Lake Champlain, Day 1

[entry drafted at Lake Champlain 6/8/18]

I paint today in a sweet little vacation cottage, with windows and screened porches in abundance, all of them wide open to magically warm June daytime air and the perfection of cool deep-sleep nights. A bit of the huge expanse of Lake Champlain laps the edge of our front lawn, and Vermont mountains trace the horizon.

I grab the pad of Canson classic cream 18x24" 90 pound drawing paper I have with me and begin playing.

Blacks, whites, China marker, print collage, latex paint, architect tracing paper, matte medium.

Messing about.

work in progress
18x24"; mixed media on drawing paper

Lakeside

By the time this message reaches you, I'll be far from home in a lakeside setting, on vacation until mid-June. I plan to paint but will step away not only from my home and usual routines and responsibilities but also from all things computer.

Enjoy these early days of June!

gone fishin'

PIP

You know that PIP feature on your television or computer, the Picture in Picture program that allows footage to open in a smaller floating window that remains in front of whatever else is open on the screen?

newest patch: PIP!

newest patch, zoomed in

new patch: PIPIP!
work in progress
working title: Core Values

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a little history:

taped a space; painted over previous occupant 

established some colors

kept working the patch

 didn't like it

reworked (i.e. overworked) it

went back to ground zero,
foraged in my collection of handpainted papers
and past painting studies,
totally recreated the patch

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.

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Oh.

Wait.

That's not the story I set out to tell.

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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!

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That's life on my little farm.

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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.

Simply and Fully

All that’s asked, to bring about potent receptivity to what wants to be seen, is to be nowhere but now. No urging forward to the next moment, no mental processing of the current one. No agenda, no vigilance, no avoidance. You’re simply and fully attuned to the outer reality and to the interior one. In this mode of utter receptivity, there’s not the slightest effort exerted. No searching, no expectation or wishing: simply a resting in whatever is here, now.  (Jan Frazier)

Gobsmacked by the Green of a Fine Day in June
1.5x6"; acrylic, ink, oil pastel, and collage
abstract bookmark
[gift]

KISS*

Keep It Simple, Sweet girl.

Following a conversation with lonnnnnng time friend and now fellow artist, Sylvia, after she did a couple of color studies, I took her lead, grabbed all the yellows I could find in my studio, and … KEPT IT SIMPLE, for a change.

Painted me a little color study to cover yet another patch in my Core Values project.

Before:

repository for last dregs of paint clinging to a brush

After:

newest patch

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* KISS is an acronym for "Keep it simple, stupid" as a design principle noted by the U.S. Navy in 1960. The KISS principle states that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated; therefore simplicity should be a key goal in design and unnecessary complexity should be avoided.

Never knew the origin of the acronym till I looked it up just now.

Simple and Magical

Lewis Noble's approach to painting captivates me.

I head to my studio today eager to tear up the postcard on which I made a quick paint sketch yesterday, in order to collage bits of it to the quick paint sketch I made on the Core Values patch I'm revising.

Looks so simple and magical when Lewis Noble tears up one sketch and collages it to another sketch, all to visually compelling and delightful effect.

Ha ha ha!

I just have to laugh when I feel nervous before I even make the first tear!

I hesitate.

I hem and haw.

What am I so afraid of?

Eventually, I commit one piece of collage paper to my Core Values patch with glue.

And then freeze.

Again.

I spend forever moving pieces of collage this way and that, hugely indecisive, not seeing placements that sing to me.

Simple and magical???

Not so much.

But, such a fascinating puzzle to work out.

newest patch

new patch in bigger picture
work in progress
working title: Core Values