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

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

This Whisper

Painting can yank me completely away from whatever thoughts are swirling in my mind and drop me into full presence.

That's the way it goes today—woo hoo!

I am awake to this whisper of bristles, this buttery blue mix, this wrinkly collage-textured surface, this blazing sunshine on my shoulder, these small muscles in my hand and wrist.

newest patch

detail

new patch in the big picture
work in progress
working title: Core Values

Don't Ask

About a year ago I bumped into these thoughts of Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like an Artist and other bestselling books:

Try this: Next time you come across someone’s work and you’re not sure exactly how they do it, don’t ask them how it’s done. Don’t go after the “right answer” like some eager honors student. Look closer. Listen harder. Then use your imagination and experiment with the tools you have. Your bad approximation will lead to something of your own.

A photograph on a book cover caught my attention recently. Each time I saw it, it pulled at me. How to capture its essence in paint? I took Kleon's words as a guide. Just kept looking closely at that photograph every so often, listening harder to what song it was singing.

Then, today, I took what my imagination had been turning this way and that, grabbed some of my tools, and started experimenting, happy to bumble along to an approximation.

Wish you could have seen me.

We had a contractor/carpenter here all day ripping up and rebuilding our 100+ year old upstairs bathroom floor. Many of his tools and materials were in—and obstructing the doorway to—my studio. Hammer was banging, power saw screaming, sawdust flying.

I navigated the obstacle course more than once, took supplies outdoors, and had just the sweetest time painting in the May sunshine.

First, I collaged wrinkly sandwich paper to a new patch on my Core Values project.

Then, I brushed black latex house paint over the whole patch.

Next, I mixed a few different blues, adjusting with black and white till I was satisfied.

After that, using a cheap castoff paintbrush that must have belonged to my kids back in the day, I painted stripes, letting the black peek through the space between the 'boards' I was creating.

Then, using a poultry lacer from the kitchen, I scratched 'wood grain' into the boards.

You know how your eyes/mind can flip back and forth between two perceptions of an optical illusion? I enjoyed that same alternating current as I painted—seeing stripes, seeing boards, seeing abstract, seeing representational. Way fun!

Tomorrow I'll continue experimenting and approximating and adventuring.

Pretty Darned Good

I'm pretty darned good at making accurate time estimates in my day-to-day living.

But in my art-making?

I Thought We Said the End of the Month
4x5"; latex, acrylic, ink, pastels, and collage on card stock
abstract
2018
[gifted]

Introducing Slapstick

Slapstick.

The word bubbled up this morning out of who knows where.

Followed by these words: slap it on, let it stick.

I grabbed yesterday's postcard start, worked quickly, slap, slap, slap. Messed stuff up right and left, let it stick. Wanted to dribble paint. Dribbled paint.

Done.

Don't love it, but I'm lettin' it stick.

Slapstick
4x5"; acrylic, latex, collage, ink, and pencil on heavy manila stock
abstract
2017
[gift]

Q&Q Cut-Up #11

Seven weeks ago, I was about three days into starting a 12x16" painting adventure.

Today, four square inches of that early-stages work-in-progress—long since transformed beyond recognition, and chopped into tiny canvas tiles in the process—strut their stuff in an entirely different composition.

I don't know where this stuff comes from.

The Good Order of the Toolshed
5x5"; acrylic, latex, canvas tiles, collage, ink, watercolor pencil, and oil pastel on paper
abstract
2017

I Know, I Know / Q&Q Cut-Up #10

I tried and tried to find a background color that would offer pop and liveliness as the 'grout,' so to speak, behind half-inch canvas tiles I had cut from quick & quixotic cut-up #10.

The top and bottom portions (sky, water) of cut-up #10 worked fine together when they were juxtaposed in the context of a single painting, but they became lackluster—at best—as tiles.

What worked as contrast or complement behind the sky tiles did not work at all behind the water tiles, and vice versa. If you've been following along for the past few days, you've seen.

I know, I know. Why did I even cut a 4x5" work-in-progress into dozens of dramatically smaller half-inch squares to begin with? 

I don't have an answer.

However, as aggravating as the self-created challenge has proved to be (and stay tuned … I may yet toss the remaining tiles in the trash), I sure have learned a bunch empirically. Plus, I now have at hand three sheets of awesome collage paper that were way fun to paint—a decent net gain in yardage, to call up my football imagery again.

Eventually I sidestepped my search for a color contrast, glued sixteen tiles on an essentially white background instead, scribbled some monochromatic watercolor pencil on the page, and then flung monochromatic latex house paint from a small applicator. 

The play suddenly came together! Touchdown!

I added a few teeny little hints of oil pastel.

Scored the extra point.

Now I'm dancing a happy dance in the end zone.

[Only 66 more tiles left!]

The Patter of Rain on Windowpanes
4x5"; acrylic, latex, and oil pastel, and canvas-tile collage on paper,
mounted on heavy card stock
abstract
2017
[gift]

Q&Q Cut-Up #8

I am in medias res, in the middle of—and I mean really right in the confounding mucky impenetrable middle of—an ongoing cyber snafu I have yet to resolve. Anxiety, or worry, or frustration, or whatever the heck the feeling is, crowds my mind like something physical—something dark and weighty lodged in my head.

