Monday never felt so good!...

I’m so glad it is Monday…for some reason, when I first woke up this morning, I thought today was Tuesday…and I wondered where Monday had gone…I was so convinced of this, that I feel like I have gained a day! I certainly can’t afford to lose any!!!

I still haven’t made it out to photograph my paintings…it was too cold this weekend and this morning it is snowing…I do have a few progress shots though…

First of all...here is another of my helpers...he is shown here being very busy holding down my younger daughter's laundry pile...it can take him hours to do this...and he loves to be noticed at this most important job...slob-cat Maddy is brother to needy Pimkey...















Here is the start of Flow X...colours are a bit wonkey and there is glare on most of these shots...but such is life!...














Flow X progress...just waiting to figure out how to do the flow line...what style and colours...I usually have to sit with them for a while at this stage...again...colours are not right and there is glare...


















Sitting Under Mandara's tree of Wonder is finished!...this is my elder daughter's (late) Christmas present...but she has said that I can hang it in my show...she will get it someday...


















I have decided to paint another Ice Road to Tuk...with the addition of an Inukshuk...the first one is hanging in the boutique at OSA...I debated just having the others in that series (so far...Land of the Midnight Sun and Northern Lights Over the Tundra) but I have a thing about odd numbers...three feels so much better than two...here are a couple progress pictures of it...



































Colourful easel...


















Need more room to put paintings!...

Secret 3 in the 12 Secrets…”Following Your Fascinations”…

This chapter is about listening to your intuitions, being courageous and following those intuitions and dreams, taking risks to do so, learning from your mistakes and overcoming your inner critic.

The book talks about ‘your inner patriarch’, which is an inner voice that tells us – women - to put our creativity and self expression aside and think firstly of the men in our lives. I don’t agree with this...I mean, I don't agree that all of us have this inner patriarch…maybe I am lucky and was raised in a house where I was encouraged and supported and that is where my foundation comes from. Now, this isn’t to say that I don’t have that inner critic that can be very negative…but it has nothing to do with cow-towing to men! My inner critic whispers in my ears nasty thing like ‘who are you trying to kid’, ‘you aren’t really an artist’, ‘anyone could have done that’…and it also tells me I’m wasting my time and money and that I should clean the house, make a nice place for all of us to live in and to go out and do some ‘real’ work…that is where my guilt comes from…but, again, it has nothing to do with the male superiority that this part of the book refers to. I am lucky, also, that my Cariño is so very supportive and encourages me in this creative endeavour!

I do take risks in my life…I don’t think I would be where I am now if I didn’t. I moved to Ottawa with three young kids, not knowing anyone, so we could start a fresh life. It was scary, but it was also very, very exciting! If I hadn’t moved here, I would never have met Cariño!

This move into painting more seriously is also a risk; a risk and a challenge. I haven’t quit my day job though…so it is a calculated risk as opposed to an impulsive one. I have always loved art and spend a lot of my spare time looking at it and reading about different artists. One of the things I love about my job is that it brings me into people’s homes and I get to look at their art too!

The decision to begin painting was not a sudden one…a seed was planted by an elderly woman I met…fixing her computer…she and her husband were watercolour artists. She was a fascinating woman and took an interest when I asked about her paintings and told her about my love of art …she said…”if you want to paint …just paint…just do it!”

Well, that advise sank in…I had originally thought that if I actually wanted to paint (which I did want to do…I was feeling the need to do something creative), that I would have to take some classes…learn how to use the mediums, learn how to paint…but this woman told me that I didn’t need to do that…I could just go ahead and paint!

It must have taken a year or so after she told me that before I finally went out and bought some paints and canvases. And she was right…just do it…I learn as I go…I ask questions…I continue to look at art and read about how people do what they do…

At the beginning of this chapter, in a quote from Betsy Morscher and Barbara Schindler Jones, authors of “Risk Taking for Women”, it says that the original meaning of risk is from the Greek “to sail around a cliff.” I like that…because once you do sail around that cliff…you have a whole new view…and that is how this creative journey seems for me…the more I do, the more I spend time painting…the more ideas I seem to have…the more I move forward into new territories…

There is another quote in this chapter by a person that fascinated me when I was young…I remember reading a book about her and I was amazed and awed by how she overcame the tremendous obstacles that life had placed before her…

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” ~ Helen Keller

Humidity Helps…

The last couple of days I have been working on putting together one of my Pieces of Colour paintings…it has been sitting waiting for the pieces to be stuck on for ages now…I just hadn’t got around to it…usually it is one of the steps that, while not my favorite, I can get into...with the repetitive, slow and meditative aspect of it…but not so on this one! The pieces of colour are smaller than in my other ones of this series and that makes them less cooperative to be put flat…they all have a bit of a curl to them…on the bigger pieces once I brushed on the gel medium, they kind of relaxed and didn’t resist being stuck flat…but these little guys are feisty! I was on the phone with Oma when we both came up with the idea of raising the humidity…well, Oma used the word humidity…I said something about putting them on wet paper towel…however you want to say it…it works!...so after fighting with almost half of them…the latter pieces have been much easier to work with…45 little squares…it has taken a while!

Some days it seems like I spend a lot of time in my studio but have little to show for it…not that I have been having trouble coming up with ideas of what to do…it isn’t that…it has to do with how some pieces take a very long time to make and others seem to jump, splat right out of the paint tubes! Part of this is also because some of my pieces take a number of steps to do, with drying times in between. This also means that there are some days when it feels like I am on fire, finishing a number of pieces all in one day! Today feels like that. It’s an exciting feeling…

I had a couple computer jobs in the morning and early afternoon and then headed up to paint around 5pm…

I finally put a ‘flow line’ on my big Flow painting…I have been sitting with it for quite a while now deciding whether or not I was going to put one on and today I decided that I would…and I like it…so that’s good!

