Deja Vu

This is a spot I have painted many times.  It is very special to me. Someday I will create a picture of it that feels complete. Today is not that day.

Another!

I started this the last time I was in Bemidji.  It is my step mother's petunias.  Their porch is a lovely place to sit in the morning.

Upside Down

In my continued effort to build my skills I decided it was time to do the drawing upside down thing.  I kept it upside down as I painted so I could see the shadow shapes more clearly.  Rebecca helped me to figure out that I made the nose too long and over emphasized the smile lines.  There is an eraser smudge next to one of the eyes.  I decided to just ignore it, but that is where my eye goes every time I look at it.  This is number four in the five self portrait series.  Not sure yet what the final one will be.  And then I will be looking for another assignment for myself.  

New knits

Ugh, had to make a new post to send that picture of me brushing my teeth into the past.  I still want to complete the series of five self portraits, but not ready to post on that just yet.

I have been distracted by knitting lately.

The lower picture is the spine of my journal.  It fell apart, exposing the string loops.  The end loops fell out.  I knit just a few rows to keep it from falling apart more.  That should do the trick.

I started the brown and aqua bag in the car on the way home from my sister-in-law's cabin.  The brown part was already done.  It was going to be a scarf, but I ran out of yarn before it was long enough.  The idea of making it into a bag percolated in my brain for months.  I enjoyed figuring out how to make it work.  The three aqua sections are all from one ball of yarn.  It was important to me that it be one unbroken string. As the ball of yarn got small and I was almost done I was excited that it was going to be just big enough to finish.  Then, a knot in the yarn appeared.  The ball was not made from one unbroken string.  Sigh.  It happened again one or two more times before it ran out.  Now I am in the process of casting off and the string is at its end with about 10 stitches to go.  It is an opportunity, right?  I think I will add some crazy detail to that upper corner.  Like one of those knitted flowers maybe.  Will I ever actually use this bag? Don't know yet.  Right now that does not matter.

Green Toothbrush Again

This is the same pose as the previous post.  I think I am slowly getting better at showing the planes of the face.  Brushing teeth is one of those things that is necessary.  We do it to avoid future pain.  We do it to be presentable.  It helps me mark the transition between waking and sleeping.  Nobody looks good while brushing teeth.  I often notice the many imperfections in my skin while brushing my teeth.

I was going to make a profound connection between bushing teeth and practicing realistic drawing and painting skills.  It is not happening.

I want to improve my skills, but have no time or money to take a class.  I plan to finish this series of five self portraits using a mirror.  After that I will look for a new assignment for myself.

Green toothbrush

Blind Contour fun.

This is the second self portrait in this series of five.  I was thinking about looking in the mirror and realized that most of the time when I am looking in a mirror I am brushing my teeth.  That would be pretty hard to draw so I thought I should do a blind contour first.

Day 67

Throughout my life I have tried numerous self-help strategies to be happier and at peace.  I will not go into detail today about my current strategy, but today is day 67 so I am thinking this one is working.

Today I was working on a mural project with a friend who said she had an art teacher in college who was crazy. The first assignment was to do five self portraits using a mirror.  I thought to myself, "that is educational genius. It also sounds like fun.  I want to try that."

Must paint

It has been 12 days since my last post.  Have I really not painted in that long?  I have a short term job in which I am painting a mural of letters.  I am enjoying the precision of it, but wanted to exercise some random mark-making.  This is the drawing of my bike from 12 days ago.  I just added some color.

The supper dishes are still in the sink.  I had to choose one or the other: clean dishes or time to paint.  There are others in this house who have the ability to do dishes.  They won't do the dishes unless I make a big deal about it and I am in no mood to make a big deal about it.  They will still be there in the morning and I guess I am OK with that for today.

Bicycle Day

Isn't today just the most perfect day? Could that question be answered "yes" on any day? Pondering...

Today was perfect because it was an unscheduled day with sunshine and 75 degrees F.

My morning was a jog, a long meditation, and sitting on the deck playing computer games.  After lunch with the family, I got on the bike and went to Snail Lake Park.  The deepest flooded spot is on the South end where there is a pedestrian tunnel under Gramsie Road. The water in the tunnel is almost to the ceiling.  I drew the lines for the first picture while sitting on the bench at the water's edge.  It was too hot on that sunny bench to sit there very long, so I got back on the bike to find a shady bench and did the color there.  After a while I was ready to bike again so the second picture was drawn at a third spot, also a shady bench.  It was good for my soul to spend some time outside, quiet, unrushed, doing something productive for myself. 