But I laughed out loud a short while ago, knowing I'd found a title for today's painting when I saw the words I did have a trouble or two on my mind in a novel I was reading!

I Did Have a Trouble or Two on My Mind 
4x5"; pencil, ink, acrylic, latex, and pastels on unstretched canvas
abstract
2017
[gift]

Quick & Quixotic 8

I haven't strayed at all from the quick, capricious, unpredictable, only-have-few-minutes-to-paint modus operandi that has characterized the unfolding of this current work in progress from day #1 back in late September. 

And, in keeping with that modus operandi, looky what took place in my studio today as I followed an impulse and made a split-second decision …

work in progress
8 4x5" and 2 2x8" pieces of unstretched canvas
working title: quick & quixotic cut-ups

Quick & Quixotic 7

Have I mentioned that Jay and Christine's wedding celebration is taking place in ten days?

So exciting—such a happy, busy time for this mother of the groom!

Again today, I grab just a few minutes to paint. I'm so glad for those few quick minutes of capricious unpredictable adventuring in a day otherwise filled mostly with tasks requiring the services of my left brain.

Love the transformation that took place on my bit of unstretched canvas!

work in progress
12x16"; unstretched canvas
working title: quick & quixotic 7

A few spectacular detail photos—look at these volunteer compositions:

Quick & Quixotic 6

Yesterday, at the top of my list of intentions for today, I wrote this: decide early in day what my focus will be during afternoon studio time.

Bright and early this morning I saw that note to myself and went into my studio to look at Quick & Quixotic to see where I might want to go with it this afternoon.

Twenty or so minutes later, I wiped off my paint brush, screwed the lid back on my matte medium, and surveyed where I did go with that work in progress … first thing in the morning!

work in progress
12x16"; unstretched canvas
working title: Quick and Quixotic 6

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Memory refresher—Q&Q last seen 11 days ago looking like this:

Painting Connections

I wrote about this piece's partner maybe ten or more days ago, in a post about staying connected to other artists, especially those who "express interest in and resonate with what you are doing" and whose work lights you up.

This post is also about connections.

First, I love when paintings connect to each other—when they're siblings, sharing considerable DNA but also having distinct personalities and experiences. Such is the situation for today's painting and her born-first sister. They now live in different states, have their own lives to live, and often go whole days with nary a thought of each other. At heart, though, they are still connected.

Second, I love the connection I have to my experience of painting this piece. It evokes instantly a day that had dawned chilly, at 42 degrees, but became a gift of bright sunshine, radiant warmth, yellow leaves that drifted occasionally to the ground, cloudless blue skies, and crisp dry air. My internal weather was more of the same. Happy. I was in my happy place—adding touches of paint, sorting through my scraps box for backdrop papers on which to mount the painting, applying matte medium, tucking the emerging card repeatedly between carefully designed improvisational weights to let one layer after another adhere as I assembled.

Partying with Norman and Sebastian
2.5x3.5"; acrylic, ink, pencil, and pastels on postcard stock,
mounted on card stock and wallpaper sample
abstract
2017
[gift]

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Check out this awesome photo shoot that We Drink and Partying agreed to before their lives took them in differing directions.

Friday, Watoga

white-tailed, elegant,

doe and fawns mow the lawn 

while I meditate

The Broad Back of the Earth Beneath My Feet
4x5"; acrylic, latex, and pastels on paper
abstract
2017

Stay Connected

Another way to thrive as an artist, in the words of Nicholas Wilton, is to

3 Stay Connected

Your success, energetically, financially and even spiritually, is directly connected to those that support and follow your artistic journey. Never lose connection with those that express interest and resonate with what you are doing. Cherish them.

Yes, yes, yes! I do stay connected, I don’t lose connection with those who express interest and resonate with what I’m doing, and I do ferociously cherish them.

To wit, I first bumped into Simone Nijboer and her art two years ago online, and connecting with her changed my unfolding experience as an artist dramatically. A new friend! Someone with whom to talk art! 

She is a key player in my art life. We’ve had an almost daily blog-to-blog conversation in progress for two years now along with periodic personal email communication. It was Simone's art that, for the first time and to my complete astonishment, drew me to abstract art. I was mesmerized by what I saw in her work, and I was compelled to explore abstract painting myself. Life changing. Literally.

Simone was the direct spark that lit my speed-painting yesterday and today. And what joyful painting it was—I flipped to the blank side of what started its life as a professionally printed marketing postcard. I received it in the mail and transformed it in just minutes, minutes inspired by Simone's enduring belief in painting even if she has only the smallest snippet of time and limits her materials and scope.

We drink / one from the other / still
2.5x3.5"; acrylic, ink, pencil, and pastels on postcard stock,
mounted on card stock
abstract
2017
[gift]

An Embarrassment of Riches

Late summer sunshine,

radiant warm weather,

cloudless azure skies,

terrific tutorial students at my back door,

two engaging editing jobs in my lap,

wedding details' falling into place,

a beach picnic,

day's-end campfires night after night,

three good books in progress,

a painting knife in my hand,

and gratitude every which way.

free canvas #1
16x20"
work in progress

detail

detail