Abstract Painting: Where Spirit Meets Bone, Part 2

"Where Spirit Meets Bone", Diptych, 60x40", Mixed Media on Canvas. Available.

The original drawing for this piece came from a video of a couple dancing. They were connected, yet separate... two people that seemed so much a part of each other, I couldn't really imagine them as single entities.

It's funny how certain images and ideas trigger other thoughts. They were young, they moved so gracefully, but what came to mind was my parents. My mom is here, my dad is gone... but they are still so intertwined in my memory that I suspect they will always be like one unit to me. Trying to get this idea across... visually... that was a tough one. I decided to accentuate it through the format. Each canvas is successful on it's own, but they look like they belong together. They look better together. I won't separate them... as far as I'm concerned, this is one piece. But once it's out of my hands, it's out of my control.

The right side alone... still works as an
individual piece, but definitely works better
with it's partner.

Doing the original drawing I took a similar approach. I held one watercolour crayon in each hand, and followed the dancer's movements simultaneously. It was difficult to watch them both at the same time... I set myself up at a distance and tried to concentrate on the motion as a unit, not as individual bodies (If you want to try something that really gets you into the present, try doing that. It's impossible to think about anything but what you are doing...).

As I couldn't do more than glance at my actual drawing while I was working on it, my starting point was somewhat unplanned. Anyone who has followed along for a while knows this is an ongoing trend in the way I work... give myself a problem, then work my way out of it.  I find that while I am a decent problem solver (at least as far as visuals go), staring at a blank canvas with a world of possibilities open to me will cause me to freeze up. There are just too many choices. I love those creative exercises where you just scribble a few lines, then try to make an image out of it. Having that limitation put on myself will spark my creativity. Once I figured that out, it seemed I was away to the races. I'm hopeful that creative blocks are a thing of the past for me. Of course nobody knows what the future holds... but I have some tools at my disposal to help me work my way out of whatever life throws my way.

If you are in the Toronto area, I will be at Arts on the Credit, April 9-10 at the lovely Waterside hotel in Port Credit. It's always a wonderful show, with over 40 artists showing off their latest work. Drop by to check it out, and be sure to say hello.

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Abstract Painting: Where Spirit Meets Bone, Part 1

"Where Spirit Meets Bone", Part 1 of a Diptych, 30x40" (complete piece is 60x40"),
Mixed Media on Canvas. Available.

Stage One: the two canvases together barely fit on my
easel. I'm thinking a triptych is probably out of the question.

A couple months ago, I decided that I needed to do something large.  I've been working small for years... the largest I'd venture was a 30x40" piece I did last year. Problem is, I can't fit anything larger than that in my car. Even that is tight. But I wanted larger. I wanted something substantial. I wanted something that screamed "I'M HERE".

I have been working in series for a long time. I like to work that way. I get started on something, and I can just keep going until I get bored... which can take months or longer. I worked on my music series for probably close to 2 years.  Maybe, I thought,  I could do two pieces that worked together. A diptych. I hadn't done one of those before, and once I got the idea into my head, I couldn't get it out. I was going to have to do it.

Next stage... building the layers...

I had a couple large canvases hanging around I had gotten on sale about a year ago. They were just sitting there. For a year. That's crazy. I was doing well using up my stash of supplies... it was time for me to use these big canvases. Put together... 40x60"... oh my, that is an intimidating size. I decided to approach it just the way I work on a small piece.... Pick a colour and just start.

Once I got going it went pretty well, even if it did take a fairly long time.  I have been working away on this piece for what feels like ages: one canvas, then the other, then I'd put them together and make sure they work. It got difficult near the end, when I needed to have them together to put on the finishing touches. They barely fit on my easel (which is huge... when my husband built it for me I thought he was crazy making me something that big. You'll need it eventually, he said....). They seemed to take up most of the small room I work in. To get a sense of how they worked from a distance I had to move them out into the main part of the house and look at them from the end of the hall.

Anyway... I'm happy that I pushed myself to do something a little out of my comfort zone. Once it was done I felt a huge sense of satisfaction. I will do it again... but probably not soon. I have a spot to hang this one, but don't have too many walls big enough to accommodate a piece this large. Next week I'll post the other half, a shot of the two canvases together, and a bit about the imagery. If you are in the Toronto area, I'll have this and many other abstract paintings with me at the Arts on the Credit art fair on April 9 and 10, 2016. Come on out and say hi.

Art Journal entry: Transformations...

Art Journal entry. Collage, acrylic and water soluble crayon. 

Art Journals can be a weird thing... the point is to work intuitively, and what comes out is supposed to tell you something about yourself, right? Like art therapy. Years ago, I took a class at a local college called "Experiential Art", and the instructor was a certified art therapist. It was an interesting experience, even if I couldn't quite let myself just create. My brian stepped in and put a halt to whatever might have been trying to come out... or maybe it was the 3 years of having the "rules" drilled into me I just couldn't create without thinking composition, or focal point. As I was told... a few times... I just needed to relinquish control. But I couldn't do it.

