the definition of lines, clean up edges. 

Then, nothing. 

The painting isn't in a mood for conversation. It still seems to be in a middle place, now a tidy-middle, a cleaned-up version of itself, a middle that nods off and falls asleep.

I turn my attention to other pursuits.

Some hours later, I return to find that little painting wide awake, chatty, and interactional. It's not shy about prodding and nudging. 

Get messy, it exhorts. Splash around a little! Get some sand between your toes!

So, I do.

Splashing at the Water's Edge
4.5 x 6"; ink, acrylic, and oil pastel on drawing paper
abstract
2022

Archiving the Messy Middle

I've long been a bit of an archivist. 

I started writing a journal in 9th grade to vent my extreme irritation that my younger sister Laurey had somehow wheedled a rule-breaking extra cookie for dessert. Following that start, I kept journals faithfully and regularly for about 20 years.

I started a diary of sorts my senior year in high school, using an engagement calendar, in which I jotted activities, books I'd read, correspondence, and the like. I continue that practice.

I started keeping photo albums once I had children and kept up with albums until my kids were grown and on their own. 

I like having personal archives I can reference for all manner of reasons … including messy middles, which brings me around to this blog of mine in which I have been keeping a record of my painting adventures for the past seven years, starting a year after I took up painting.

I love seeing process both in my own blog and those of other artists. I love seeing starts. I love seeing messy middles. I love seeing starts and messy middles resolve into completed paintings.

Here is today's messy middle, a rough draft, if you will. It awaits revision, editing, and polishing. I'm eager to see what surprises emerge once I begin playing around with it.

messy middle—work in progress

Disrupted Ions

You know how good-byes feel. 

How the air gets excited 

when all its ions 

and electrical charges 

are disrupted, 

first by the intent to leave and 

after 

by the leaving itself. 

Then, 

when the bodies move away 

through space, 

they create empty pockets 

where feelings get caught

and eddy around in the vacuum, 

creating little vortices 

of sadness. 

    —Ruth Ozeki, All Over Creation 

That's how it felt when Martha left on Sunday after a laughter-rich five-day cross-country visit.

I selected a sheet of drawing paper, picked up markers, and turned to mark-making and softening sharp corners.    

little vortices of sadness as a work in progress

Which Comes First, Chicken or Egg?

Well, really, my question is this: which comes first on trees, blossoms or leaves?

Depends on the tree. They don't all follow the same sequence.

My bare branches blossomed first and then began leafing out.

Springing Forth from the Ground of Being
4.5 x 6"; ink, collage, and acrylic on drawing paper
abstract
2022

Sap Rising

The first time I tried my hand at neurographic art, I used a 'fat' chisel-point Sharpie marker in keeping with the YouTube demo I'd happened to see. However, because I was working with my granddaughters at their house and we had only one chisel-point among us, I switched to fine-point pens and then just kept using them out of habit, especially since I was working on paper that was more often than not only 4.5 x 6".

Today, though, I have an idea that involves focus on the drama of spring when, in a very short time, after months and months of stark tree trunks and bare branches, sap starts rising and foliage pops out to completely change our living environment. 

First, I need to doodle bare branches. 

A chisel-point volunteers for the job.

experiment in progress

Figure-Ground Perception

Chop, chop!

I swung the blade of my paper trimmer today, extracting slim rectangles from my work in progress.

My eyes kept dancing between alternating perceptions as I worked on the extractions. With the larger context removed, a given piece would present as a deep fathomless black background with shapes floating in what appeared to be outer space, especially when I was working close. Then, I'd perch the piece at arm's length and suddenly I could see thick black lines superimposed over colorful shapes that had receded below those criss-crossed streets paved with a Sharpie chisel-tip marker.

And, of course, that is how my days unfold in any case, always shifting between figure and ground, sorting what in my lived experience is illusion from what is not.

In a State of Pure Attentiveness
1.5 x 6" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel
on a book page mounted on card stock
abstract
2022
[gift]

On the Receiving End of Unfolding Wisdom
1.5 x 6" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel
on a book page mounted on card stock
abstract
2022

[gift]

All Hands on Deck

I use my hands to create my art; I bring what is inside outside through the agency of my physical body, most specifically my hands.

Yesterday, when writing (also using my hands) my blog post, I noticed I used the expression at hand. I caught myself musing about the expression to hand, an expression I think is the British version of the same concept, i.e. to have something conveniently nearby. 

Similarly, if someone or something is on hand, they are nearby and able to be used if needed.

Then there's the word handy which gets rid of the above potpourri of prepositions altogether.

So, the opening sentence of yesterday's post started with these words:

    I continue to grab what's at hand.

I could have easily have said any of the following:

    I continue to grab what's to hand.

    I continue to grab what's on hand.

    I continue to grab what's handy. 

Or, I could have phrased my thought in the manner of my youngest sister, Marjorie, who as a child evidently subconsciously sorted out the existing options and created her own:

    I continue to grab what's on handy.

On handy! Top choice, hands down, and one that remains in my active personal lexicon.

---

I have moved my current neuroart experiment along since yesterday, and here's what I have on handy to share with you.

work in progress

Grab and GO!

I continue to grab what's at hand and then just GO!

Today I grab the 1927 Funk & Wagnalls Practical Standard Dictionary originally owned by Mrs. Carr Brackett of Monhegan Island, much later available for the taking at some kind of help-yourself clearing out of books somewhere on the island (perhaps set on a table in front of Monhegan's L. Brackett & Son grocery?), picked up by artist Judy Caldwell, and generously given to me by Judy when we painted together one summer morning.

I tear out a page, grab my Sharpie chisel-tip marker, and I'm off and running. I have a loose 'plan,' a plan that has an intended end 'product' and an intention to go where the painting takes me in the making.

grab-and-go work in progress

Afternoon Fix

I reach a point nearly every day now where I feel a hankering to get my creative fix via restorative neuroart.

Today:

Grabbed a piece of unsolicited mail printed on good card stock. Turned it to its blank side.

Reached for my container of ink pens.

Cast my eyes about for something I could use as a reference for a sketch, wondering how blind contour drawing and the rounding-the-corners nature of neuroart might marry.

Way fun.

Love the organic unavoidable imprecision of blind contour drawing.

Love the inner hush that comes from the neuroart practice of smoothing all the linear intersections.

Love this little sketch.

A Kind of Miracle, I'd Say
3.25 x 8"; ink on card stock
abstract blind contour sketch
2022

Therapy

Midafternoon yesterday, I got the itch for ink pen in hand. I grabbed the first thing that caught my eye, a piece of card stock which had as its first life to sport a table number at Scott and Alisa's wedding and to invite guests to Save Room for Dancing*. I'd painted the start of a so-called chaos layer on it at least two years ago to obscure the text on the card. Then it sat in my studio since pre-pandemic days.

Perfect.

The therapy is palpable.

Haven't yet decided if this is a 'completed' sketch or work in progress.

Have decided to see what else is up for grabs and up for neurographia in my studio this afternoon.

Save Room for Dancing
5 x 7"; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on card stock
abstract
2022

* If you look closely, you might discern some of the text!

More What If

What if I tear another patch of food wrap paper with lifted paint on it and adhere it to a square of watercolor paper with matte medium?

What if I search through my pens-and-markers stash to find a fine-tip pen with ink still flowing?

What if I blur my vision, soften my mind, and then trace whatever fine lines ask to be traced on my collaged food wrap?

What if I keep responding intuitively and playfully to the marks I make?

What if I stop here?

To See More Fully What There Is to See
7 x 7"; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on watercolor paper
abstract
2022

And then, what if I rotate this piece clockwise 45˚?!

On Stage

My latest neurographic art, with all its many embedded backstories. Thanks for joining me behind the seens.

 

There Is Always More to Tell Than Can Be Told
4.5 x 6"; acrylic, ink, collage, and oil pastel
on drawing paper
abstract
2022

Backstage, Part 2

I went to my studio fully intending to paint a sheet of paper with atmospheric neutrals.

But my eye was pulled to a sheet of lifted paint.

More backstories:

1. I think I first learned about lifting acrylic paint from artist Jane Davies. The technique involves no more than periodically stopping to press scrap paper onto the wet surface of whatever work is in progress to lift some paint away. Doing so contributes to delightfully unpredictable organic effects and overall depth. In addition to lifting paint from a work in progress, I often capture last bits of paint from my palette in the same manner.

While the lifted paint is still wet, the lifting paper itself can be used to press prints onto work in progress. 

Once dry, sheets of lifted paint make excellent collage paper.

sample sheet of lifted paints

2. On a Nova Scotia vacation some years ago I purchased lunch at a deli and immediately recognized the paper used to wrap my sandwich for its potential as excellent lifting paper. Win-win-win: great sandwich, great vacation souvenir, great art supply. I now own a box of Dixie All Purpose Food Wrap, the contents of which I use regularly, though never to wrap food.

So, here's my actual new painting start—all purpose food wrap with lifted paint, pulled from my handmade collage paper collection, now adhered to drawing paper with matte medium.

work in progress

Backstage

I love backstories, the stuff that goes on behind the scenes—or behind the seens—in art.

Also, I love thinking about where to start the telling of a story.

For this story—the story of a new painting in process—I'm going to begin with a blogpost of mine from June 2016. 

What was I doing poking around old blogposts from 2016, you ask? Well, maybe my story needs to start there.

I recently set out to weed my email to free up some space on my computer and declutter my mind. I have multiple tidy, well-organized email folders where I save messages of importance to me. Within those multiple tidy, well-organized folders sit thousands of messages, a huge number of which (a) are no longer of importance, or (b) I never reference because I no longer have any idea they're there. 

I was able to delete a bunch of folders without a backward glance.

Then I bumped into the folder that contains the nightly emails my dad sent to my sisters and me for nearly six years, starting when my mom had a stroke six months before she died and continuing until my dad's death just shy of a year ago. Those emails I am rereading (and mostly saving), usually in one-week clusters at any one reading. Because I started my art blog a few weeks after my mom's stroke, I am also rereading the blogposts whose dates correspond with whatever cluster of emails I'm revisiting.

Yesterday, I bumped into a post in response to which my muses woke up and took note. I loved the quiet application of neutrals I'd used to start a painting, followed by an overlay of blind contour drawing. Two posts later, I bumped into the very inviting what-if-I-did-this mindset that is always a gift when I paint, and my muses perked up even more.

I thought, what if I started a new neurographic painting with a neutral atmospheric background like this rather than on plain white drawing paper?

To be continued …

Undercurrents

Saw a piece of art online that sparked me to want to try my hand at creating something in the same vein. That quickly became a non-starter.

Turned my paper over to its unused side and instead moved my pen very unhurriedly and intuitively until I had a relatively simple doodle in place. 

Started rounding corners.

Rounded more corners and emphasized a central design of some density set in a less dense visual field.

Rounded yet more corners, letting one mark lead me to the next, watching to see what would evolve. 

While vernal magnificence is expressing itself abundantly in the great outdoors, it is evidently not doing so quite fast enough for me—my doodling and coloring point to undercurrents of an inner impatience for lilacs to bloom.

Its Sweet Time of Readiness
4.5 x 6"; ink, acrylics, and oil pastel on drawing paper
abstract floral
2022

I Am the Boss of Me!

I have a vivid first grade memory. 

Teacher distributes a mimeographed worksheet with eight circles drawn on it; each circle has a color word printed below it. 

Directions: Use crayons to fill in each circle with the color named below it.

Easy peasy. I recognize the color words. I begin coloring.

Teacher circulates around the room to check on our progress.

Teacher stops me from using a back-and-forth motion with my crayon, informs me that the correct way to color each figure is with a circular motion, insists I do so.

What??! 

I am still annoyed.

But! I am now The Boss of Me, and I get to color any which way I choose.

A Cheerful One-Room Schoolhouse
5.5 x 8"; ink, acrylic, and oil pastel
on a book page
abstract
2022

———

Containers

In simplest terms, the basic guidelines for creating neurographic art are essentially these:

    • Use a marker to draw a long, looping, criss-crossing, scribble-like line on paper.

    • Round all corners where lines cross or turn, filling in the resulting gaps with ink (Have I mentioned how much I love rounding out the corners?!).

    • Add color.

What I notice the more I play with this neurographic form is that for me the doodles become structured, supportive containers that invite me into their protective confines to practice my art. Today's container beckoned me to play with size and shape, light and dark, compositional balance, freeform linework, busyness and resting places, and monochromatic neutrals.

The Musky Smell of Fallen Tree Trunks
and Mushrooms and Moldering Damp
4.5 x 5.25"; ink, watercolor, water-soluble and oil pastels
on drawing paper
abstract
2022

 

Tracking Patterns in Geometry

I had the opportunity in high school to take honors-level math classes. I think I was closer to the B- cutoff for eligibility than to the straight A's end of the spectrum, but I enjoyed the logical reasoning and quantitative calculation, liked my teachers, had terrific classmates, and loved doing homework over the phone with best friend Ann. 

Truth to tell, in addition to writing two-column proofs for such suppositions that if AX and BY bisect each other, then triangle AMB is congruent with triangle XMY, Ann and I kept a running multi-column chart on the inside covers of our respective math books in which we made daily entries of what color button-down Oxford shirt each boy in the class was wearing. Was there a pattern? Did they call each other the night before to coordinate?

Not sure what theorem we were aiming to prove!

With an affectionate nod to my glory days in math classes, I opted today to forego the characteristic freeform looping scribble of neuroart in favor of straight-edge lines that offered up geometric shapes. So many corners to round!

We Are Not in Control
4.5 x 6; ink, watercolors, acrylic, and oil pastel
on drawing paper
abstract
2022

Sweet Spot

Today marks the sweet spot of a three-week sweet spot that I celebrate every year. My son Scott's birthday falls on Earth Day. Exactly 21 days later … my birthday. 

In that little three-week span between late-ish April and nearly-mid-May, in my neck of the woods here in New England, Scott's birthday is marked by the first barely-there lime-green confetti-like evidence of tree leaves unfurling from buds. By my birthday lush foliage has made itself known and we find ourselves in a world made new, with canopies overhead and horizons brought close with maturing greenery that's filled the empty spaces of winter. 

Magic, I tell ya.

What better time—positioned as I am today at the midpoint of the transformation—to share the large canvas I've worked on sporadically over the past few months?

i thank you God for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
36 x 36"; acrylic, latex, oil pastel, and collage on canvas
abstract landscape
2022