May 25, 2008

I had a satisfying day of painting, gardening, hiking and yoga today.

As far as "Jackson's Trip to Heaven, I added more white to clouds on top of the pink which is giving them a more lofty look. Also added a rainbow behind the dog (who is now orange) to symbolically represent the Rainbow Bridge. The Rainbow Bridge is a poem that is THE poem for dead and dying pets. In fact on the few days before and after I put Jackson down I was sent a link to this poem, sent the poem via snail mail and had it recited to me by the fellow that was cremating my dog. My feelings at the time was "Fuck the Rainbow Bridge". I just wasn't in the mood to hear about happy kisses, clinging together in joyous reunions or looking into the trusting eyes of my faithful companion. I was upset and just wanted to hold on to that feeling. The disturbing feeling I got from the Rainbow Bridge poem reminded me of a story involving my daughter and I many years ago when she was four or five years old.

We had just arrived back in central Pennsylvania after visiting family in northern New Jersey and I decided we should get a bite to eat before heading home. I insisted on going to Eat and Park as I knew they had a salad bar where we could eat immediately and quickly move on and go home. My daughter was against going to this restaurant as she was troubled by the wait people who push their smiley cookies on kids. My daughter is one of those rare kids who did and still does not like cookies I told her that when the waitress came over after our meal to present my daughter with the smiley cookie she was to say, "Take your smiley cookie and shove it up your ass." Of course she has much better sense than I and did not say anything but "thank you" to the waitress when she was given the cookie but we both had a bad case of the giggles when it was offered.

May 24, 2008

Sorry guys. The rain here in central Pennsylvania has finally ceased for at least a few days-the sun is shining and I'm off to a dinner party.

May 23, 2008

Life as an artist is not always filled with excitement. Yesterday although my intentions were good I did not get a chance to paint because life needs got in the way. I would love to report that the reasons were of utmost creative importance but in reality it was a hair managing appointment (I have semi-long thick curly hair which periodically has to be tamed by a specialist), a trip to the post office, stop at the gas station ($3.99 a gallon!), long hike in the woods to tame my very energetic border collie mix, and the unexpected salad and a beer invitation from a new friend I'm just getting to know.

Today was a bit better with a medium number of distractions. I worked about four hours on two of my non-art related jobs:cleaning houses and selling yoga props, visited with friends, talked to my daughter a bit, went to the woods, watched two beavers swimming, did some yoga, and happily painted for the length of a Keith and the Girl podcast..

I worked on the leaf colors-made more progress getting the color fairly close to what I want and have moved on to work on the red dog. He may get a little bigger and possibly will change his red coat for one with more orange in it. I painted more of the yellow background-sky, but may change color completely when I work next.

May 21, 2008

In keeping with my self-imposed task of painting every day and documenting the results of that day's session, today posed a bit of a time challenge. A morning vet appointment, trip to the ATM, post office and then an afternoon shopping with my daughter who is about to move into her first apartment, left me a single hour to paint. Mostly I worked on getting the colors correct in the leaves behind the fallen bird and the cloud behind that. Not much else to say about today's session.

But a few days ago when I was picking up art from a show that had concluded I had an interesting conversation with someone and thought it was interesting enough to repeat here. Last year I painted "The Lesbian Amish" which was a series of four scenarios of the life of a fictional Amish woman. This piece had been sold before I even had a chance to show it by an art collector who has a lovely art collection of which I am fortunate to be part of. Because this annual show has a specific 6:00pm pick-up time I often find one or two persons waiting for me and we share a few minutes of conversation. This time was no different. I had a few conversations and left with three pieces under my arm. As I neared my car in the parking lot I was approached by a woman who asked me to pose with my artwork while she took a photo. She then proceeded to tell me that she now had "The Lesbian Amish" painting in her possession. Apparently the wife of the original owner had put her foot down and insisted that he get rid of my painting as it was highly offensive to her. So my painting exchanged hands and moved on to its new home which I was assured was safe and appreciated.

May 20, 2008

Today painting came much easier. I decided to leave the robin in and put her/him on a bed of leaves in the clouds so it didn't appear that the bird was falling from the sky. My main focus was still to lay down the basic colors although I focussed most of my attention on the two birds and the areas behind them. Right now one of the problems I am having with this painting is visually pulling it all together. Tomorrow I intend on working on connecting the mountains behind the red dog and the area of the two birds. I also hope to add more to the "earth" part of the painting (bottom section beneath the clouds). I have a few ideas such as Todd Rundgren's 60th birthday bash (see May 14, 2008), a hike through the woods and/or some issues that have come up concerning people and how their agendas can interfere with relationships. I have no idea at this time how to visualize these things and by tomorrow it is quite possibly that new ideas will replace these when I sit down to paint.

May 19, 2008

Today's painting session felt unsatisfying and frustrating. I did not find my rhythm while painting and struggled through every color change. Yesterday I drove to Michael's and bought $150 worth of new paints, automatically making painting easier.(because you don't have the restriction of limited paint colors) To have problems with a full arsenal of paints is somewhat unusual although not unheard of. Every painting goes through a cycle of like-dislike-like. I'll like the freeness of a layer then paint over some of it to get the colors I want and feel the freeness has been lost. Sometimes the subject starts to bore me and I have been known to start over and paint an alternative painting on top of the old one. I recently completed a painting, sent it out to be photographed and painted over it when returned home because I still was not happy with the results.

One of the problems I'm having with "Jackson's Trip to Heaven" is that there is no compositional focus the focus points (first, second, third, etc.) will be managed through color. Right now there are only spots of color as I am still filling in the canvas with basic colors. Today I focused a bit on the mountain range that is below and to the left of the red dog (Jackson). I'm assuming that heaven has different ecosystems and felt sure that Jackson would have chosen his familiar mountains to surround himself.

May 18, 2008

Most times when I paint I listen to either podcasts or music. I'm not sure how these things work but having background noise on tends to keep my mind still and focussed what is visually in front of me. Today I was listening to Vegan Radio which is a vegan radio show broadcasted from Northampton, Massachusetts. Today the hosts were talking about animal testing and they mentioned Felix the chimp who was serving science by being a test subject and who was scheduled to be terminated once the tests are concluded. This gave me an idea to paint the bottom of the painting of earth as we know it with its turmoils (such as the demise of Felix) in opposition to the upper parts of the painting which is a view from heaven, much simpler and not as visually busy. Ofttimes I have a general sense of what I want to say in a painting but draw inspiration from the various things I listen to often adding and/or manipulating the painting to reflect ideas that I get from both podcasts and music.