Practicing Nonattachment

Artist Flora Bowley shoots an arrow directly into my Achille's heel with an exercise she calls Practicing Nonattachment.

The essence of the exercise is to get two canvases going at once, working 15 minutes at a time on each, switching back and forth to allow drying time, and covering 3/4 of what you previously painted on each until you build up four layers on both canvases.

I elect to cut 8" squares (vs. suggested 24") from the end of a roll of brittle 37-year-old wallpaper.



I decide to paint on the design side of one square and the pre-pasted back of the other. Hard to imagine getting attached to either. I start with the design-side square, pick three colors, create a loose-grid format underpainting.

Please laugh with me: I get attached immediately. To the first layer on the first sheet!

Nonetheless, I grit my teeth and soldier on.

I'll post Nonattchment 1 today, Nonattachment 2 tomorrow.

layer 1

layer 2

layer 3

layer 4

Took Me Long Enough!

The remaining sliver of a blind contour drawing in hand, I went to my studio yesterday with the idea of using pastels to create an abstract painting whose line under-drawing would show through in captivating little snippets.

That did not go as imagined.

The pastels didn't do what I wanted. The lines didn't do what I wanted.

I got into fix-it mode.

Etched in some texture with a hair pick. Used a precision applicator to superimpose some line elements.

The mess multiplied.

I went from the original sweet flow of the contour drawing to a sour no-go.

flow

no go

It would have been easy enough to toss the experiment in the trash and call it a day—many things learned, start something new. I'm only talking a 2x6" piece of watercolor paper here, and the contour drawing was long gone. Time to cut my losses and move on.

Here's the thing, though. A fresh piece of paper offers a new start, but so does No-Go.

What the heck, why not consider No-Go my new start?

That did not go as imagined either.

The bold ink lines I drew felt forced. The thinner stitch lines I drew looked self-conscious.

I covered the whole overwrought muddle with acrylic, then lifted some of the acrylic with a brayer to let lines show through.

Ended up going from the earlier sour no-go of the pastels to the gloomy God-only-knows of an acrylic veil.

bold show

stitches on tiptoe

away it all goes

God only knows

Again, it would've been easy enough to pitch the experiment—many things learned, start fresh. Seriously, we're talking a scrap of paper here. Plus, even a team of trained archaeological diggers would not have been able to get back to the original contour drawing.

But, I'd need a piece of paper no matter what I did next, so why not let God Only Knows be that piece of paper?

By this point, I'd finally released all attachment to my original vision.

Took me long enough!

I turned my paper sideways, got out pastels again, and turned the reins over to my intuition—ever patient in the wings, thank goodness.

And I returned to flow, to the exquisite feeling of flow I remember from creating the original contour drawing.

The same energy that is right now wordlessly pushing shoots out of the ground and sending sap rising in maple trees moved through me and gave me a soft sweet whisper of vernal let's-go!

My February blind contour drawing is now not only blind but also invisible! But I love knowing that from the generative seed of that drawing buried way down deep under layer upon layer, this little paper prayer grew.

Paper Prayer 34, Let's Go
2x6", ink, acrylic, and oil pastels on watercolor paper
abstract
2016
$12

close-up of textural elements created with a fingernail file
and a little round gizmo from Dave's workbench

Bad News, Good News

Bad news:

The same hand that can create these—

want to frame them!

can also create this—

use as kindling?

.

Good news:

The same hand that can create this—

dislike

can also create these—

like!

.

Best news: in the end, it's all good.

Dean Nimmer recommends keeping creative exercises you do in three separate portfolios entitled "Like," "Dislike," and "TBC" (To Be Continued).

I'm going to put the paper prayer depicted above into TBC even though I dislike it. I went into it with a totally experimental mindset, wanting to try a few things. Might as well keep messing around.

Moments of Recovery

I had no idea where I was going when I started yesterday, and for the most part that felt fine. I wasn't lighting up at what was emerging but I was in the game.

Then I hit a snag I wasn't expecting and, it turns out, had little idea how to resolve: the black Sharpie permanent marker ink turned blue after awhile.

At that point, the piece went from bad to worse in terms of finding anything pleasing to my eye.

Tried masking the blue with wax pastel. Nope.

Tried oil pastel. Nope.

