February, 2021. I am focusing this blog on process (at least for a while), both mine and that of others who are willing to share.
Since March, I joined a collage group that meets once a month to share work responding to a prompt. For our last Zoom meeting, we made pieces from recycled material. I cleaned out old catalogs and sifted through the waste basket…love this kind of recycling. I also took a 3-week online course with Lewis Noble, a British artist, and I had my 2 doses of the Covid vaccine. After recovering from a monster headache the day after the second shot, and a couple smaller headaches in the following week, I now feel well, relieved to be safer (not totally safe) from the virus, and more positive about the future. But shame on India’s Prime Minister Modi for his wretched inaction to protect the people of his country!
Deep breath. I have missed friends, yet have relished having this time at home to feel my way toward creating pieces that give me so much pleasure and comfort.
Below, a collage, a painting on paper, and a painting on board:
This art piece (In Other Blues) inspired Margin Alexander to compose a piece on the piano (video below). I was honored that he liked the piece enough to include it in a Zoom concert along with a number of other art pieces, each of which inspired a short composition. Thanks to this talented composer and musician.
How to know when one of my pieces is finished? Maybe only when it’s no longer around for me to alter. I thought the background was too sketchy, so I painted it a solid/textured blue. I think this is better. What do you think?
I chose a bouquet that turned out to be difficult to paint because I could not create a pleasing color arrangement. Two of the flowers were white and one of those white ones was almost directly at the middle top of the vase. (Didn’t get a photo of this.) I kept painting, added collage, and was liking the painting less and less. The arrangement looked top heavy, so I made the vase fatter, made all the flowers red, and finally, frustrated, I altered the painting with apps, found a few I liked the look of, and consulted those to make a more abstract flatter art piece. Here are two phases of the painting (finished painting first) and a photo of the still life. I like the shape of the actual vase better, and plan to attempt this one again with a slightly different design.
Rose in a Glass
I was impressed that several friends have taken on the STRADA 31-day painting challenge and are painting every day this month from life. My husband bought a bouquet of roses from Trader Joe’s, but several of the stems were broken off near the flower, so a shallow “vase” was needed (my smallest water glass.) What a pleasure to paint from life again. I still have another vase of red roses to paint, while they are sort-of fresh, if I’m quick.
I admire many artists who continue to work in a single genre exclusively, such as landscapes, abstracts, portraits…and perhaps use the same media while continuing to make exciting and varied work. It may be that I have a short attention span, although I think my need to work in different genres and with different mediums also has to do with all that I want to learn. Of course the landscape painter is always learning, as is the abstract painter and the portrait painter, and so on. Moving around as I do, I may be learning more slowly in each area. But I can’t do otherwise than create work that draws me to it and gives me the most joy and satisfaction. Here are a few (varied) pieces created recently.
I was part of an online reading recently. A good friend edited a special edition of Poemeleon, an online poetry journal. I was the first reader of my two poems, each based on an art piece by Rene Magritte. The image is shown before or as I read the poem.
I’ve been taking online art lessons in various methods of painting and collage. Here are some of the pieces I’ve produced in the last few weeks. The two long narrow pieces are 6 x 11 inches. Although the two with birches in them look the largest here, they are the smallest–3.5 x 5 inches. The others are, respectively, 8 x 10, 14 x 14, 16 x 20, & 12 x 16.
I suppose I am a true introvert, because I have, at times, relished this necessity to stay home, even as I miss friends, miss the seniors that come to my class at the Goeske Senior Center. I miss my Life Drawing group, but we will meet on Zoom today. My poetry workshop has met twice on Zoom already. There is Facebook, email, and the phone. I am fortunate to have a home, a garden, a husband who insists on doing all the shopping (he has the best face mask). I am thankful for the sacrifices that many are making, the risks that health care workers take, especially, but also workers in post offices, grocery stores, and all the businesses that provide for us. Politics and the news media remain terribly divisive,. I wish that could change. The air is cleaner now, the neighborhood quieter. I am more aware of what matters most to me.
Her are a few of the drawings I’ve made since early April. It feels good to have one thing I do each day to improve my skills.
