All My By-a-Self

I am mindful today of my younger granddaughter Emmy's former oft-used toddler expression of independence, all my by-a self!

I pop in and out of my studio between various other adventures this morning, with a clear intention of creating a highly layered, intuitive, organic, free-form painting on paper that I can cut into smaller found compositions to send as postcards. My plan is to follow the lead of artists who act as beacons to me in building layer upon layer, a process that intrinsically includes letting go, letting go, letting go as one layer lands on top of and changes another.

Here's what happens when another part of me—another part? who's the first part?—has different plans, doesn't want my help or interference, and shouts, I do it all my by-a self! 

The by-a-self part pulls out a sheet of paper. Has the idea to create some underlying texture. Riffles through a pile of thin translucent sandwich paper to collage to the substrate. Is drawn to a torn sheet previously used to catch wayward splatter. Crinkles it into a ball. Flattens it out. Glues it to the substrate. 

We—the make-layers part of me and the don't-tell-me-what-to-do part—both get fully attached to what emerges. Don't want to add more layers—not one! Can't let go of the terrifically textured wrinkles. Can't let go of the uninhibited splatters.

Hahaha!

So we're letting this afternoon's art have its fame and glory.

No layers today. 

No layers until further notice.

Everybody's happy.

work … not in progress!

Doodlebug #2

More playful doodlebug markmaking and bits of collage to create new possibilities.

work in progress, 16 days in, 3/10/20
detail

work in progress, 16 days in, 3/10/20
detail

detail

Doodlebug #1

Coming in with some playful doodlebug markmaking and bits of collage to create new possibilities.

work in progress, 16 days in, 3/10/20
detail

detail

detail

Messy and Muddy

Here's where this piece starts to get messy and muddy. Here's where I start to have a harder time trusting the process, especially if I step back.

So I don't step back very often.

Up close, by contrast, the work is grand play—engaging, textural, hands-on, intuitive. I build layers by collaging, stenciling, scratching with hardware store implements, and dragging catalyst tools through soft gel medium.

work in progress, 15 days in, 3/9/2020
30 x 40" canvas (rotated again)

enlarged detail

enlarged detail

enlarged detail

Ahead of the Curve

Today, as I post this work in progress as it looked five weeks ago, I have started to listen to a Brené Brown podcast, Dr. Marc Brackett and Brené on "Permission to Feel." 

Back on March 7 when I was adding color and building layers on this piece, the podcast probably hadn't even been recorded yet. Happily, I was ahead of the curve—already giving myself permission to feel, using paint as my medium. 

work in progress, 13 days in, 3/7/20
30 x 40" canvas (rotated)

Stumped

I don't have anything to say with words today.

work in progress, 9 days in, 3/1/20
30 x 40 canvas

Blast from the Past

During my junior year in high school when the Beatles and Stones were rocking the pop music world, I simultaneously held a soft spot for the three-part harmony of the Letterman as they sang sentimental tunes such as Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing.

That tune surfaced today as I reflected on the history of my recent painting below. I found myself singing the following in full voice, with the imagined swell of several violins in accompaniment: art is a many-layered thing!

Once on a High and Windy Hill
7 x 9"; acrylic, pencil, color sticks, collage, and oil pastel on a book page
abstract floral
2020

History of a many-layered thing:

  

 

Going Your Way

It Is Going Your Way: Towards Darkness, Towards Light
7 x 4.5"; acrylic, latex, oil pastel, color sticks, and collage
on a book page
abstract seascape
2020

If Something Is In Your Way, It Is Going Your Way
7 x 4.5"; acrylic, latex, oil pastel, color sticks, and collage
on a book page
abstract seascape
2020

-----

diptych

  

  

Speedy Delivery, II

Last week I hung out with Joan of Art again for a day of messing about with paint.

Painted quickly, intuitively, impulsively, experimentally—Sylvia, I was trying to imagine and then channel how you feel as you paint!

activated paper by painting a bunch of colors
and scribbling through them while they were still wet

layered with more paint and some ink

more paint

ink, stenciling, paint, done

What did it feel like to paint this way? Terrific! Satisfying! Fun! Expressive!

Another speedy delivery.

Salle de Bain Gallery

Many moons ago I enjoyed an active correspondence with my friend Anne—lots of postal art flying between our homes. I set a clear acrylic easel on the marble top of the master bathroom vanity and rotated Anne's art through my Salle de Bain Gallery frequently.

Bathrooms and art! Great combo!

Ever since my hubby and I completed (well, almost) our recent bathroom reno, I've had the idea to create a painting as a final decorating touch.

The bathroom grays inspired the background color for this now-completed-but-in-process-almost-as-long-as-the-bathroom-took-to-renovate abstract floral.