Opted to stop fighting it, and added blue intentionally.

Ugly, ugly, ugly.

Left my studio and got on with other things.

By evening I tried gesso. Three or four coats. But that danged blue just kept bleeding through, no matter what. I went to bed.

Today I went in on top of the gesso with pink acrylic. Blue lines still made themselves known.



I went back to ground zero and started collaging again. At long last, started liking what I saw.



Added a thin layer of acrylic over certain areas. Laid in some textural elements.

Eventually did a little doodling in my sketch book, wondering if I dared go in with a different black pen. Thought my doodles might be too busy. Tried them out on some scraps of collage from the original larger piece. Decided to glue the scraps themselves onto my emerging painting.

Done—and satisfying at least as much because of my engagement with process as because of my delight with several elements of the result.

Healthy Clotting Factors
3.5x4.5", acrylic, collage, and ink on watercolor paper
abstract
2016
$16

Here's what I loved about the experience: the part where the mess got so bad that I had to either physically let go of the piece itself, i.e. pitch it or cut it up or put it in a scrap pile for some possible future use in a different form, or mentally let go of hanging on to my ideas of what I wanted it to be. It was already a disaster. I wasn't going to be able to resurrect what I liked from underneath the mess. Therefore, I had nothing to lose. Freedom! I got playful and intuitive again.

Teeny tiny art series:

    

       

Leave It or Change It?

Several weeks ago I made a collage, cut it into quarters. Here are those quarters, with two already in the process of being developed at the time.

The top right quarter became a Valentine for Meg and her family, the top left a Valentine for Dave, the bottom left a sympathy card for a friend. Today, the bottom right got cleared for landing.

So, about those moments I mentioned yesterday.

moment

moment

moment

moment

moment

I'll get back to you in a moment.

Quinacridone Tetraptych

I am so totally glad I set myself the challenge of doing a series of cruciform composition exercises.

A few days ago I had maybe two wisps of ideas in mind, and I began noodling around. Sometimes I'd hold in consciousness the guidelines for the Jane Davies assignment that got me going on this series, but mostly I forgot.

What an adventure. Make a mark, see what it tells me about where to go next. Plenty of ugly en route but, more and more, I see any moment en route as just what it is: a moment. A moment in which something is in front of me, and I can let it be or change it. The tasks of daily living interrupt the process but each time I come back to my paintings I have the same conditions: one moment's perceptions, and the chance to leave the painting as is, or change it in some way.

Again and again.

This series is just so appealing to me now in its series-ness!

I love how all the pieces fed off and informed the others as I created them, and I love how they now do so as completed pieces. I love how they can each stand alone, and I love how they stand together—arms slung around each other's shoulders, equipoised between their differences and their affinities.

I am agog, yet again!, by the miracle in creativity: when I woke up this morning, these four paintings did not exist.

Now they do.

Quinacridone Tetraptych

Quinaptych 1
4x4", acrylic, collage, and ink on canvas paper
abstract
2016
[not for sale]

Quinaptych 2
4x4", acrylic, collage, and ink on canvas paper
abstract
2016
[not for sale]

Quinaptych 3
4x4", acrylic, collage, and ink on canvas paper
abstract
2016
[not for sale]

Quinaptych 4
4x4", acrylic, collage, and ink on canvas paper
abstract
2016
[not for sale]

A Fair Representation

Friend Ann enthusiastically follows and cheers my adventures in painting but allows as how she doesn't much have any affinity for abstract.

So, her birthday approaches and I think, I'd like to paint Ann a card.

But, hmm.

Have you seen me paint anything representational in the past five months? Not so much.

I decide on the following self-selected challenge: a bookmark sporting a fair representation of something real and recognizable.

My sketch book calls to me. My oil pastels call to me.

The subsequent challenges: how to support the sketchbook paper and how to keep the pastels from smudging so this little piece of art can be put to practical use as a bookmark.

Affixing the sketchbook sheet to manila stock takes care of paper strength. Hairspray, followed by matte medium, protects the pastels.

Wishing you a really happy birthday, Ann!

Paper Prayer 32, Trees in Light
study/appropriation of a painting by Pattie Wall
2x5.75", oil pastels on Aquabee sketchbook paper
nature
2016
[not for sale]