I started a Flow triptych…three 12x12 canvases…I have been thinking about doing this for a while…today was the day to start…

I finished the Pieces of Colour (I only had ten more squares to stick on!) and started a 20x20 canvas for another of the Flow series…

I still haven’t had a chance or cooperative weather to take everything outside to photograph…hopefully tomorrow…except I think it is supposed to be like -20 plus really windy and snowy…so maybe not!

Meanwhile…here are some progress pictures…

Secret 2 in the 12 Secrets…”Honoring Your Inspirations”…

This chapter is about paying attention and taking the time to allow your creative self to come out and play…it’s about listening to your thoughts, keeping a journal, creating a place for yourself - a sanctuary - and then taking the time to be there with your thoughts and inspirations – paying attention to where your inspirations come from…

I like what Alice Aspen March says: “Time is absolutely vital to the creative process. We have to figure out how to take it and how to give it to ourselves. Only when we realize the kind of attention we need to be creative, do we realize the value of our own time.” – this is something that I have struggled with…it goes back to that feeling guilty about taking time for myself…I’m getting better though – it is something that I have been consciously working on.

I have a sanctuary, or the beginnings of one…I have a whole room – in what used to be the kitchen in the upstairs apartment of the duplex we bought. I even have a sink and running water (something I didn’t have at our last place). I admit that it is a work in progress.

I am able to work amid chaos – which is a good thing, for my life seems to be full of it! It can also be a bad thing, though, because I tend to tune it out and just work away in my little bubble! I think that one of my ‘challenges’ this year should be to lessen some of that chaos. I am a horrible housekeeper and probably always will be…and it isn’t that which I want to change about myself…but to be a bit more organized and lessen the chaos of household mess would be a good thing for all of us who live here (not that it is all MY mess! – we still have elder daughter and her beau’s ‘stuff’ throughout the house and I am only one of three who live here). I guess the main problem is, that this place is much smaller than where we were before and I have trouble shedding myself of things…something to work on…

Another thing that this chapter talks about is creative rituals…as well as being a terrible housekeeper, I am not is a very regulated person…I never know, from one day to the next, exactly what I will be doing…I may know a day or two in advance of upcoming computer jobs, and I do schedule doctor and dentist appointments, but as for getting up at the same time every day and meditating or writing in a journal…no…I can’t seem to manage that! When Cariño and I were doing “The Artist’s Way” a few years ago, I did make a real effort to do the ‘Morning Papers’ – writing every morning…and it was good, but it didn’t seem to be something that I could fit into my life as a daily ritual…

Every so often I will clear my art table…but inevitably, as I work away, it fills up again…and soon I am back down to my little space of work area, surrounded by my creative tools and materials…it is a constant ebb and flow…that seems to be how I work…so I’ll just go with that…I seem to be on a creative high right now…more ideas popping into my head than I have time to record…so something must be working…I think the most important thing, for me, is the taking of time…the allowing myself to come up to my studio and spend time creating…and maybe that involves having some faith in myself…

Accepted!!!...

I hadn’t heard from the boutique at Ottawa School of Art…so I stopped by today on my way home from a job…and there were my paintings hanging in the window!!!...it was a really neat feeling seeing them there!

I finished Land of the Midnight Sun today, will finish another 1 or 2 tomorrow...I will try to get some better shots outside tomorrow...

Randomness…

I have a hard time with ‘random’…I have to really work at it…which, when you think of it, kind of defeats the purpose of it! I first found this out about myself back when I was a picture framer…I was framing this card and I was painting the mat…just ‘random’ little lines of different colours…I think it was my co-workers who pointed out how hard I was working at laying down ‘random’ lines…I think they even teased me (in a nice way, of course)!

I was thinking about that again today as I was ‘randomly’ putting gold dots on some of my ‘wonder bubbles’…and again as I was ‘randomly’ sticking the bubbles down to the canvas…

I have had a wonderful day devoted, mostly, to creativity…got up early and painted for a couple hours before driving my younger daughter to work, Cariño to school and then do a few odd running about jobs…was back painting within a couple hours and have happily painted the rest of the day away…

I have been working mostly on finishing up 2 pieces, as well as getting a couple others started. None got finished today…but I am getting close! Some of my paintings take so much longer to paint than others...I have some progress shots…

Still working on "Land of the Midnight Sun"...acrylic on 16x20 canvas...


























The making of the 'wonder bubbles'...made on watercolour paper, using coloured pencils and watercolour pencils...then I swirl about on them with some water to blend the colours...then I spray them with fixative, cut them out and finally draw a pattern on with a metallic gold marker...they take a while to make!














Many wonder bubbles!


















A bare 'Mandara's Tree of Wonder'...


















Placing the wonder bubbles...this took a while...trying to get them placed 'randomly'...distributing the different colours...tring to figure out how many bubbles were actually needed and of what sizes...I had to go back and make some more...in the end I have 3 left over...


















Sticking them on (using gel medium) took even longer...deciding which ones went on top, which went under...which overlapped which...it was like doing a puzzle that had no real predetermined picture...good thing I love puzzles! Still not finished...but getting there...

Show Poster...

There always seems to be some fun thing or another for me to do! I finally got around to working on my upcoming show postcard! This is going to be what I send out by email to people (very soon I guess!) and I would also like to get some printed…I would print them 5”x7”.