All Hands on Deck

I use my hands to create my art; I bring what is inside outside through the agency of my physical body, most specifically my hands.

Yesterday, when writing (also using my hands) my blog post, I noticed I used the expression at hand. I caught myself musing about the expression to hand, an expression I think is the British version of the same concept, i.e. to have something conveniently nearby. 

Similarly, if someone or something is on hand, they are nearby and able to be used if needed.

Then there's the word handy which gets rid of the above potpourri of prepositions altogether.

So, the opening sentence of yesterday's post started with these words:

    I continue to grab what's at hand.

I could have easily have said any of the following:

    I continue to grab what's to hand.

    I continue to grab what's on hand.

    I continue to grab what's handy. 

Or, I could have phrased my thought in the manner of my youngest sister, Marjorie, who as a child evidently subconsciously sorted out the existing options and created her own:

    I continue to grab what's on handy.

On handy! Top choice, hands down, and one that remains in my active personal lexicon.

---

I have moved my current neuroart experiment along since yesterday, and here's what I have on handy to share with you.

work in progress

Containers

In simplest terms, the basic guidelines for creating neurographic art are essentially these:

    • Use a marker to draw a long, looping, criss-crossing, scribble-like line on paper.

    • Round all corners where lines cross or turn, filling in the resulting gaps with ink (Have I mentioned how much I love rounding out the corners?!).

    • Add color.

What I notice the more I play with this neurographic form is that for me the doodles become structured, supportive containers that invite me into their protective confines to practice my art. Today's container beckoned me to play with size and shape, light and dark, compositional balance, freeform linework, busyness and resting places, and monochromatic neutrals.

The Musky Smell of Fallen Tree Trunks
and Mushrooms and Moldering Damp
4.5 x 5.25"; ink, watercolor, water-soluble and oil pastels
on drawing paper
abstract
2022

 

Grow A Pansome

As a child my mom was admonished, through a school child's rhyme sung to the tune of Frère Jacques, to maintain a straight spine. The lyrics as she recalled them:

Perfect posture, perfect posture,

Do not slump, do not slack,

You must grow a pansome, you must grow up pretty,

Do not slump, watch your back.

Um … grow a pansome?

Indeed, grow up handsome!

This was my first exposure to what is referred to as a mondegreen, a misheard lyric or line of poetry for which the brain supplies a substitution, usually one that alters meaning or is nonsensical.

A broader term for misheard words or phrases, also filled in with substitutions but in this case usually applied to those that retain their original meanings, is the term eggcorn. A few examples, substitution on left, original language on right:

eggcorn/acorn,

doggy-dog/dog-eat-dog, and

hare's breath/hair's breadth.

I never tire of such language tom-foolery! I lost myself online today enjoying many belly laughs!

But surely good Mrs. Murphy* shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

For All Intensive Porpoises
1.75 x 6" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and collage
abstract
2021

* Surely goodness and mercy … (Psalm 23:6)

On My Nightstand, on My Easel (2)

On my nightstand

Life-learning embedded in camp songs,* first sung decades ago in the 1960s, meets twenty-first-century neuroscience in Alex Korb's The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time:

Your smile is a powerful tool. Most people think that we smile because we feel happy, but it can go the other way as well: we feel happy because we smile. Smiling increases positive feelings. It's simple and improves your mood. [And,] when you smile, you're more likely to perceive positive emotions in other people, which can have a big influence on your mood.

A confident posture modulates your brain's response to your thoughts, so if you want to be more confident, think positive thoughts while sticking your chest out and keeping your chin up.

*camp song:

When anything goes wrong, keep smiling,

When anything goes wrong, just grin!

Throw back your shoulders, stick out your chin,

As long as you are smiling you are bound to win!

When anything goes wrong, keep smiling,

Never let your troubles get you down down down,

Everything will be all right

And the whole world will look bright

If you smile, smile, smile!