Two days ago, I did some acrylic color-mixing to match our pop-of-color hand towels.

Yesterday, the wrought-iron hardware on the vanity suddenly sparked a solution to my bedeviled conundrum of how to anchor the busy pink-and-red flowers.

Today, white porcelain offered up an idea.

Belting Out a Song in the Shower
11x14"; acrylic, latex, India ink, oil pastel, and collage on paper
floral pastel
2018
[not for sale]

Down to the Studs

I have a favorite story from our recent bathroom renovation.

One weekend morning, Dave and I were companionably engaged in parallel play across the upstairs landing from each other, I in the study at my laptop, Dave in the bathroom tearing walls down to the studs.

I heard him pause and say, "Huh."

Then, more construction noise, another pause, another "Huh."

Then, more construction noise, another pause, and, "Dotty, come here for a sec."

He pointed, I scrutinized.

"Oyster crackers," I pronounced.

Indeed, about two dozen intact oyster crackers nestled in fiberglass insulation in the space between the wall of the bathroom and the wall of the adjacent bedroom.

Defies imagination, but there you have it.

I think of those oyster crackers every now and then when I paint. In the end, most of my paintings have more layers on them than we had layers on our bathroom studs. Usually, well over half of what lies beneath the surface of my completed pieces isn't visible.

Defies imagination sometimes, but there you have it.

Those of you who follow my blog or my Instagram page, however, often get to see the oyster crackers as I tuck them into place.

where I left off yesterday

rotated my paper end-to-end,
added yellows, orange-pink, and orange-red on top of India ink

rotated my paper every which way, flung some drops of India ink, and dribbled yellow latex

Mayhem and Messing About

Decided to aim in the direction of floral again today.

Grabbed another outdated calendar poster printed on quality card stock, and started laying down mayhem. Messed about by doing some scribbly journaling first. Then stenciled, brushed, flung, stamped, and dabbed some browns, earth-yellows, blue-greens, and purple-blues willy nilly.

OK, base camp staked out.

journaling

making mayhem

messing about

Positive Negative

Took a start from a few weeks ago, part of which I'd previously used to make a postcard using negative-space painting.

Decided to use negative space differently this time. Embellished my start from June to my liking first. Loved the process, love the product.

In fact, I think I need to get a job painting collage paper. Wouldn't that be so cool?

But I digress.

Next, painted a sheet of canvas paper to be my negative space, so to speak. Again, loved the process, love the end result. It was hard to photograph to satisfaction, but the subtleties here delight me.

Started putting the two together. A perfectly positive 'negative' experience!

work in progress

Kapiti!

We used to have a mischievous and thoroughly endearing parakeet named Kapiti, one of whose habits was to nibble the edges of paper. In order to protect papers I needed in plain sight, I purchased a piece of clear acrylic 'glass' under which to place them.

Kapiti died many years ago and I lost track of that sheet of acrylic … until I did a round of deep decluttering a few weeks ago and rediscovered it! I had a grand time today using it as my palette to mix a color for the negative painting of this work in progress.

Oh my gosh, if Kapiti were alive now he would have an absolute field day in my studio—sitting on the ends of brushes for wild rides, walking across what I was painting, and chasing and pecking at brush bristles, all while narrating his activities in a chipper stream-of-consciousness monologue as I worked!

work in progress
new layer: acrylic on paper

Grasshopper

I am hopping all over the place: from a day-with-Joan piece, to a Lake Champlain piece, to shaving-cream bookmarks, back to Lake Champlain, over to pointillism.

Today, I pick up another Lake Champlain postcard to develop. Nothing happens.

So once again I jump over to what I painted at Joan's house and, happily, get going on a postcard-sized section from that start-plus-subsequent-layers.

Love the place from which I start, love the scritchy place where I stop for now.

work in progress
new layers of India ink and acrylic on paper

Summer, Joy

Painted for twelve minutes, intuitively and suffused with joy, on a sunshiny summer day.

Joan, Simone, Maz, and Lewis infused me as I created, each shooting off little sparks of carefree playful ignition.

started here at 00:00:00

landed here at 00:12:07
9x12"; work in progress

Spectacular Solstice

With daylight stretching out endlessly in both directions, I stepped out of time on the solstice two weeks ago for an art playdate with longtime friend Joan at her home.

Sharing a wish to get looser and less fussy in our creativity, we got right down to some laugh-out-loud fun with a whole bunch of commingled art supplies.

The hours flew by, and suddenly there we were with two paintings apiece stuck in rip-roaringly ugly and decidedly unfinished stages.

Our exit plan: (1) select one piece, cut it into quadrants, develop the quadrants into postcards, send the cards to each other by post; (2) get together for a repeat playdate in a few weeks to develop the second piece.

Random process photos: