Eleventh Hour Studio Fun

Yesterday was a busy day, with several metaphorical brush fires popping up requiring my attention.

A number of intentions fell by the wayside, and I thought painting might also get postponed. Then, unexpectedly, a little pocket of spaciousness opened up as the day was coming to a close.

In the process of looking through my studio supplies to see if I had any watercolor paper, I bumped into an 18 x 24" sheet of high quality drawing paper which I'd covered several years ago with a monochromatic 'chaos layer' of greens. Evidently, I tucked it back into the pad of paper from which I'd extricated it, so I could find it and play with it yesterday!

I forgot to photograph before chopping it up but here's an after-the-fact photo.

In short order, I did a bit of veiling

and then got down to the business of neurographic doodling. SO calming and engaging. The dimensions of this piece are very satisfying to me, as is the piece as a whole. Nonetheless, I'm thinking I'll continue to play with it, to experiment with the neurographia in new-to-me ways. 

Stay tuned.

work in progress
4 x 8.5"; acrylic and ink on drawing paper

Faces 19

For the past few days, woven into the spaces between daily activities—making the bed, taking walks in the great outdoors, chopping vegetables, tutoring, reading, paying bills, shopping for groceries, resolving a glitch with an online order—I've had chances to hang out with this guy, often chatting companionably, sometimes lost in our separate thoughts, periodically venturing into artistic tomfoolery, and more than once exploring differences of opinion. 

He has strong integrity, a clear way of being in the world, a reliable compass guiding him. 

The Friend Who Isn't Afraid to Hold a Fierce Optnion
and Later Change His Mind
9 x 12"; acrylic and pastels on drawing paper
abstract face
2021
$70

Books and Bookmarks (2)

Re books:

You can tell 

she’s really good at reading 

no matter where she is 

or what’s happening around her. 

There’s this look on her face 

like she’s not there at all, 

she’s gone wherever 

the book takes her.

—Rodman Philbrick, Max the Mighty

Re bookmarks:

Here’s another thing I like about a hand-painted bookmark: its beautility! A bookmark is an exquisite marriage of beauty and utility. It has an immediate chance to broadcast its beauty—it doesn’t languish, waiting to be purchased; it doesn’t end up stuffed in a drawer or box, neglected or forgotten. I can do the equivalent of putting it on display instantly. Not only that, but also it has a practical job to do and gets busy doing it the moment the paint dries, snuggling cozily for short naps between the pages of whatever book I’m reading, all the while holding my place with an expectant eye half open and its whole self ready to radiate creative expressive energy all over again when I reopen my book. The best!

When I'm Reading, Wherever I Am,
I'm Always Somewhere Else
1.75 x 5.5" bookmark; acrylic and collage on paper
abstract
2020
sold

Progress

stud·y

/ˈstədē/

Learn to pronounce

noun

A room used or designed for reading, writing, or academic work.

a study, makeshift & temporary

stud·y

/ˈstədē/

Learn to pronounce

noun

A piece of work, especially art, done for practice or as an experiment.

a study, work in progress

Parentheses

I know, I know, you thought I was on a roll with a series of postcards from that 18x24" start done last summer at Lake Champlain.

So did I.

But.

While cleaning my studio, I bumped into an October 2016 mono-stripes exercise I did for a Jane Davies online course while on vacation in West Virginia, and you know how one thing

mono-stripes exercise 2016

leads to another.

I Was Putting Papers Away When the Telephone Rang
4x5" postcard; acrylic, pastels, and collage on card stock
abstract
2019

  

Rockin' My Painting

How to create granite—a felsic intrusive igneous rock that is granular and phaneritic in texture—from the lava and magma in my studio?

I get a little melting, cooling, solidification, and cracking underway today.

Kinda fun to work in geologic time.

bookmark in process

Wandering Down a Trail

Off on a new path today.

Same bookmark arboretum as previously, perhaps, but a different trail, with blazes of a different color.

So content to be following my muse and my paint brush.

started by journaling on a piece of watercolor paper

used a brayer and titan buff

added print collage;
mixed monochromatic colors with liquitex turquoise deep as a base;
used stencils and palette knife

resting place for today

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

Wildflower IDs

I remember my dad's taking my younger sisters and me on a walk around our Old Kelsey Point summer-rental neighborhood in Connecticut one summer evening when I was maybe 8 or 9 years old.

He carried a small book.

Not just any book, but what turned out to be a field guide to area wildflowers.

What excitement!

We'd spy a flower, find it in the book!

Discover its name!

Today, I've created a scrappy patch of summer lawn.

activating a new patch

I've spied some wildflowers!

work in progress within a work in progress

Staying Awake

First, I have to vent my frustration at how impossible it is sometimes to get a photograph that feels true to what I see in front of me.

Grrrr.

---

I set out today with a loose idea in mind to slap a variegated monochromatic background onto a new patch in Core Values, add a bunch of layers and bright chaotic playful 'flowers' of color, carve a lush bouquet out of all of the above by painting negative space.

Bouquet?

Never got past the variegated monochromatic background.

I liked staying awake enough as I painted to stop there.

New patch: done.

hooker's green acrylic on top of layer of gloss medium;
marks from a texture sheet and catalyst tool

scribbles from four different green paint markers

four more greens brushed and fingerpainted into place,
scribbles made with metal stylus
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newest patch

new patch in bigger picture;
working title: Core Values

No Man's Land

I'm in such an awkward place with this patch in my Core Values project. A no man's land. Although I trust that the layers I've built have the potential to go somewhere awesome, I don't particularly like what I see now, nor do I have any idea how to proceed.

I can detect some of what is needed.

But, I can't yet imagine how to create what is needed.

Artist Marion Hedger recently wrote about the phases of creating a painting, referencing an interview by Nicholas Wilton of Mark Eanes in which Eanes talks about three phases each painting moves through and how each phase has three phases.

So far, the one or two times I've tried in the moment to identify where I am in the process? No clue.

Today, when I stopped for the day, I thought, I am smack in the middle of the middle.

But maybe not. I may be at the beginning of the middle.

Or, possibly, the middle of the end.

The one fact of which I am certain: you'll see this painting at least once more, and it will have changed.

patch in progress

Overflowing

A plethora on my mind today.

A plethora on my plate.

Decided not to paint.

But danged if I didn't find myself in my studio, brush in hand, all details and tasks related to bathroom renovation, tutorial correspondence, bill paying, osteoporosis, and estate planning abandoned.

Started another patch. Used iPhoto to look at it in grayscale.