On My Nightstand, On My Easel 7/29/22

I did a series of On My Nightstand, On My Easel posts a number of years ago, i.e. I quoted a snippet from whatever I was currently reading and I shared whatever painting was in process.

I'm reviving that format today, and acknowledging that the OMN, OME wording is metaphorical since what I read these days is usually on my phone instead of being a book on my nightstand and what I'm painting is on paper and not perched on an easel.

On my nightstand (from a couple of weeks ago, can't remember the title and am too lazy in the moment to figure that out):

Close up (in crystallography), tears look completely different from each other, because they are. Emotional tears, for example, have protein-based hormones in them, including a neurotransmitter called leucine-enkephalin, which is a natural painkiller. Onion tears are less sticky, and disappear more quickly from a person's cheeks.

Although all tears have salt, water, and lysozyme—the main chemical in tears—how the crystals form differs, due to other ingredients. So onion tears look as dense as brocade. Tears of change resemble the fervent swarm of bees in a hive. Laughing tears are reminiscent of the inside of a lava lamp, with smarter angles. And tears of grief call to mind the earth, as seen from above.

On my easel:

Joan of Art let me go home Wednesday with a painting start she was ready to toss.

Joan of Art's start

detail of my work/play in progress

Just Dive In

Hung out for a delicious dollop of summer timelessness with friend Joan today. The best.

With paints, brushes, and paper at hand and considerable art discussion under our belts, we dove in to see what might emerge. 

I invoked my childhood motivational mantra, i.e. One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to GO!, choosing not to get into the metaphorical water one baby step at a time but instead to just dive in. 

I'd intentionally left my own art supplies at home so as to be forced to find my way with unfamiliar colors, paint brands, brushes, and drying time. Great stimulus! The in-the-moment no-time-to-get-precious circumstances refreshed and challenged me.

I'm posting one draft here. I might let it stand as is. I might go in to play a little longer back in my studio another day.

Right now, I think I'll climb up on those rocks and let ocean breezes and the lapping of salt-water waves lull me into an afternoon meditation.

work in progress

Property Management

A piece of undeveloped real estate, in the form of a page from a 1927 Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary, caught my attention back in May and I set about making some preliminary improvements.

A short while later I decided to subdivide the property into five narrow lots with the intent to develop them all further, making each distinct from the others but keeping all five cohesive in toto.

I finished up the fifth tract today!

We Play and Play, Humming With Summer
1.5 x 6" bookmark
ink, watercolor, gouache, and oil pastel
on a Funk & Wagnalls dictionary page
abstract
2022

———

preliminary improvements on original real estate (top)
developed subdivisions (bottom)

Presence

New each and every time, the way painting a tiny bit of paper real estate permeates me with here and now. 

I am fully in my body.

Courtesy of an overhead fan, breezes cool my bare arms and legs. 

Color dances in front of me. 

The mail truck traces up and down my neighborhood on its stop-and-start route, its engine distinct from all others that travel Prospect Street. 

Sharpie pens and later Krylon Triple Thick Clear Glaze High Gloss Aerosol Spray (I know, I know, my bad for using indoors) fill the air with their signature scents. 

Lightning-speed traffic buzzes on the information highways of my body, connecting hand, eye, brain, arm, paint, water, ink, oil pastel, and a way teensy brush appropriated from the box in which a bottle of essential oil was packaged.

From nothing to something. New each and every time.

Most of My Research Surprises Me
and Kicks My Ass
1.5 x 6" bookmark
ink, watercolor, gouache, and oil pastel
on a Funk & Wagnalls dictionary page
abstract
2022

Redirection

You know how we don't talk about retirement anymore? We talk about redirection?

I'm ready to redirect as a distortionist. I'm already having grand fun spiffing up my résumé.

First, a teaser before the actual reveal—art every which way I turn:

back side of sketchbook page—love it!

Now, the flip side:

The Whole Thing Was Slung a Little Askew
Like a Dog Half-Minded to Lie Down
9x12"; ink, dry-erase marker, and oil pastel on sketchbook paper
blind contour still life
2022

Musical

Gigi, My Fair Lady, Kiss Me Kate, Pajama Game, Fiddler on the Roof. 

Many musicals have won their way into my heart over the years, starting when I was maybe nine years old.

The past few months have felt artistically musical to me. 

As in: muse-ical. 

I've been open to letting muses lead me where they will.

And they are leading me all over the place. To no place I would have thought of on my own.

To my delight.

Over the weekend we visited friends John and Mary in the magical bit of land they call home along the coast of Maine. I woke Saturday morning, early hours, when a muse invited me to do a down-and-dirty-done-in-five-minutes blind contour sketch of a chair and large potted floor plant in our sweet guest accommodations. This is the blindest blind contour of my recent work. Footloose and fancy free.

blind contour wonkiness and wonder

Basic sketch in place, I then began rounding all the corners where lines intersected. I am fascinated by the alchemy that comes from combining blind contour sketching and neurographic smoothing. 

blind contour neurographic alchemy

Back at home I added a few lines, tried something that felt like a mistake, introduced color to resolve the misstep, found myself humming show tunes. 

work in progress

Cartography

I make a map for my day.

And then I get off track.

All good!

I Am a Mapmaker and a Traveler
1.5 x 6" bookmark
ink, watercolor, gouache, and oil pastel
on a Funk & Wagnalls dictionary page
abstract
2022

 

Off to the Races

Late afternoon rolls around and I find myself antsy, itching to create something.

Anything. 

I grab a sketchbook last used in February 2019 and tape off the edges of a page to form a border. Then I grab a pen, park myself in front of my bedroom dresser, and impulsively start blind-contour drawing a ceramic bowl and carafe that sit on the dresser-top. 