One of the masks at
the McMichael exhibit.

Fast forward 15 years, and here I am again... trying to just let things happen. It's better than it used to be. My collage is random, my colour choices are intuitive, my drawing without any kind of plan. I pick a subject out of thin air, and get to work.

This journal started life as a children's book. It was called "Where's Spot?", and each page had an illustration of a puppy hiding somewhere in a room. This page said "Is he in the piano?" You can still see the copy showing through a bit in the top left. The collage was bits of newspaper text, and some headline copy reading DON'T HIDE. When I went back to the page a week or so later, I drew the mask on the page without any real attention to what was already there. I just got to work.

I was recently at an exhibit of First Nations art at a local gallery. I was completely captivated by the masks. Lucky for me, I was allowed to take photos. I'm sure I'll be using them as inspiration for years. Anyway... there was a docent at the gallery with whom I had a long conversation about the symbolic significance of the masks to the indigenous people. I have been thinking about masks as a way of hiding oneself from the world, but they saw their masks as something different... a symbol of transformation.

If I look at my page in this light, I see something completely different. I guess it's my subconscious telling me to stop hiding and step into the light... life is changing but it's not bad, it's just different. It's my time for transformation.

I guess I finally managed to relinquish control. Wonder if I'll be able to do it again.

Abstract Painting: Brave Spirit, Standing Strong

"Brave Spirit, Standing Strong", 12x12 mixed media on Canvas. Available.

At the beginning of January, I had an idea of how many pieces I wanted to get done before Arts on the Credit in April. Since it's the only art fair I've committed to this year, I wanted to make sure I had a reasonable number of new paintings to show. I had decided after last year's show not to take the musician pieces with me, no matter how many I still had left in my inventory. I may still show them around here and there, but since my abstract work has been my focus over the past year, I really wanted to have enough of those pieces to fill my booth.

I've managed to complete a fair number of pieces, even though I've had to push myself into the studio. Winter is always tough for me, but this year, even with the mild weather, it has felt monumentally dreary. I suppose having people around me dying in quick succession hasn't helped. I just get to the point where I'm coping with my emotions, and there's another one. I suppose that's the curse of getting older... at some point you get to an age where there are more funerals than weddings. I suppose it beats the alternative (ie: one of those funerals being your own). 

Anyway, painting helps me cope, so I push myself to get started, and before I know it I'm in the zone, feeling the tension leave my body and my mind focus in on what I'm doing. It's better therapy than anything else I've tried, and absolutely a better option for me than medication. I'm still thinking Warrior, and am going to continue working with that idea. That's the wonderful thing about working in a series... one idea will spring from the one before, and you just carry on from piece to piece, trying to make each one better than it's predecessor. I may not have time to get to another piece before spring (I've got a few at the "almost done" point I really want to finish), but I did manage to complete this little series. Three is a good number. Maybe I'll have a chance to finish up another of the ones I've got going, but even if I don't, I feel confident my booth will look pretty good. At least I won't have to panic. 

The Warrior Series. 12x12" each. All available.

Abstract Painting: The Warrior's Dance

"The Warrior's Dance", 12x12" mixed media on canvas. Available. 

My husband was, at one time, really into karate. He kinda still is, but he doesn't do it anymore... he got to a fairly high level, then decided to move on to other things. We still watch martial arts movies on occasion, and when the fight scenes come on, I get to watch them a few times. 

We recently watched the Netflix series "Marco Polo". Seen it? Its a pretty good story, actually, so I didn't mind watching... and the sets, costumes, landscapes, etc. were visually very interesting. Of course, what caught hubby's attention was the choreography. There is one character in the story that is a blind monk. And a total badass. He is the kung-fu warrior. Pretty amazing to watch, even on my TV. Can't imagine watching someone who can move like that up close and in person (it would probably freak me out actually... I remember when hubs went for his black belt exam I sat through most of the grading with my hands over my eyes, cringing every time there was contact. And with this there was maybe just a wee bit of computer enhancement. Maybe). Since I had access to a big screen TV, I put on the scene I wanted to follow, got out my canvas and water-soluble crayon, and proceeded to draw the Warrior's Dance. 

Finding inspiration from a Netflix series is probably something I shouldn't admit to. In fine art circles, there is a bit of a high brow attitude toward the meanings and themes in an artist's works. But I really do believe you can find inspiration in anything. Even if you have the most boring life in the world, there will always be something... the way the afternoon light hits a leaf in your garden, the way your mother laughs, your dog's dirty paw print on the kitchen floor... Anything can be the spark that sends you off in a new direction. 

