Big Blank Canvas

If you look through my blog, you'll see that most of my paintings since May 2015 have been small: 6x6", 4x5", 4x4", some 3x3". An occasional 8x8", 9x12", 10x10". The biggest is 16x20".

Last weekend, with Caroline and Emmy as both my patronesses of the arts and my shopping companions, I purchased a 30x30" canvas, the biggest that's ever come into my studio.

As we walked through the art store, I kept saying, I have no idea what to do with something this big! 

But something in me has the urge to go big(ger).

So, that's where I'm going.

Once home, in the middle of the night after that acquisition, I woke briefly. What rose to the surface before I sank back into sleep was this:

I can use this canvas like a blackboard. I can "write" and "erase" on it. 

Write. Erase. 

Write. Erase.

Write.

Write.

Erase.  

I can doodle with a pencil. 

I can make one hundred 3x3" ink sketches. 

I can paint a tree. 

I can create an abstract with pastels. 

I can do whatever I want. 

As many times as I want.

Today, I made some marks.

playing with big: charcoal and pastel lines on 30x30" stretched canvas,
4x5" postcard in corner for perspective

Locked Pantry

Over the long weekend our home was filled with family and extended family. The best!

Then, they all left. The worst!

Worse yet, in my painful solitude I had in mind that I'd drown my sorrows by painting—forgetting that I'd dismantled my studio so my favorite granddaughters in the world could use that room as their bedroom.

Nothing was accessible! Everything was in a jumble!

No!

I felt like I was at a pantry door knowing nourishment was just inches away but locked up tight.

I was a starving artist after all, despite my claims in an earlier post that such a creature was a contradiction in terms!

Eventually, I pulled out my sketchbook and laid my hands on a pen.

Made two quick sketches.

Then turned my attention to stripping beds, deflating our air mattress and stuffing it back in a storage closet, starting a load of wash, and chipping away at reassembling my studio.

I will not use my blog to inform you of the curse words I pressed into service when I dropped a huge pile of collage materials and other paper all over the floor.

Nourishment

The phrase "starving artist" just came to mind. I understand the nature of the expression, but really? Starving? An artist?

In my experience, "starving" paired with "artist" seems like a complete contradiction in terms.

I am continually fed and nourished and fueled and fortified and sated by playing with art. Never has my belly been so full.

If ever I was starving, it was before I picked up a paintbrush, that's for sure.

Today I continue to think about sketching, about painting abstractly, about starting with no external information at all, about creating from within.

When I think of sketching, I usually think of making quick rough lines to represent something I see. Today I decide to sketch without looking at anything, and without trying to represent anything, not even something in my mind's eye.

Not easy; not easy.

But, I'm telling you, art offers a feast from soup to nuts.

Contentment

On an overbusy afternoon last week, when what I had planned to accomplish before day's end was wildly ambitious and unrealistic, instead of putting my shoulder to the wheel … I went to my studio!

With windows open to the summer air and to the companionable tapping of hammers next door where our neighbors were having new siding installed, I brushed a few bold strokes of cad red onto a rectangle of manila stock, dried those brushstrokes with my hairdryer, selected two pens from my collection, and lost myself in the contentment of rustling up some semblance of bright poppies. Made a few quick decisions about composition, grabbed my iPhone (alive and functional after three weeks in ICU—yay!) to snap photos, and only then moseyed over to my to-do list.

Poppy Imposters
5x4", acrylic and ink on manila stock
floral abstract
2016
[gifted]

Poetry

I bumped into a little unintended poem in a line of nonfiction text last night:

The discipline 
of creation
is a mix
of surrender
and initiative.

Yes, yes, yes!

Thank you, Shaun McNiff.

I've taken the initiative to surrender to what an exploration of sketching might illuminate for me. I'm finding lyrical visual language.

Today's sketches derive from scenes photographed at The Ovens in Feltzen South, Nova Scotia. I liked sinking fully into shape and line. I liked the act of sketching just for itself. I may use these sketches as reference points for later work, but these are not sketches on a canvas which I will now go on to flesh out. They are just themselves. Little sketches. Refreshing little drinks of cool, clear water on a hot summer day.

Sketch Artist? or Sketchy Character?

I traveled to Nova Scotia the second week of June. But I'm thinking my summer travels may just be beginning.

Headed off in a new direction today. Created some small sketches in a sketchbook.

Do I know what is meant by the word sketch? Not really.

So I'm going to call these experiments on paper … sketch-y.

In each case I had a reference photo as my starting point—three pix shot by a friend, one by me.

I used a different charcoal pencil for each of the first three sketches, and oil pastels for the last.









I'm liking that each one of these—rotated in any direction—could serve as the bones for an abstract painting. A few orientation options:

     

     

I Like the Sky

These thoughts of Zoe Cohen's resonated when I read them earlier today:

A love of materials and staying in the moment are my guides as I follow a painting from the first quick stroke through the next move. My job is to respond to the marks as they come into view. Eventually, a state of resolution emerges from the struggle. Contrasts become a theme: light/dark, motion/stillness, chaos/calm. I continue to draw and paint ... and in the best work I am suddenly surprised by the images which appear before me.

Yes! Let me follow a first quick stroke through the next move. Let me respond to the marks as they come into view.

I entered my studio a few days ago with those thoughts in mind. I did make a first quick stroke, I followed it through the next move, I responded to marks as they came into view.

But those marks? those responses? I was surprised by the images which appear[ed] before me, that's for sure, but not necessarily with pleasure!

I didn't stop to center myself before starting, and I didn't stop to center myself—or stop altogether for that matter—when I knew full well I was scattered and had a head filled with noisy chatter.

And so, I offer you this little experiment.

Snake in the Grass
4x5.5", charcoal, acrylic, and oil pastel on watercolor paper
nature
2016
[gifted]