Word(s) of the Day (9)

task buddy

gumption

why not? asks Linda

 

detail, work in progress
adding ink and oil pastel to 30 x 30" canvas

Last Seen at the Paper Trimmer

Last seen at my paper trimmer, each member of this series developed with quick intuitive touches of paint, ink, and oil pastel.

I sat with each until a title fell into place, then framed them and snapped photos (photographing art that's under glass? oy).

You Know What Is So and What Is Not
8 x 10" in 12 x 16" birch frame; acrylic, ink, collage, and oil pastel
abstract
2018

Everything That Happens to You Is Your Teacher
8 x 10" in 12 x 16" birch frame; acrylic, ink, collage, and oil pastel
abstract
2018

Sit at the Feet of Your Own Life
8 x 10" in 12 x 16" birch frame; acrylic, ink, collage, and oil pastel
abstract
2018

See for Yourself How the Light Strikes the Ground
8 x 10" in 12 x 16" birch frame; acrylic, ink, collage, and oil pastel
abstract
2018

Dissipation

Yesterday's stories are yesterday's stories—breaking up into little pieces, spreading thin, scattering, blowing away in the least bit of breeze like so much dandelion fluff.

work in progress

Bolus

Look at this bolus of (bogus!) stories I tell myself!

I am so grateful for the transformational act of journaling on canvas/paper to begin a painting. I love the energy that releases, the stuck discomfort that moves out of my chest, the expressed feelings that shift towards becoming a piece of art rather than a heavy dark tangle in my heart.

start of a new painting

Look at all the spaciousness around that bolus!

spaciousness

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Grabbed another outdated calendar poster printed on quality card stock, and started laying down mayhem.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

The Tiniest Neurons

Quoting Lyanda Lynn Haupt again:

We create from … the song just beneath our typical hearing, the murmuration that calls the tiniest neurons of our brains into flight.

Today, another undeveloped patch in Core Values catches my attention. This bit of real estate holds some collage from the very first day I put anything on this big ol' piece of foam core three months ago, as well as paint I've wiped off my brush at various junctures since then.

I've been wanting to reacquint myself with Golden Hi-Flow acrylics and also curious to see if I could mix up some taupe from regular Liquitex paints in my studio. Those are the murmurations that call a few of the tiniest neurons of my brain into flight. I do a little on-canvas journaling first, and then get going with paint.

Currently in the messy middle somewhere.

black paint-marker journaling,
then hi-flow acrylic,
then scribbles with a stylus in wet paint

homegrown acrylic taupe mix,
more stylus scribbles in wet paint;
work in progress
working title: Core Values

Inspiration-Wind

In her charming and informative book, Mozart's Starling, Lyanda Lynn Haupt comments, about her writing process:

I have come to terms with the sad truth that inspiration never visits at my convenience, nor in accordance with my sense of timing, nor at the behest of my will. Most of all, the inspiration-wind has no interest whatsoever in what I think I want to write about. 

Yeah, about that inspiration-wind.

Started fiddling today with a new patch as part of my still-ongoing project, Core Values. Every now and then, the tiniest tease of a breeze. Mostly, nothing.

journaling and mark-making

adding color, scratching wet paint

penciling irregular pentagons

My Village

I am deeply grateful for my painting village—for the new friends I've made in the past four years through Leslie Saeta's Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days challenges, through Instagram, through my blog, and through the internet at large; and for my family and longtime friends—all of whom support, cheer, encourage, ask questions, give feedback, make suggestions, point me in directions, share links of interest, purchase my paintings, follow my blog, laugh with me, give me hugs, help me solve problems, and act as patrons of my art with various gifts.

They are my teachers.

I draw nourishment from them again and again.

Hard to imagine where I'd be without them—and why try? I know where I am with them and I am grateful day after day after day.

Especially when my internal world feels like a crazy wilderness.

Here's where my current tri-patch went today:

rotated my canvas, painted over yesterday

did some therapeutic journaling

let Hans Christian Anderson put in his 2¢ via collage