Neutrals (6)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• A painting crew is sanding the exterior walls of our home.
• I received payment for a painting yesterday.
• I have a phone appointment this afternoon with someone I've never met before.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

postcard start #4, resting

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

Lake Champlain, Day 2

[entry drafted at Lake Champlain 6/9/18]

Improv.

I notice the surface pattern on a duvet in our vacation cottage, play with elements of it on my big piece of drawing paper.

Lines seen in stained glass window art at a local gallery travel through a paint marker onto my drawing paper.

A wildflower leaf pattern transplants itself into the lush tangle of mark-making growing in front of me.

As the day unfolds, I ad lib in short little snippets of three minutes here, ten minutes there, creating without preparation from whatever I have available: I press a few pieces of collage into place, spread some paint with my finger and spritz it with a spray bottle to trigger drips, draw angular lines with a China marker against a metal straight-edge tool, use a brayer to veil.

work in progress
18x24"; mixed media on drawing paper

detail

Physicality

I love the physicality that comes into play when painting—the physical properties of opacity, transparency, viscosity, saturation, pliability, and so forth in paint, as well as the physicality of motion, resistance, flow, touch, smell, sight, and sound as my body engages in the process.

My new favorite material is food wrap.



I love lifting paint with it and using it as semitransparent collage. I got the idea to try printing typography on it.

Ha! My printer, governed by the laws of physics, said, Not happenin'.

Oh.

Happily, I was able to physically remove the resulting mess from my printer, handwrite my own gosh-darned 'typography,' and get on with things.

I collaged a piece of food wrap with its hand-lettered poetry to my painting, brayered on a layer of paint, and that was it for fireworks in my studio today.

Happy 4th of July!

work in progress;
working title: Making Messy #4