For the Record

If I post a painting here, with a title, with its size and media specs, and with a date, it will implicitly and explicitly announce itself as a completed painting. You will most likely see it as a completed painting. You will like it or not. You might click on it to put it in viewfinder mode so you can get an in depth view of its nooks and crannies. Your eye might explore for a bit of time, or for more than a bit of time. Then you'll move on till I post again with either a new work in progress or new completed painting.

I'm going to post a piece here today as a completed painting. I want a record of it as it is right now, because it could be complete, if I say so.

Well, and if it says so. But it keeps telling me it is not. Even though it isn't telling me specifically what step to take, it is asking me to risk 'wrecking' it by doing something. I'm going to have to figure that out by a process of making changes and taking chances.

For right now, though, I present to you

Open for Business

11 x 14"; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on paper

abstract

 2022

Plus and Minus

I set out a few weeks ago to practice addition and subtraction while painting.

And that is precisely what I've been doing of late.

In the process I've discovered with new awareness that visual subtraction often takes place, ironically, by means of addition. Though much may be obscured from view, nothing actually gets taken away. Though I repeatedly have to let go, nothing is ever truly lost.

A bit of the history of this piece:

Look Behind, Underneath, In the Corners, Off the Page

4.75 x 5.5"; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on paper

abstract

2022

More in Real Time

I decided to peel off the painter's tape with the intent to cut what was originally going to be a single piece into four smaller pieces. 

Peeling the tape from this work-in-progress was different from my usual experience of peeling tape away because I don't usually divide an already-started piece with tape and keep working on it as I did in this case.

Check this out:

underlayers of a work-in-progress revealed; 
cruciform format takes stage

Having peeled the tape, I lifted the arm of my paper trimmer and removed what is the center vertical runway in the photo above.

I fully intended to keep trimming, and still do, but I've granted myself 24 hours to be mesmerized by the two resulting pieces before making those cuts.

work in progress A

work in progress B

Seein' Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard

Well I'm on my way

I don't know where I'm going

I'm on my way

I'm taking my time but I don't know where

—Paul Simon

All true:

• I'm on my way,

• I don't know where I'm going, and

• I'm taking my time.

Also true:

• This piece did not go at all where I thought it might; and

• I'm grateful to be working in a sketchbook because it frees me up to go more easily wherever a painting takes me.

Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard
7 x 10"; acrylic and ink in sketch book
abstract
2022

Is There a Purpose?

Artist Jane Davies recently posted a conversation in response to a question that came her way about the value of art if it isn't practical or doesn't make a salable piece—if, for example, as Jane had done, one was making small simplified works on paper with self-created 'rules' just to get ideas moving by keeping hands and eyes doing something in the studio. The question behind the question was: what to do with all those impractical unsalable pieces of art?

So many thoughts and ideas I have in response to that question but, for today, only this:

Keep them! Keep them all! You never know what might become of one of those pieces! Or when!

Part of the fun of this postcard, made before Jane posted the aforementioned conversation at her blog, is that the pieces come from exercises I did several years ago while taking an online class from Jane! What if I had pitched them because they weren't 'practical' or 'salable'? No thank you!

Deep Inner Space, Extraordinary Knowing
4 x 6" postcard; acrylic and pencil on drawing paper, mounted on cardboard
abstract
2020

Neutrals (8)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• My tutoring table—and central command post for almost all my deskwork—is a 1950's kitchen table with green Formica laminate top, chrome metal edging around the tabletop, and chrome legs.
• This morning's high humidity gave way to an afternoon downpour.
• Today I set about drafting my post by intentionally not including any headings initially. I entered my first statement above, and Grammarly identified the tone as joyful. After entering the second statement, the post as a whole was optimistic, and it remained optimistic as I wrote this very sentence. I then began entering the heading for this section; the tone remained optimistic until I entered the word exploration, at which point Grammarly indicated: anxious.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

postcard start #6, resting

Neutrals (7)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• When I stand still for more than a minute outdoors at 445a, a mosquito finds me.
• When I sit two hours later beside Bass River, I am chilled by strong breezes.
• Our back deck, where I usually eat lunch al fresco, is today occupied by house painters, drop cloths, ladders, scraping tools, electric sanders, and a boom box.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

postcard start #5, resting

Neutrals (6)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• A painting crew is sanding the exterior walls of our home.
• I received payment for a painting yesterday.
• I have a phone appointment this afternoon with someone I've never met before.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

postcard start #4, resting

Neutrals (5)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• Grammarly is a free online writing assistant app designed to improve word usage, spelling, punctuation, and the like.
• In addition to having word usage, spelling, and punctuation checkers, it has a tone checker.
• Grammarly has identified the tone in this post and its three predecessors as anxious*.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

postcard start #3, resting

* !!!!! **
** And, yes, neutral is one of the tones Grammarly checks for.

In the Practice of It

I took my 18 x 24" page of preliminary mark-making started in early July and ran with it for several days.

