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 (4)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• My magic pants (Columbia® calls them something else) and walking shoes were comfortable for 51 degrees at 500a.
• I changed out of my magic pants four hours later in favor of a skirt and flip flops.
• A 5 x 6-foot closet can hold a significant number of items.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

neutrals postcard start #2, resting

Neutrals (3)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• This afternoon I will burn a bag of outdated paperwork culled from a file cabinet upstairs.
• I discovered in a stack of stored folders a pad of lined paper with a company logo at the top of each page and have been unable to decide where to give it a home for future use.
• I don't have criteria yet for facilitating my decluttering of the green closet.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

neutrals postcard start #1, resting

On My Nightstand, on My Easel (17)

On my nightstand

She didn’t think Jack 

had ever felt 

the coming and going 

in quite the same way 

she had. 

To leave, 

               after all, 

was not the same 

as being left.

Anita Shreve, The Pilot's Wife

On my easel

work in progress, 40 days in, 5/28/20
24 x 48" canvas

On My Nightstand, on My Easel (16)

On my nightstand

She took careful steps 

across the floor, 

as if moving too fast 

might set something in motion 

that hadn’t yet begun.

Anita Shreve, The Pilot's Wife

On my easel

something in motion!
detail, work in progress, 36 days in, 5/24/20
24 x 48" canvas

On My Nightstand, on My Easel (15)

On my nightstand

You've perhaps noticed
how window plants
wind and grow
toward the light,
pressing their leaves
against the pane.
This turning toward the light
has a scientific name:
… heliotropism.
Jung spoke of a 
'human heliotropism.'
The True Self
seeks the light,
winding and growing
toward realization,
pressing against
the windowpane
of consciousness.

Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits


On my easel

heliotropic work in progress, 36 days in, 5/24/20
24 x 48" canvas

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.

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.