Art is Work*

Here, at last, is an acrylic painting I started when I was expecting my second baby. That baby is now 14 months old. I was going to write something about how that gives an idea of how long this painting gestated for, but paintings don't gestate-- they sit in your studio space for extended periods of time, begging you to just forget about everything else and do some painting already! I think this painting turned out well enough. What I'm more excited about is that I made the time to do the work and was reminded of how enjoyable it is to paint with acrylics. That's the funny thing about painting; it is work, you're physically labouring at a task that's mentally demanding, but it's just so fun.

*props to the amazing Milton Glaser and his kick-butt book

Painting on Autopilot

I couldn't resist painting one more leaf. A couple of weeks ago I went for a walk and came home with a fistful of good looking leaves. It was a difficult process of elimination, but I had to make up my mind before all I had on hand was a dried up pile of leafy bits. Working on this watercolour turned into a kind of Zeno's paradox; I wanted to finish the painting but the more I looked at the leaf the more I had to keep painting. When this kind of thing happens and I feel myself getting too persnickety, I turn off whatever music I'm listening to and that helps switch off the painting autopilot so I can wrap it up.

Rib-bit Rib-bit

These two froggy fellows were commissioned for a little boy's bedroom and I have it on good authority that they're a hit with the little mister. This was such a fun project. There's nothing like overcoming the greyness of November days with saturated hues of  watercolour.

Alrighty, I should head to bed. Yesterday's indication that I need to get some more zzzzs came in the late afternoon, that's when I noticed I was wearing mismatching earrings!

The Sky's the Limit

Here's a horse painting that I finished today and although I know the piece is complete, I'm fighting the urge to keep playing around with the layers of watercolour in the sky. Rendering the horse in this commission was enjoyable, but I was especially fortunate in that the photograph I painted from has a beautifully overcast sky. It's been a while since I've done anything that featured a large open expanse, so rendering the brooding sky from this photo was an extra delight. One of the advantages of painting from a photograph is that you can add or subtract elements in order to enhance the composition. In this case, I took out the machinery and fence. I should mention that the lovely person who commissioned this painting is married to an awesome photographer who took the great shot that is the basis for the painting. 

Bunny Horse?

It feels like quite some time has gone by since last I wrote and I hold the weather and reading accountable for my absence. Most of last week was wet and dreary which made me want to spend my evenings on the couch with a book in hand. A friend of mine loaned me her copy of The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill (the book is published as Someone Knows My Name in the USA, Australia and New Zealand), and I can barely put it down. In the novel, the protagonist Aminata Diallo recalls her life story, starting with her abduction from a happy life in West Africa when she's eleven years-old. So far I've read about Aminata crossing the Atlantic ocean in a slave-ship and her first couple of years as a slave in America. Although The Book of Negroes is a work of fiction, knowing that it's based upon the historical realities of the18th and early 19th centuries makes the novel that much more impactful. Considering it was a Canada Reads 2009 Selection, I'm late out of the gate in reading this book and I'm probably telling some people what they already know, but if you haven't read it, The Book of Negroes is worth reading.

As of the last few days the sun has come out again and so has my inclination to get some little tasks out of the way. It's amazing how much more verve a little sunshine puts into your step. That, and the news of a possible Canada Post strike--since one of my little tasks required going to the post office. Today I mailed away my applications for two different markets. One is the Grimsby Festival of Art that happens Saturday, Sept 10, 2011 and the other is the Harvest Crafts & Marketplace Fiesta at St. Paul's Church in Dundas which happens Oct 28 & 29, 2011. I'll be selling prints of my watercolour paintings at these evensts, and since both markets are still some time away, I'm thinking about also including some original oil paintings.

In other news, since I last wrote about my latest painting being a commission of a horse, I came across a veritable horse convention this past Saturday while out for a walk. My family and I went for a hike at Dundas Conservation Area and there were a lot of horses out with their riders. I guess the wet weather had made the horses pretty anxious to stretch their legs as well. Looking at these horses I photographed on Saturday, and the horse that I'm currently painting, has reminded me of how expressive horses' ears are. But I also find them kind of odd, although not in a bad way. The more I look at horse ears, the more I think of bunny rabbit ears.

I inadvertently gave the woman in the background a horse's head.

Nooks and Crannies

Phew, I had to make my way through plenty of fur, but I finished the watercolour painting of my friend Catherine's dog, Cady. This one took me a little more time than I'd reckoned because I hadn't planned to go so heavy on the detail. I'm painting along and then before I know it the nooks and crannies have sucked me in. I guess I don't put up much of a fight because I enjoy seeing the resulting sense of texture that comes into the painting. And by the by, if you have a pet that you'd like to see captured in a painting or drawing, please feel free to get in touch with me.

Every once in a while, I think it's good to do a "just because" painting, as in a painting you do just because you feel like it, and I feel like doing something in oil. Possibly because I may otherwise forget how to oil paint since I haven't done so for over two years. I'm thinking something that's large and abstracted. The weather is starting to warm up so I'll be able to use a studio space that's detached from my home and is the best place for me to do any oil painting. A curious 21 month old and an oil painting curing in the house strikes me as a terrible combination, and I don't want to test that hypothesis.

Before I go, I thought I'd show the process work for Cady's portrait in sequence. When I first started studying art in university I really disliked doing any preliminary work, the idea being that prelims would somehow deaden the end result (and besides, who wants to do extra work?). One of my professor's chastised this notion and cited Picasso as an artist who did numerous preliminary studies and produced final pieces that are both carefully constructed and appear spontaneously alive. At the time I remember thinking something along the line of "if it's good enough for Picasso..." 

One Suggestion for Conquering Procrastination

I'd like to say thank you for the really positive and encouraging feedback I received about Adam's portrait. On Facebook especially there were a lot of lovely comments and I noticed that many of them were from people who attended high school with Adam.

When I finish something I've been working on for a while, I find I often have to build up steam for the next project. It's not that I don't want to start something new, it's more like a latent sense of disbelief, as in, "Really? I get to start another painting and finish it?" Admittedly, it's a silly thought to have but on the other hand, it's a reassurance that making pictures hasn't become blase.  

As part of the process of getting geared up for starting something new, I was thinking about ways to encourage myself to get going and it occurred to me that one of the biggest things I can do is clean up my work space. Cleaning up seems to be a fairly common suggestion for improving work habits and is often connected to the adage that a cluttered space makes for a cluttered mind. Hogwash, I say! Personally, I don't buy that particular piece of folk wisdom because once my work space is clean and I'm working on something, the area very quickly becomes messy again and it doesn't stop me from optimizing my painting time (or if it does, I'm wonderfully oblivious).

So, why bother cleaning up my work space? Because otherwise organizing my desk becomes a prime source of procrastination. I tell myself that I'll start my next project after I clean up my work space. Once my desk is all cleaned up, I have nothing to stop me from starting that next painting. But until that time? Well, I can't start painting, my desk is too messy and now just isn't a good time to tidy up. Plus, the fact that I can't find the staple-gun that I need to attach the watercolour paper to the drawing board might also be a good reason to get organized.

Here's the preliminary watercolour of Cady the canine, and now that I've found my staple-gun, I can begin the final.