I began following an idea of wanting to paint abstracted wildflowers in a field of grasses.

work in progress
18 x 24"; ink, acrylic, and latex

Just That

What do I notice in this moment? Two ivy plants tucked in a tin planter on the little drop-leaf desk in my study.

I water them once a week, turning the planter around at each watering to give the back side a chance to be the front side. I notice midweek—today, right now—how the leaves have shifted, have reached with quiet reflexive strength of purpose, bit by bit by bit since Wednesday, toward the light coming from the window across the room.

Just that.

Like the Chrysalis Who Had No Idea
1.75 x 6"; acrylic, India ink, and collage on drawing paper,
mounted on card stock
abstract bookmark
2018
[sold]

Taking Note

For a number of days now, I have been especially thought-full, noticing alternating current in my day-to-day living, noticing the back-and-forth in play between peaceful engaged presence and agitated internal chatter as I created this piece.

In a Hurry has become a visual meditation: a reminder to breathe, a signifier of the space between an in-breath and an out-breath, an invitation to move at a slower pace, a nudge towards mindfulness.

In a Hurry as the Babysitter's Meter Ticks
7x7"; acrylic, latex, India ink, and handpainted collage on canvas paper
abstract
2018

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.

Arthur's Weed Patch

I was living in the Netherlands when I first connected with Miss Peach comic strips. The reason I remember the character named Arthur and, more particularly, his weed patch* is that my youngest sister was born while we lived in the Netherlands and had hair that stood straight up from her head as an infant, hair that my parents referred to—with great affection—as Arthur's weed patch.

It was during those same two years of living in the Netherlands that a school friend and I, sixth graders at the time, spent a bunch of happy hours playing across the street from her house at a construction site after hours. As I've played with my current Core Values patch yesterday and today, memories have surfaced of the engaging pleasure of making something out of 'nothing' at that building site—arranging and rearranging cinder blocks, scraps of wood, bits of metal, and other stuff lying around in the gravel and weeds.

Here I am doing the same thing all these many years later.

added white shapes, scratched through layers

pasted tissue collage, extended color, added veiling

new patch, with final tweaks

detail

new patch in the bigger picture;
working title: core values

-------------

* I kinda shrugged off my homework yesterday, not persisting in searching for online evidence of Arthur's weed patch, but look what my friend Carolyn found:

Miss Peach is a really sweet and kind teacher but, still, I hope she doesn't find out Carolyn did my homework for me.

Making Hay

Years ago, I copied out the following lines from Agnes Rossi's novel Houseguest—"pardon my French" for quoting some profane language here, but the profanity is essential to the impact:

     There are difficulties and there are difficulties. It’s one thing to be moving along a sidewalk in winter all but overwhelmed by grief for a beloved wife recently dead. It’s something else entirely to be faced with the prospect of getting a large suitcase without a working handle halfway across town. 
     “Son of a bitch,” Edward said. “Jesus goddamn Christ.” 

The lines came to mind this morning.

I've had a headache for four weeks now, but it 'was something else entirely' to be taking on the tiniest of tasks in my studio, painting the edges of a canvas I started several months ago, and to knock my water container over all over everything. 

What Edward said!

Anyway, headache and spilled water notwithstanding, we have a mega-blizzard forecast for tomorrow, with EVEN COLDER temps than the past couple of weeks predicted to follow. I decided to make hay while the sun shines—to finish the edges of this painting, take a photo outdoors, and then set it on my dresser as a nod to the new year.

Might be finished. Might not. Doesn't matter.

Bring on the blizzard.

free canvas #1
16x20"
work in progress

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

Shaping Up

I went to my studio with a sense that free canvas #1 might be in the market for some left brain refinement.

And my left brain did get a little studio time today.

But not as much as expected.

Something in me was still hankering to go bold, go experimental, go exploratory.

I'm all shaped up for tomorrow's adventures.

free canvas #1
16x20"
work in progress

Unexpected

Really?

From this

to this?

work in progress;
working title: inner july landscape
4.5x6"

Didn't see that coming.

I plan to cut in half.

Then, what next?

Little Roots, Taking Hold

Picked up the last quadrant from a start painted on vacation in New Brunswick.

With no attention to final outcome, played around with some marks, just making additions as they occurred to me.

And then, of course, attachment—little roots, taking hold!

work in progress;
working title: Making Messy #4

Playboards

Nicholas Wilton encourages artists to make what he refers to as playboards and others might refer to as activating the canvas. The idea is to just put down paint with as little thought as possible as a loosening up exercise before moving into other phases of a painting.

History of the playboard I generated today:

piece of calendar poster
rough brush and gesso
crosshatching with princeton catalyst blade



grease pencil



golden high flow acrylic dripped onto wet surface
tube acrylics, bristle brush, foam brush



acrylic paint pens



gel pen
papermate sharpwriter pencil
oil pastels



scissors
masking fluid (far right)
  


Fun.