Purposefully unintended

Unintended because I was not trying to make a picture of a caterpillar/dragon on top of a tree.  Purposeful because I was intending to allow the watercolor to be watercolor and do its thing.  And then on the corner is a lovely unintended landscape with a yellow sun in an orange sky.

I need to take a class to hone my skills.  The good things that happen are still mostly happy accidents. 

I did decide to add orange to the tree from an earlier post.  Sorry Julie. I kept pulling it out and putting it aside.  I think it really wanted something more.  I think it still does.  I second guess myself because I often take the watercolor too far into muddiness.

Not a day for Details

Painted today! yay.  Now I am sitting in the living room with a friend while Bill makes supper. Yay again.

I am glad I had a chance to paint.  Today was about color and texture.  These are most likely not done yet.  

The foreground of the top one needs work.  

The bottom one is a green mess.  I might just try again.  The idea on that one is that there is a place to sit at the edge of the water and you can just barely see it through the foliage.

Reprieve

This is the beginning of something.  If I paint some orange on the trunk, it should start to look brownish, like a tree trunk.  I just am not sure if that is what the painting needs.  Light and shadow are always tricky for me.  It would be easier if I was outside looking at the tree on a sunny day.  But alas, I have squandered my time once again on work, food, and dishes.  And then I took a nap.  I am thinking of my life as a work of art (like Julie Cameron says in her book, The Artist's Way).  As I take a step back to get a good look at it, I see what it needs.  It needs more naps.  But not too many. Just a few here, a few there.  Also I need to add something new and different once in a while.  Today it was a long bike ride to get home from work, with a couple stops on the way.  I took the most scenic route with the least traffic, even though it was much longer.  One stop was to buy a smoothie.  Pineapple Mango.  They messed up and made a large when I ordered a small.  That was OK with me.

Family

I had a fun time painting with relatives on the 4th of July.  We stood around the picnic table and painted on canvases my step sister-in-law brought.  Daisies, paw prints, and fish were the themes of the day.  

Stranded

Today I was driving home from my dad's house when I unexpectedly found myself spending a few extra hours in a town 50 miles from home.  I am so blessed to have friends willing to drive a long way to rescue me.  This picture is one of the ways I spent my time as I waited.  

Oak Leaves

A full day today for whatever I decide to do is an amazing thing.  This painting is about enjoying coloring.  I was not concerned with duplicating the leaves exactly as they appear.  I was intrigued by the variations of shape and color.  For me lately, it is a victory if I simply show up at my art.  It is the same with my exercising.  I am happy when I do it, but I often go for days or sometimes even weeks when I ignore it.  When I go back to it I am happy again.  I am trying to evict the self-doubt that tells me I should be embarrassed by my feeble efforts.  Posting to this blog is how I am fighting the self-doubt. I do not say that to fish for compliments.  I am simply saying it is a little bit hard to click "publish" today.

Finishing and Starting

Today I worked a little more on the painting of Mom's tree.  It is a rainy day today with flash flood warnings.  A good day to stay home.  I brought an oak branch in from the deck and started to draw it with the paintbrush.  At least I showed up at the watercolor paper today.  I have some Girl Scout forms to deal with.  Also there are some events tomorrow and I really should be prepared.

Mom's tree

Finally painted!

This is the tree in my mom's front yard.  I have painted it before.  It is so interesting.  I'm on my way home now and hoping to avoid severe weather.

The top painting is not done yet, but it was time to go.

What I've been up to

Apparently I've been ending sentence fragments with prepositions.  And I have been knitting.  And teaching school. And I took part in a fundraiser for Friends of Island Lake in Shoreview, MN.  And spending time with friends and family. I have not been painting. There are still important friends and family that I have not spent time with yet, so I do not know when I will paint next.  I did bring my paint supplies along on this trip with my mom, brother, and son.  Perhaps I can do some painting here.  Well, not here at this moment.  We are at a mall because my brother wanted to shop.  I am sitting in a comfy chair in the hallway of the mall.  Knitting seems an appropriate waiting activity.  Pulling out paint, water, paper, etc. would be problematic and there is little here to inspire me visually.  Earlier we were sightseeing and there was much to inspire me, but that was not a time to paint either.

Calendar sketch

Tomorrow Spring Break is over.  Back to regular schedule.  I am constantly amazed by the quantity of time that is used up in figuring out how to use our time.  We use technology to coordinate schedules, but it still takes more time than it used to to keep it all from falling apart.

I did not paint today, but I could not end the day without putting something down. I am not sure I would want the actual words from my calendar in the final product, but maybe I would.  It is real, edited just a bit.  April 12 really is at the bottom of the calendar because that is how it worked out.  We try to erase the past weeks as soon as they are done so we can always have this calendar 5 weeks into the future.  This calendar was a gift from my daughter and I like it a lot because it makes family discussions about schedule easier.  We also have a shared online calendar, but this one is right there by the table.