I'm not done with this... I really like the scenes of the army with their shields and swords, and the way their robes fly when they fight. I will probably work that into a couple paintings... and I've still got the books I picked up at the ROM's exhibit of the Chinese terracotta army from a few years back that might inspire something. It will evolve and change as I go along. As it always does. 

The SideKick

Another Mask... Acrylic paint, paint pen, collage and water soluble crayon in a recycled children's board book.

A couple months ago I came across a new term in one of the art journaling groups I belong to on Facebook. Someone posted something from their "sidekick" journal. I had never heard this before... but since then it has come up again and again.

I have never taken a class on the "proper" way to make an art journal. I got a book out of the library, I watched a couple videos online, I was lucky enough to win one of Orly Avineri's books in an online contest. I figured hell, it's a journal... how can I do it wrong? The thing with that kind of approach is that you sometimes miss enough you feel like everyone else is in on some secret that has completely eluded you. That's how it was with this whole sidekick thing... though it didn't take me long to figure it out. It's pretty much just what you think it would be: another journal, used as a kind of assistant to the main one.

How I usually work is like this: I have a canvas on my easel. Sometimes two, depending on the size. That is what I am working on at the moment. I usually have another painting or two on the go, so when I get stuck I just move on to something else. My art journal and a few sheets of primed paper are on my work table, along with my drawing tools, my sketchbook, and my brushes. I usually work on something small as a warm-up or if I don't have a lot of time. If I need to work in my journal (to help my mood or state of mind), that usually happens before I get into the bigger stuff. That's something I seem to have been subconsciously avoiding since my father died. I'm trying to make more of an effort because I know it's helpful. I have a shelf full of little books that I work in... one pile has completed books, one pile books I intend to use but haven't, and usually a few that are in progress. I have my "found poetry" book, which has maybe 3 blank spreads, a book made of watercolour paper that has only one spread done but which I had no particular theme in mind, my bird book which is full but needs a cover, and this one that I started and abandoned last year. I have no idea which is my main journal and which is my sidekick.

Maybe my journaling process as a whole is a sidekick. An assistant to my painting in general. That's kind of how I go about it, actually. I go to the journals when I don't know what to paint, or when I don't feel I'm in the right state of mind to work on what I've got going. When I'm in between projects my books get a lot of attention... I work intuitively until I stumble on something I want to pursue. Last year I did an entire book on the theme of grids, just because I wanted to work in a compositional format I didn't really understand. I don't know if that is supposed to be the purpose of an art journal... so maybe what I do isn't really art journaling. I use text, but not the way most people do. I don't write out quotes, or inspirational thoughts... or even leave the text as readable. I scrawl out my thoughts about the subject over my background, then cover it up with my imagery. I don't want to reread it... and I most certainly don't want anyone else reading it. I just put it there so it's clear in my mind what I'm thinking.

Whatever it is I am doing, I intend to keep doing it. It's good for me to have a place to work on stuff that is just for me... work I have no intention of showing or selling. Maybe I will have an open studio at some point, and I'll put my completed books out for people to peruse, just so those interested can have an idea of how I get to my finished paintings. Or maybe not. That's one decision I can avoid making... at least for now.

New Abstract Painting: Enter the Warrior

"Enter the Warrior", 12x12" mixed media on canvas. Available.

Abstract work is interesting. I usually start with some kind of idea... these pieces I've generally gotten my basic shapes down by drawing a person (or animal) in motion. Occasionally, while I'm working, I see something emerge from the shapes. Its a recognizable thing... I've seen landscapes, people, trees, fruit... usually I turn the piece and add something so whatever it is is obliterated. I don't want that "thing" there. It's supposed to be non-objective... an object throws me off.

I was almost done this piece when I saw the bird. I really don't know how I missed it... I guess I was in some kind of altered state as I was working. I get like that... just kind of in the zone. I've had my son come into my studio to ask me a question, and had to ask me 3 times just to get me to acknowledge he's there. It doesn't always go like that, but when it does the result is usually much better than when it doesn't. Anyway, I decided the bird was going to stay, and I'd hang the piece in a direction where the bird was obvious. I like it there, even if it does look like it is encased in some kind of metallic copper armour.

And I was happy that my metallic copper actually looks like metallic copper. Note to self: take photos of metallic pieces outside in the sun.

I've been working in grey for what seems like months. Piece after piece... grey, grey and more grey. Not a bad thing, but when I look at my last few months of work lined up, it's seeming a little dreary. I deliberately tried to steer away with this one, thinking maybe brightening up my palette may brighten up my mood. Not sure it worked, but I like the earthy feel of this piece. I have another two started using the same palette. I'm working on them in between a much larger diptych that is... well... grey. Maybe by the time I'm done all five my life be looking a little brighter.