My Village

I am deeply grateful for my painting village—for the new friends I've made in the past four years through Leslie Saeta's Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days challenges, through Instagram, through my blog, and through the internet at large; and for my family and longtime friends—all of whom support, cheer, encourage, ask questions, give feedback, make suggestions, point me in directions, share links of interest, purchase my paintings, follow my blog, laugh with me, give me hugs, help me solve problems, and act as patrons of my art with various gifts.

They are my teachers.

I draw nourishment from them again and again.

Hard to imagine where I'd be without them—and why try? I know where I am with them and I am grateful day after day after day.

Especially when my internal world feels like a crazy wilderness.

Here's where my current tri-patch went today:

rotated my canvas, painted over yesterday

did some therapeutic journaling

let Hans Christian Anderson put in his 2¢ via collage

Liminal Hints

The painting I started five days ago has presented an engaging conundrum: I want to capture a feeling. But, how?

It's one thing to paint intuitively, to just make marks and brushstrokes, knowing that whatever I'm feeling is most likely playing out in some way on my canvas. That's hard enough, but it's something I've grown into gradually.

It's another thing, and a harder thing by far at the moment, to have some sense—though in no way a clear sense—of a particular feeling I want to convey, and to then try to manifest visually that feeling … for which I have no visual reference.

The word liminal comes to mind: of, relating to, or situated at a sensory threshold : barely perceptible or capable of eliciting a response. I'd say that about sums up the vague stuff I've been trying to find words for here!

In any case, my brain has been working hard while I sleep, offering up what I think of as liminal hints as to ways to proceed.

So today I cut a piece from a book jacket I'd saved, and used it as a support for collaging. I think somehow this sheet of collage may move me forward.

Here's what I've accumulated in the past few days:

acrylic and ink covering an old painting on 6x6" canvas board

acrylic skin

book jacket with first pieces of collage

collaged book jacket

Found Friends

I found these gals one by one in December, and then they found each other and became fast friends.

They insisted that I take a photo of them together, even though it was all they could do to come anywhere close to standing still long enough for me to get a shot!

What a dynamite way to begin a new year, eh?—dancing straight in, full of energy and high spirits.