Feeling Grateful and Ready to Get Back to Work

      I am grateful to be getting back to normal after a second hip replacement (on the other side). The surgery and recovery have both gone very well. Physical therapy is not always fun, but truly does work wonders.

     I regret my absence from the blogging community and have missed the enriching experience of creating paintings and silk scarves for awhile. The last couple of weeks, it has begun to be possible to stand at the easel or silk work table for a period of time, and I hope to have something to show you before too long. It feels as though I am just beginning to flex those "muscles", too.

Question of the day: How are all of you?

     

The Encouragement of Past Achievements

     In the previous post, I mentioned having hit a fallow time in my painting. Browsing images of some of my past paintings was helpful--especially the works that were most difficult to complete. The dune bridge piece pictured here was very stubborn and resisted my efforts to produce a harmonious composition for some time. Looking at it now and recalling the many wrong turns I took in painting "Spring Breeze" reminded me of the wisdom of the saying "this too shall pass". I have felt reluctant to paint, unproductive, and just plain unable before. So, feeling that way should not be scary now and certainly is no excuse for hopelessness. 

     Linda Blondheim's e-critique service helped me rescue this piece from what seemed like an impossible mess. Some of the fixes she suggested did not work; others were ideal. Some of the adjustments I tried on my own were helpful; others were disastrous. But, with persistence, the sort of painting I envisioned creating finally emerged. In the visual arts, some revisions can't be evaluated until you see them in relation to everything else in the composition. Fortunately,  acrylic paints permit painting out unsatisfactory areas and covering them with new shapes, colors, and forms. I would be lost without the possibility of "do-overs".


     The main problem with what you might call the "first draft" was a lack of balance, I think. Keeping the viewer returning to a central focal point gives a work its power, and the wildflowers competed with the foot bridge for awhile. Also, being too literal about the slope of the dunes I had photographed for reference left me with too little variation in the line of the dunes. Since the horizon is inescapably straight, I needed to exaggerate the height of the left side dune and add more undulations to the dune outline (without overdoing it) as a contrast to that straight line. One trick I used to "try on" various dune lines was to cut a paper outline and tape it over the piece--then a different outline, etc., until it looked about right. 


     So, looking back on creative challenges I have faced and coped with in the past helped me get past the funky time and get back to work. "Spring Breeze" and other works remind me of the inevitable ups and downs of the creative process. This is not the first time I have felt as though I have forgotten how to paint, nor will it be the last time. All I need to remember is that the frustration has always been a temporary speed bump and that with faith and patience, the joy of creating will return.
Question of the day: Can you recall a troublesome season you experienced that you were able to work through in time? Can you draw strength from those memories to help you face new challenges?

Creativity, Spontaneity, and Planning--Starting a Beach Painting

My regular readers (bless you, one and all!) know that I am a planner. Too a fault! Even in my creative endeavors, I plan. Previous posts have described my usual painting process (if you are interested, enter "painting process" as a search term in the box in the upper left corner of this blog). However, I know planning and taking care with things can be overdone--especially in projects like making a painting. You will chuckle to hear that this week, I am "working on spontaneity".

Since the flurry of finishing paintings for the exhibit at Paddiwhack, I have been working on a vertical piece showing a curving path. It has been moving ahead very slowly, and recently seemed as though the adjustments I made to try to improve it were making things worse. Some paintings are just very stubborn, even though they looked like a great idea in planning and sketching. The best response is sometimes to put it away for awhile and to begin a new piece.

This time, I decided to plunge into the new piece with minimal planning, no sketches, and no tonal studies. It seemed that I had become too careful, too picky over details--and, stuck. What appealed was to start a smallish piece in unusual proportions (12" x 6") with a fairly low horizon focusing on an interesting sky. With a few reference photos and four paint colors (so far), I forced myself to quickly lay in the first coat for the piece in about 20 minutes. It was fun!

Here are a couple of the reference photos--including one of our Shih-Tzu, Magnolia (aka Maggie) tearing down Jacksonville Beach--one of her favorite spots. The block-in of the painting is rough, but seems like a good start. The sky is a mix of cerulean blue and white near the horizon and ultramarine blue and white further up; the ocean uses the same colors, plus a bit of Paynes grey near the horizon. All blues are tempered with a bit of Cadmium red light to neutralize them (tube colors sometimes look phony in landscapes). The beach under-layer is mostly Cad red light and white. This will be adjusted, as our sand is actually somewhat grey-beige, but I want a warm tone present in both the sand and the clouds (which are yet to come).

Question of the day: Am I the only nut who sometimes needs to "work at spontaneity"? How do you overcome creative blocks?