Third in a Series

I am once again mesmerized and astonished by the creative process. I take my very limited palette of acrylics and mix up various combinations, apply several masses of color onto paper with brushes, scribble with pens and pencils, trim the edges of the paper, and collage a few found bits and bobs into place. 

Any "thinking" I do en route is fully abstract, completely apart from representing concrete realities or specific objects. Intuition is the driver, and its attention rests solely—and with the lightest of touches—on color, contrast, and composition.

So how is it that now, in viewing shape, scribble, and collage, I feel story tickling the back of my mind? How is it that I see wheels, snow, shadows, cart tracks, a wooden hay wagon of the sort that would be horse-drawn? How is it that I feel the sharp bite of dry winter air? Hear the squeak and crunch of weight breaking through an icy surface of snow?

Where does this stuff come from!

Step Back, Crouch Down, and Walk Around Everything
5 x 7"; acrylic, ink, pencil, graphite,
oil pastel, and collage on paper
abstract scribble study
2023

Rear View Mirror Recipe

Ingredients

Limited palette: ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, and white gesso.

Mixed media: acrylic, graphite, oil pastel, ink, and pencil. 

Paint attributes: transparent, semi transparent, and opaque; fluid and heavy body.

Directions

Create quick abstract on paper.

Set aside to dry.

Use drying time to start new scribbles study.

Make disheartening mess.

Despair of ever finding flow with scribbles.

Walk away from mess.

Return to now-dry quick abstract.

Get your unexpected scribble on!

 A Spot of Heavy Weather
5 x 7"; acrylic, graphite, oil pastel, ink, 
and pencil on paper
abstract scribble study
2023

ok, ok

AND Is About Opportunity and Possibility
5 x 7"; acrylic, latex, ink, graphite, pencil,
and metallic markers on paper
scribble art
2023

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last seen looking like this:

 

OK

OK, I just have to keep doing this thing. This scribbling inquiry thing.

Not I have to as in I must, or I have no choice.

Rather, I have to as in I have the opportunity to.

I have the great good fortune to open my heart to.

Today I opened it to what became a mess.

OK.

On the heels of that mess I turned seconds later to a start I'd generated over the weekend that was 'complete' with regard to the exercise instructions that had sparked it but wasn't complete to my artistic eye …

… and I got my open-hearted-this-is-fun scribble on!

OK!!!

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But first, the mess. Because a promise I made to myself when I started this blog was to post the good, the bad, and the ugly. Because one thing leads to another and something led me to this mess and something led me back out again. It's all part of a bigger story.

mess

Explorer, Even Without Royal Sponsorship

I don't have kings or queens—or anyone else, for that matter!—sponsoring me, but I find myself thinking of such past explorers as Vasco da Gama, Francisco Pizarro, and Hernan Cortes today. I've got my own little Age of Exploration and Discovery going as I venture forth on the seas of scribbling, mapping out routes to expand my art parameters. 

I'm working on getting my sea legs established. 

With spyglass to my eye, I scan the horizon constantly, seeking any and all signs to guide me on my way.

A ship! A ship passes by on Instagram and shares information! Thank you, Laura Horn!

My Hands Work Their Power in the Material World
5 x 7"; acrylic, ink, graphite, pencil, oil pastel, and collage
on mixed media paper
abstract scribble study
2023

Inquiry in Process

I know so much more than I did in 2014 when I took up painting, but—OH MY GOSH—it is perfectly clear that I will never run out of things to learn when I paint!

How hard can it be to scribble, you might wonder. 

Plenty hard enough, I might reply.

For me, at least. 

I was so challenged this afternoon! 

I scrambled to do the kind of scribbling I wanted to do and ran headlong into limitation after limitation … incompatible supplies, tearing the edges of the paper as I gave free rein to movement of my hand, poor quality pens, wanting some kind of result that was halfway pleasing to my eye.

I think I've got myself an inquiry in process.

study in scribbling
ink, pencil, water soluble pastel, oil pastel,
and acrylic paint markers on a book page
5 x 7.5" collage paper

Hidden in Plain Sight

Some might look at today's outcome from my time in my studio and see a scribble. My mom, for example, were she alive, would probably see just that and wonder why I consider it art.

After a considerable stretch of discomfort with my art in recent weeks, I reveled in a totally satisfying free-flow of expressive creative energy today, and, when I look, here's what I see hidden in plain sight on the page:

• I'm missing my dad today. Again. Still. Piercingly.

• Jane Davies has been exploring an inquiry related to scribbling for which I am grateful.

• My studio is a mess.

• I have been feeling bunched up, aimless, dissatisfied with recent paintings I've started.

• I miss making postcards for my dad.

• We're having a gentle snow day here in my neck of the woods.

• Sylvia and I have been talking tons about all manner of topics tied to art and to our own personal art.

• I'm wearing the chickens-and-chicken-wire pattern sweater my mom knit for me decades ago.

• I picked up a new book at the library this afternoon and have an engaging audiobook in progress also.

• Dave and I watched a fascinating webinar last evening about elements of musical genius in the songs of the Beatles.

Can you see it all?

Pain Pushes Until Vision Pulls
4.5 x 6"; acrylic paint marker and water-soluble pastel 
on a book page
abstract
2023

Shadow Box-ing

Painting on a regular basis seems not unlike shadow boxing to me, a 'training' method that warms me up to gradually increase my creative heart rate and prepare me to absorb and redirect energy to great advantage when inspiration 'throws a punch' in my direction. 

Today's time in the studio could not have been any more satisfying than landing a solid uppercut right in the solar plexus of a sparring partner (does my metaphorical meandering have any connection whatsoever to actual boxing?)(or art?!).

I have not been painting on a regular basis lately and have in fact been feeling decidedly out of shape creatively. But today the many many times I have put myself in the ring studio to shadow box came together for a magical muse moment. The ingredients:

• a little wooden shadow box(!) that previously held a set of tiny tin Christmas ornaments,

• a postcard I painted for my dad in March 2021—a postcard that came back into my keeping following his death just two months later,

• my trusty paper trimmer, and

• some matte medium.

Be Joyful Though You Have Considered All the Facts, reinvented
2 x 6", acrylic and ink on paper, mounted in shadow box
abstract flora
2023

 

My Take-Away

Remember back before you knew the word minus or subtract—back when you used the words take away? You know: nine take away two, or one hundred twenty-seven take away fifty-eight.

A little over two months ago I began playing with design elements, line and then shape in particular, as a vehicle for immersing myself in and focusing on the inherent acts of addition and subtraction when painting—not unconscious decisions about adding and subtracting, but mindful, eyes-open, paying-attention, deliberate, being-aware-of-making-decisions decisions.

Hard work.

One discovery: when painting, each addition is a subtraction, or taking away, of whatever was offered to the eyes prior to the addition, and every subtraction is an addition to whatever the painting is becoming. Each and every addition or subtraction is a decision. Each decision begets a subsequent decision.

My take-away, with this piece, a piece I considered cutting into confetti-sized pieces and pitching more than once, is gratitude for having held fast to my decision to engage as wholeheartedly as I could to the intentional practice of adding and subtracting way past my usual threshold for discomfort. I am grateful for having exercised my addition and subtraction muscles, for having sat—over and over again—with the ambiguity of not knowing. 

In the end: a piece that now quite delights me! A piece that speaks to me of full-on mystery and magic—what is this painting? Where did it come from? How did it come from me?

Yet, here it is.

Inviting Risk and Visitation of the Unknown
4.75 x 6.5", acrylic, ink, pencil, and oil pastel on
paper canvas
abstract
2022

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early stage of work in progress,
countless decisions yet to be made and executed