Paintings Collage October 2013

This is what I've been working on this year. Seeing the pieces finished or nearly completed is a good feeling. Now they will speak to me. Or maybe those are the voices inside my head. Don't know. Don't care.

It has been another fulfilling year. Another one I thought I might not have. Another one to be grateful for. Still painting without a plan and without a concept. I just begin and let the paint tell me where it wants to go. Once it has settled in nicely, I don't move it anymore. 

I'm still working on studies for the nine birds mini canvases and still have some watercolor/gouache and charcoals to do but everything is moving right along.

It takes a year to get this all done but by the end of the year, it feels like I've been some where, done some thing that at least to me, is some how meaningful.
I've been working on the book. It's coming along slowly but this is the last of my art season and soon I'll be focused on writing again. I was hoping this book would be ready by now and I'd be working on designing the cover but looks like things are going to take a bit longer than I thought they would. That's usually the way with most of us I'm guessin.

It snowed today. Just for awhile. But it was the first snow and the dogs and I were out in it.
I've been listening to this CD a lot while working on the paintings and writing this year.  It's so good.

Getting Closer

I wonder what my work is saying to me this year? I am about finished with Two Birds. One is called The Tree with no leaves, no birds, almost human like and nine that are called Nine Birds 1 of 9, 2 of 9... like that. But I think I'm name each one too. I like the ideas I'm having about this. I'll be doing some watercolor sketches and maybe use some ink tomorrow and then get back to the oils on Monday. But it is happening. The lens is coming into focus through the windows of my soul, spread out and moved all over these canvases with all the brush and heart I can muster. I'm not going to show any more pics of these yet.

Soon.

I have been thinking of calling this a Series, calling it "Getting Closer." Again, I have no idea why. It just came to me and I like the way it sounds. 

I just realized that there is a subconscious theme to my work the past three years.  The Root, is a painting that took about 1 1/2 years to paint that I finished this summer and the woven wood sculpture I created two years ago I named Three Birds.  It has three tall prominent branches that the birds land on that reminded me of three birds.  I wonder what I'll think looking at all of these pieces when they are finished.  The art I create is as much a mystery to me while working on it as it is when I stand back and look at it.  The thing I find interesting is that in time, it always winds up reflecting what I've been going through during that time.  While I have done other things that have not been named The Tree, or The Root and plenty of things without birds in them... this interests me.


I'm itching to get back to the book. Once these are finished I'll be able to give all of my attention to editing its lines. And I heated up some of that cauliflower and cheese and man it was so good. Glad I added a little milk, covered the pot and put it on low because I walked out of that kitchen after working on my brushes and left them there with the light on. Good thing. That or my nose reminded me the heat was on.

I hope you are all having a really good day. And since I don't have anyone here that I don't care about and respect, I hope you enjoy a love of life today.

I couldn't take a picture of it so these words will have to last longer.

Now

Today I looked through the saved color of a few cans of paint and hoped what I needed to finish the bathroom ceiling was good and it was. I put the first coat on and found 2/3rds of a roller and then found a small roller and the right saw and cut it to size. After it dries I'll give it probably just the one finishing coat and finally be finished with the bathroom ceiling.

Black beans, multicolored peppers and carrots with fresh sage from the garden fill the house. When it is time for lunch, I will enjoy it.

I had checked out a documentary from the library, "David Hockney A Bigger Picture." Maybe I knew about him and it struck me because of this or maybe I never knew of him and thought, ah an artist to interrupt my solitude and inspired me. It was brilliant. I could relate so much with the spirit of the man. I enjoyed watching it and was glad to know him. Now.  

And I wondered what it would be like to have a large space to spread out and work on large canvases and clusters of canvases all at one time and a bucket filled with tubes of oil and brushes waiting to do move the paint along wherever my heart felt it belonged.  And how delightful it would be to have someone who was there to help me.  I'm feeling my age and thinking, I wonder if this time will ever come?  Will my strength hold out?  

I have a great desire to work with paper and pigment and water color and gouache and egg tempera.  And once this session of oils is finished that is what I'm going to do.  I'll use up the last of my colors on whatever canvas I have left and that will be that.  A turning of the page to something lighter.  Not in substance, just in materials.

These are what I've been working on.

These first three are finished.  The first one is Out of the Ashes. 

 

This one is The Root.

Patagonia it the last Life Story painting I'm creating.

This is Two Birds, a work in progress.
.

And this is The Tree, also a work in progress.

Still quite a bit of work to do on The Tree and and Two Birds. Then working on several watercolor/gouache and inks.