A work of art with the calendar in it would be about how difficult it is to carve out time to work on art.  Really though, when I look at the calendar, there are lots of blank days.  So it must be my daily schedule that is the problem.  

I need to set up a still life of stuff from my classroom at school.  But how would I work on it?  I would be surrounded by all those things that need to get done.  Right now I need to end this post so I can carve out time for sleep.

Dirty Dishes

It is time to stop working on this for today.  I had a hard time getting started because guess what. I felt I needed to finish the dishes first.  Sigh.  And then it took me forever to set up the still life again.  I tried to cheat and use clean dishes in this second time setting it up.  It was not the same.  I can't keep using the same dirty dishes, gross.  That would not be the same either.  That would be a whole new problem.  No, the problem is how the dirty dishes come back day after day.  

I finally was able to get started painting after I had a bowl of cereal and set that bowl and spoon in the front of the still life.  The cup and other dishes are actually clean ones today.

I was hoping to get all the dark areas blocked in today, but I am not quite done with that step yet.

Obstacles

Over the past few days I thought a lot about why I create art and why I don't create art.  Do I really have something to say or am I just creating pretty pictures.

I let obstacles get in my way because I am not confident of what I want my art to say.

There are probably others besides myself that have something they want to do but they let other things get in the way.  We throw our hands up and claim that we can't.  We have do this other thing first.  Once that is done something else demands our attention and before we know it the day is done and we are no closer to our goal.

I hate dirty dishes.

I hate the fact that dirty dishes often keep me from creating art.

This is the beginning of a still life of dirty dishes.

Love your enemies.

Pastel class

Here is my first attempt at a new technique.

The electric onion

It's always something

When I think my life is difficult, it is helpful to talk to people.  Everyone is dealing with something. 

Each person I talked to today is dealing with stuff harder than my stuff.  It is humbling.  I hope my listening was helpful to them, because hearing their stories was helpful to me. 

Tonight I went to the visitation for a former co-worker who lost her battle with cancer.  I am very sad about lost opportunities to stay in touch.  I am frustrated with myself because of continued failure to make the changes that I want to make.  There is my inability to stay in touch with people I care about, there is my inability to establish routines for healthy eating, exercise, art making, and house cleaning.  I wish I could maintain a healthy balance between my work life and the rest of my life.  Children grow up so fast. There are projects I want to do. Life is so short. Every choice I make about how to spend my time means that I am not spending my time doing something else equally important.

This morning I was at the dentist.  In the waiting room, instead of Sudoku puzzles, I made this picture

Monday was a day that I devoted to my health.  I also needed to drive my daughter to and from a band event.  Part of that process resulted in me waiting in the car for a while.  Normally this would be sudoku puzzle time, but I have sworn off the sudoku as a time waster.  I drew this instead.

I'm also learning to knit.  Maybe it is part of my transformation into an old woman.  I like it because it relaxes my brain like a sudoku puzzle, but when I am done I have something to show for my time.  Drawing does not relax my brain, it stimulates it.  Actually, there are different types of drawing so that statement is not always true.  

Drawing realistically is, in my experience, like jogging.  It is hard, but you just keep plugging away and it feels good when you are done.  The more you do it the easier it gets.  Painting abstractly is like going for a walk in a beautiful place.  The whole process is enjoyable and there are often unexpected surprises.

Groundhog day

Sunny day today, lots of shadows.  I'm sure the groundhog ran back into its hole, but I have not yet heard the official proclamation.

Today I swirled some paint around, just for fun.

Now that I am done with it, it reminds me of a brain.

My son's Lego League team has a picture of a brain on their t-shirts.

Next weekend is the state tournament. 

I have been watching the TED talks series about brain research, so I guess this was bound to come out somehow.

And then I was looking for a photo to use as a reference for some sketching and I came across a photo I took long ago of my favorite spot in Jay Cooke State Park, so I sketched that.

It is so hard to capture the feeling of the place.  Powerful. Multi-directional. Constant.

5th Snow Day

It took 5 unexpected days off school to get me back to my easel.  This canvas has been painted over quite a few times, but I think I am finally happy with this version.  I like to have it fade at the edges.  Bill says he sees a horse's head.  I did not intend that.  This is where I wish to be; sitting on a rock next to a waterfall.  

Next?

I hope to paint again tomorrow, but I refuse to beat myself up if it doesn't happen.

There are so many things to do in the world.

This is just one.