I’ve been experimenting with starting painting meditations with line drawings, it definitely changes how I paint. I find it harder to stay in a spontaneous mindset but I feel it will help me develop my illustration style. One thing that I feel would help is if I learned to be OK with simple paintings but I always want to fill up the page.
I have a new spontaneously illustrated poem book finished. This one is a little different in that I spontaneously decided to redo one of the pages. I also painted it in watercolor and then printed it instead of binding the originals.
Watercolor media is not as stable as fluid acrylic so the pigments would rub off on each other if I bound the paintings together. I really loved making this into a printed book though!
“Penchant” is available in my shop below
I have a new little book finished! I started this a long time ago but got distracted with my spontaneous books. It felt great to finally complete it!
This is one of my 5 x 7” books that have a blank page for writing a greeting and come with an envelope.
I printed these at home on Epson premium double sided matte paper with Epson Claria ink. I am not thrilled with Epson’s inflated ink prices nor their lack of eco-friendly papers but I have some samples of eco-friendly papers coming in the mail. I hope I find one that works at the right weight. These are too stiff for my tastes.
This has been my studio during my day job work nights latelyđź’ś I am enamored with simplicity so even though my closet is still crammed full of paintings and my project table is slightly organized chaos I love spending the evening on the couch with just colored pencils, a pen and a journal.
I don’t get to share everything from my workbooks because I journal in them a lot and that’s too personal to post but when I can share pages I will because I love seeing other people’s visual journals, workbooks and sketchbooks.
Here are my latest painting meditations. I am reviewing my art career approach and have decided to put more effort into showing my work in public instead of having an internet shop or posting pieces on social media. This blog will be the best place to see my latest pieces.
I probably won’t be able to show much until society begins to reopen but I have plenty to do in the meantime! I am still revising my Landscape Diaries essays into a book. I’m also spontaneously illustrating books so my heart can develop its own style instead of my ego trying to make “good” work.
I am also really into drawing and lettering in my workbooks and all my art journals and sketchbooks are now converted to workbooks. I like the term workbook because sketchbook puts me in an academic mindset and I associate art journal with art scrap-booking which puts too much pressure on making things precious or appealing. Workbook feels like a thing of the soul, of wayward contemplatives, obscure poets and woods wanderers so it fits who I am in that these things are my work even if it seems a little dramatic to say so.
It is still warm in the woods and the foliage has already begun to retreat from the trails. One golden maple leaf lays on the ground dry, completely intact for a little while before she begins to transition to dirt.
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Night slips through the window with the sound of passing cars, a little cool air.
It is so good: the end of a day. I did everything I could to live. There was just 30 minutes of wasted time when I was too polite to pry myself out of a conversation where each closing remark spurred a new idea even though we both wanted to move along to other things.
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Being soft is not always joy. But I am so enamored with the gentle hint of Autumn encroaching in the air I don’t want to talk about anything else.
Eternity.
Surrender.
Home.
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Today I took a long walk in the arboretum then lay in the grass for a couple hours doing nothing. I didn’t read a book, or draw, or even fall asleep. I watched the yellow leaves droop in the other wise green brush. I collected wiry pieces of dead grass in my socks where my blanket was too short.
It takes a lifetime to slough off everything we aren’t…why do I believe I should already be in blossoms? The trees take so much time to grow and then fruit. Then they spend decades weaving themselves thoughtfully into the tapestry of moments with their grand decay.
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Sometimes I lose my appetite and I feel it like a protest: your priorities are all wrong.
Money.
Efficiency.
Not inconveniencing anybody.
Why do I believe I should only make things that will last forever?
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At the far end of the creek the water trickles over a wide rock bed crossed with crevices. One song sparrow hops out of the salal at the creek’s edge to flit about the rocks in the shallow water rearranging leaves and eating bugs.
I cast off my white long-sleeve shirt in the exact moment the song sparrow leaves a pile of white poop on the rocks.
What if our legacy is supposed to fit in a shoe box or a manila envelope? A few molecules of air when we say goodbye.
I’ve added some of my favorite painting meditations to my shop!
While I was painting my 100 treescapes it made me happy to have my studio and art practice full of forest imagery. It made so much sense that I, an artist who loves to spend as much time as possible out in the woods, would be a forest landscape painter.
Now my heart is calling me to focus on the abstract meditations I paint to express my experience of being an element of nature myself.
I feel a little grief in this. Anyone who has put effort into making a home for themselves will relate to the grief that comes when it’s time to move even when they are moving into a better place.
These are the last tree paintings I made. I wanted to post them together so they could be included in my on-line body of work before I rearrange my shop and portfolio to reflect my current focus. I know I will still paint forests. I might paint them for fun occasionally or they might become a new body of work after I’ve said all I need to with my abstracts.
I added my latest book to my shop this evening! “Foraging” is my first attempt at making an illustrated book spontaneously. Usually I draft the illustrations and plan where the text is going to go but I want to make a bunch of these with no planning to see how my art evolves. I am very excited about it. Let me know what you think!