On my easel

work in progress, day 2, 4/19/20
24 x 48" canvas

Simple Pleasures

• spying a bright pop of winterberry (Ilex verticillata) color against monochromatic wetlands on my way home from the gym
• laughing out loud when the last of eleven November poster calendars I'd affixed to the family room walls as seasonal decoration fell to the floor because the masking tape had no sticking power
• feeling my just-sharpened chef's knife chop through bok choy at lunch time
• spreading black gesso onto card stock with a brush

Out of the Early Morning Darkness
3.5 x 5" postcard; acrylic and collage on card stock
abstract
2019

(Forever) New Love

New Love

I am telling my hands

not to blossom into roses

I am telling my feet

not to turn into birds

and fly over rooftops

I am putting a hat on my head

so the flaming meteors

in my hair

will hardly show.

                           Eve Merriam

Flaming Meteors
4x5.5" valentine for my Valentine; acrylic and pastel on paper
abstract
2019

Staying Very Still

Not for the first time, I take a found composition and excise it, this time from an exercise of monochromatic origin.

I move ahead, mount it on cardstock to make it travel-worthy as a postcard, think it is ready to go as is.

It is not.

Then, nothing.

I land smack in the middle of I-don't-know. Can see no way to resolution.

I have to practice stillness and more stillness.

And still more stillness—one day, another day, a third day—before it offers up the gentlest of whispers, barely moving the air.

I translate the whisper and, today, give the card a stamp and an address and blow it like dandelion fluff on a southward journey.

Morning When the Air Is Blue and Soft

3.75x5.75"; acrylic and oil pastel on paper, mounted on cardstock

abstract

2018

[gift]

One Thing, Another

Jon Katz, in his memoir about a rescue donkey who comes into his life in upstate New York, asserts, If my life on a farm is characterized by any one idea, it would be this: one thing leads to another.

Jen Walls writes about Katz's Saving Simon at her blog.

I am pulled in by her musings.

I request the book from interlibrary loan.

I read it.

Katz's explorations of compassion, self-compassion, and suspending judgment touch me.

Many of his ideas shine light on my experience of painting.

---

Oh.

Wait.

That's not the story I set out to tell.

---

Today, I post on Instagram.

@ronda_kernodle likes my photo. Wonder who she is.

Follow her link, poke around her page, discover that she quilts.

A patch of fabric catches my eye.

Bingo! Just the take-off point for which I didn't know I was looking!

---

That's life on my little farm.

---

Starting point for today's patch:

another residual-paint catch-all patch,
undeveloped

A palette knife leads to mixing paint, mixing paint leads to covering the patch, covering the patch leads to a dime-store brush, the dime-store brush leads to making swirly white orbs on the page, making swirly white orbs on the page leads to oil pastels, oil pastels lead to india ink, india ink leads to collage, collage leads to matte medium, matte medium leads to:

newest patch

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

Thank you, Jen.

Thank you, Ronda.

Front Stoop Refreshment

SOOO lovely, after waking to the brittle fricative click-click of sleet on our skylights last Wednesday, to have the day warm enough by early afternoon that I could take myself outdoors to make finishing touches on my Core Values patch-du-jour while sitting on our front 'stoop.'

The fact that Core Values is by no means a lap-sized project? No matter.

Birdsong.

Fresh air.

Neocolor pastels softened by the sun.

Heaven.

newest patch painted onto grid-format work-in-progress

detail from patch

patch in the "big picture"—
working title: Core Values

Poking Around New Turf

Selected another undeveloped patch on my Core Values grid and started poking around the new turf.

taped some edges, taped off space in which to paint a stripe

painted some stripes, pasted some collage

Will continue poking tomorrow.

Twists and Turns

Followed twists and turns today.

newest patch painted onto grid-format work-in-progress

starting place: offloaded paint from yesterday

detail from today's patch

today's patch as seen in partial context
of the whole work in progress;
working title: Core Values 

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]