Resuscitation

This trio started as an experiment on the front porch of a cottage on Beaver Harbor in New Brunswick, Canada.

June, two years ago. Bright blue skies. Fresh air. Early morning sunlight.

Played with acrylic and oil pastel on a long strip of canvas paper. Did some cutting up, fiddled with some superimposing. Brought it home in a pile of several such experiments.

Moved it from drawer to drawer.  Sighed more than once at its incompletion. Fell into some negative self-talk.

Then, a few weeks ago, a bookmark sneaked out of it.

Today, a triptych of greeting cards. Couldn't be more pleased.

You never know!

Just a Ferry Ride Away from Dulse
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic and oil pastel
abstract
2018

Unexpected Port of Call
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic and oil pastel
abstract
2018

Responding to the Prevailing Wind
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic and oil pastel
abstract
2018

Emergency Preparations

When dire weather warnings are broadcast, some folks rush to the grocery store for food and water. I make a beeline for the library.

As I've said before, do not ever leave me without a sizable stack of books on my bedside table.

Painted up another bookmark today. On the back, I wrote a few lines from the following excerpt, an endearing passage that appears in Rebecca Wells's novel Little Altars Everywhere:

The library will only let Sidda and me
check out two books at a time,
which drives us nuts.
We live in the country, I tell the librarian,
we need more than two books to last us!
My daughter and I are fast readers,
we are avid.
But the old bat behind the counter says,
Two books a patron, that's our limit,
no matter where you live.
Sometimes I watch my daughter smuggle
an extra book out and,
even though I know I should,
I just cannot bring myself to stop her.
Sometimes you just have to reach out
and grab what you want,
even when they tell you not to.

Even When They Tell You Not To
1.5x6"; acrylic and oil pastel
abstract
2018
[gift]

Simple and Magical

Lewis Noble's approach to painting captivates me.

I head to my studio today eager to tear up the postcard on which I made a quick paint sketch yesterday, in order to collage bits of it to the quick paint sketch I made on the Core Values patch I'm revising.

Looks so simple and magical when Lewis Noble tears up one sketch and collages it to another sketch, all to visually compelling and delightful effect.

Ha ha ha!

I just have to laugh when I feel nervous before I even make the first tear!

I hesitate.

I hem and haw.

What am I so afraid of?

Eventually, I commit one piece of collage paper to my Core Values patch with glue.

And then freeze.

Again.

I spend forever moving pieces of collage this way and that, hugely indecisive, not seeing placements that sing to me.

Simple and magical???

Not so much.

But, such a fascinating puzzle to work out.

newest patch

new patch in bigger picture
work in progress
working title: Core Values

Didn't Like It

Here's a patch that I completed back in March as part of my Core Values project.

Didn't like it then.

Don't like it now.

Time to do something about that. I brush gesso over the patch in uneven thicknesses with a beat-up foam brush.

Then, with Lewis Noble as my inspiration, I start playing around with a quick sketch-like approach, making marks, painting, scratching scribbles into the paint—first on the Core Values patch and then on the back of a postcard, same colors on both.

Core Values patch moving in a new direction
with marks, paint, and scribbles

postcard with paint marker marks

postcard with collage, paint, and scribbles added