In no time, I'm off to the races, running full tilt, shifting from one location to another in my bedroom and office, simultaneously rotating the sketchbook as I go. I draw whatever catches my eye: a ceramic pencil holder, a timer, plants in a tin container, a notebook's spiral binding, a bottle of body lotion, part of a postcard—all on the same page. I look at the page only to give myself starting points. I'm a whirling dervish!

Until     I     slow    way    down.

I pivot from impulsive and improvisational to deliberate and focused, fusing all the linework from the frenetic blind-contour drawing with neurographic smoothing.

Eventually I step back, fascinated to see an abstract "circuit board" capturing on paper the pure pleasure of fully engaged process.

---

Now what?

No idea.

work in progress
9 x 12"; ink on drawing paper

Teacher Recognition

Such patient teachers my paintings are. 

I flop all over the place doing mental gymnastics, stumbling my way through the ongoing learning process, but my paintings are ever patient—

    unconditional, 

    receptive, 

    open to my every move, 

    unattached to outcome, 

    in attunement with the vibrational frequency of whatever emerges, 

    in for a penny in for a pound, 

    unwaveringly imperturbable, and 

    invitingly tranquil.

I am tremendously grateful.

---

Finally circled back to a start from four weeks ago (when I stated that I'd return to it the following day!):

Altogether Alive, Marveling at Every Simple Thing
8.5 x 11; acrylic, ink, oil pastel, and pigment stick
on drawing paper
pondscape
2022

Otherwise

Elizabeth sat outside, 

working in the garden 

in the late afternoon sun. 

There was a lot to do, 

a lot of cutting back and weeding, 

cutting off dead heads in the rose bushes. 

You need a garden you can fuss with, she thought. 

Otherwise, what is the point 

of having a garden?

    —Anne Lamott, Crooked Little Heart

Well, I found me a garden to fuss with. It was my intention to go in and get out in mere minutes with this creative venture but that is not what took place when I gave my inner self paper, pens, and paint to play with. 

I need a painting to fuss with, I guess.

Otherwise, what is the point of painting!

The Freedom That Was There Right Along
8.5 x 11"; ink, watercolor, gouache, and oil pastel on drawing paper
bottlescape
2022

Amblyopic-Neurographic Playtime

Following Emmy's lead of last week, I have in mind to create a blind contour drawing, so I carry that intention along with a sheet of drawing paper and an ink pen to a still-life bottlescape I've arranged in my studio. 

My eye, however, seems to move of its own accord which, I learn, is a symptom of a condition called amblyopia. I suspect, though, that instead of having a physiologically-based medically-diagnosable 'lazy' eye, I have a willful mind that wants to sneak an occasional peek at my drawing paper. The nonmedical term for this condition: cheating!

In any case, I am the boss of my own creative explorations, and this one combines a partially blind contour drawing and the neurographic smoothing of corners. I'm thinking of my sketch, at this stage, as amblyopic-neurographic.

dry-run warm-up exercise,
pencil on the back of used copy paper

detail, partially blind contour drawing,
ink on drawing paper

detail, amblyopic neurographic exploration,
work in progress

Blind Leading Blind

Emmy returned home midweek but, ever generous, she left sparks of creative energy, spirit, and just-do-it behind for me. 

And a good thing, too. 

I had to turn a blind eye to multiple tasks pushing themselves right up in my face competing with art for my attention. Turn a blind eye I did, though, in order to make space and time for a blind contour still-life drawing. 

I made a start!

detail, blind contour drawing

Blind-sided Still Life

While Emmy was in residence earlier this week, in addition to populating a watercolor-and-ink barnyard, we gathered vases from a kitchen shelf, snipped flowers and greenery from Dave's gardens, cleared a space on top of a file cabinet, and set up a still life. Emmy then perched on a stool and followed the example of a member of Amanda Evanston's Insider Studio.

The exploration exercise: create a blind contour drawing of an arrangement of vases and garden clippings; add pops of color.

Emmy went home with a spectacular portfolio, I tell ya!

Playtime!

Emmy and I set up a makeshift art space for ourselves in my home office over the long weekend and started playing! Emmy and family were visiting from Virginia, Scott was visiting from Seattle, Jay and Christine were visiting from the Fenway area of Boston, and, in the middle of all that laughter and food and story-telling and swinging on swings and bocce and swimming and going for walks and playing Quicktionary and watching fireworks at the beach and going to Cherry Farm for ice cream, Emmy and I did a bunch of painting.

Well, Emmy did a huge bunch of painting. I did just a little bit of painting while also having the grand fun of setting up a space, pulling together materials, and facilitating fun.

Sparked by an Amanda Evanston lesson from the Chicken Coop Club, to which 12-year-old Emmy has recently subscribed, a barnyard of 'blob animals' came to life!

Emmy shines bright with the intuitive heart, hand, and practice of an artist—she dives in and doesn't stop moving. She doesn't sit around talking about art … she makes art! Over and over again. She's my hero! 

She watched the short instructional video from CCC and dipped her brush in water in no time flat. In short order, a barnyard was outfitted with a flock of sheep, a brood of chickens, a drove of pigs, a herd of cattle, a dog, and an elephant. She followed her heart and eye, developing skill and technique before my eyes, embellishing, exploring, and inventing en route.

F - U - N !!!

artist at work/play

3 x 4"; watercolor, gouache, and Sharpie on drawing paper
barnyard 'blob art'
Emmy 2022

2.5 x 3.5" gift tag 
watercolor, gouache, and Sharpie on drawing paper,
mounted on card stock
barnyard 'blob art'
Emmy 2022

gift tag coordinated with fabric gift wrap

3 x 4"; watercolor, gouache, Sharpie, and acrylic paint pen
on drawing paper, mounted on textured paper
barnyard 'blob art'
Dotty 2022