Choosing Photos for the Next Paintings

My mind runs rampant – in between moments of, “Duh, I don’t know what I want to do,” the creative fires are screaming for me to do something. I want another landscape, but I’ve also been considering doing another floral.

I spent an hour looking through photos. Nothing is perfect, and with florals, I need to use the projector to get proper shapes and dimensions. I am not good at free handing the blossoms and getting all the intricacies.

I also have the photo of Tuli and the one of Leo which I’d printed on plain paper a couple weeks ago. Today, I printed six florals on photo paper. They’re not perfect photos, but hopefully I’ll be able to transfer them to pastel paper. I may try to combine the two magnolia photos to have two blossoms. I might do so with two of the rose of Sharon photos, too.

I’ll have to experiment and play around with creating interesting compositions. This is what I enjoy about painting -- developing vibrant, real scenes using the photos for reference, not to exactly duplicate the prints.

As for the proposed Tuli painting, this is hard because I feel guilty for not doing better when trying to paint Pele. I feel I didn’t do her justice.

I’ve talked before about the kinds of paper. For years, I used BFK Rives paper because I like the smoothness. However, I’ve been trying textured papers the last few paintings. I like the colored backgrounds, but I don’t like the texture. Texture is OK when using darker colors, but I cannot get bright color clarity with lighter shades like whites, yellows, and oranges… the dark of the paper makes a gray, bumpy underlayer to the light colors.

  

Bad Days vs Good Days

This morning’s thinking:

These past few years many things have gone horribly wrong. There have been many, many struggles, days of feeling sad and lots of tears. Do the bad days outweigh the good?

Hmm… maybe it’s because when bad happens, it’s hugely, horribly upsetting and seems to follow me for days and weeks like dark clouds that won’t go away. And because it sticks, it seems to outweigh any good days.

Then when I think about good days – they’re not excitable, jump and down, extremely happy times. Because that’s not me. There are some truly joyful moments, but most days are just simple, good, OK days. Nothing to be truly excited about.

So, does it just seem like too many things go wrong because all the good days aren’t phenomenally good -- meaning the good days don’t stand out? Is it just that most good days are just simple, quiet, everyday days?

It’s kind of like bad times are a loud punch in the gut whereas most good days are quiet, do my work (whatever I happen to be working on at the time) days. I’m not into adrenaline rushes. I’m not one who needs over-the-top excitement, nor do I want that. I like the simple, quiet.

Simple things give me joy – like at this moment as I look out over the still dark brook. My attention is grabbed by a little hint of sunlight sparkling on one limb of a tree, wet from last night’s rain. It lasts only a minute, but as the sun rises higher, more sparkles shimmer on leaves showing of other trees up the hill.

I’ve Made my Life Too Complicated

My life is complicated. Even with not having a full-time job anymore (I’m kinda semi-retired but still feel I’m working most of the day), my to-do lists grow longer. Yes, I get to cross off items almost daily, but more ideas of things to do and topics to write about multiply before I accomplish older projects.

I love to write and do pastel paintings, but my brain is on overload most the time. Do I work on this or that? I’ll start writing about one topic, then other subjects will jump in. I’ll go in the studio to paint and get distracted by cleaning up or wanting to start another painting scene. I just can’t make up my mind and the see-sawing, wishy-washiness causes anxiety.

Flower gardening has fallen by the wayside this summer. The plan to re-paint the deck, front porch and steps have been put on hold until next year because of all the inclement weather. Plus, I can’t deal with the biters out there.

I now have so many lists, my life is getting even more discombobulated. My mind spins and shuts down. Decision making causes even more stress.

This all said, I find life very interesting. Yes, I get discouraged and even depressed sometimes, but for the most part, there’s excitement in delving into topics, sharing thoughts and feelings, and creating colorful paintings. There are many scenes I want to paint and some I’d like to paint again.

Then, too, all the overthinking makes it hard to focus on one task at a time… and it’s exhausting. I know, it doesn’t make sense, but I swear thinking too much can be more tiring than physical labor – then again, that’s another topic as to the issues physical labor causes now. (See how my thoughts pile on.)

I am easily distracted… and if I’m not distracting myself, my Tuli-kitty often wants attention when I’m in the middle of some intense work. Then there are the interruptions with phone calls – scams, marketing, begging, surveys, et.al.

I don’t mind working, and I don’t mind working hard. But I don’t want to feel like I’m working all the time. Yet, it seems the more I try to simplify my life, the more complicated I’ve actually made it.

Maybe I’ve just reached a point in my life where I just can’t do it all by myself any more… but I have no choice. If I want these things done, I’m the only one who can do them. Most of these things are on me, but now, even the things I could hire out to have done, I can’t afford to do so anymore. Such as it is.

Responses to art questions and comments

Two topics from Jason Horejs, of Xanadu Gallery, in his “RedDotBlog, particularly caught my attention. It stirred my own responses.

 “Is Creating Art Hard Work?”

Creating art, for me, is hard work. Sometimes the creative muses are warring with one another as to who’s going to get my attention. I am easily distracted and, these days, if my concentration is interrupted, I lose the desire for other works in progress.

Unfortunately, but really not unfortunate, I have inspirations in many directions. (Unfortunate because I always feel like that bumblebee flitting from one flower to the next. I jump from project to project often before I finish the current one.) On the other hand, it’s exciting to have so many interests.

I am pulled into four main creative endeavors: writing, poetry, photography, and pastel painting. (This is the short list in which my life has evolved around.) I can be busy working on one project when something interrupts and I’m off on another gambit. It can take me a long time to get back to my previous work. Then there are times if I let a piece go too long without attention, I can’t get back into it all. So many new things claiming my attention.

“The Discipline It Takes to Create Art.”

Can I say I fail at discipline? Maybe not. I am disciplined in some aspect, especially my editing for the newspaper. However, with my four main creative passions, it’s sometimes hard to choose one over another. Especially when the muses are all pulling me in different directions.

There’s a part of me that loves this. There’s something exciting about being compelled to create. It’s thrilling when a muse grabs me. There are even multiple avenues with each creative project. I can be writing on one topic, when something else gets my attention. Sometimes when I let the distraction have its way with me, I’ll lose the creative desire on the previous working.

Then there are those times when regular life gets in the way of creativity. Life has been getting to me the last couple years and sometimes I can’t get out of my own way. During those times, discipline to work flies out the window.

Then, too, living alone means all other life aspects is up to me to take care of, so I can’t devote the time I’d like to art.

Maybe it all should be: Creating is hard work because it takes discipline and there are many distractions.

  

Finally Realizing and Accepting Who I Am

While getting ready this morning, I realized I’ve changed with every house I’ve ever lived in. It’s weird. Things I loved or was into shifted with every house, even with this place where I live today.

I think about all the things I was into during my life: writing, poetry, massage therapy, studying different beliefs, playing Native American flute, to name a few. When I lived in the family home in Kensington, I started getting into writing and poetry. I went to massage school. I joined a woman’s support group and led brown-bag lunches and Artist’s Way classes. I got into Tai Chi and eventually became certified to teach.

When we moved to Hampton, I wrote a lot of poetry and left a job I’d worked at for almost 30 years. During the Hampton years and after I moved to Barrington, there were Native American drumming circles, meditation and other types of spiritual searches such as investigating Wiccan, Buddhism, and other. I also got into playing Native American flute.

In Bradford, I continued doing some massage, taught tai chi, and got more into gardening. I continued to write. But I started recognizing things I enjoyed in the past no longer held my interest. Here, I started working as freelance writer then editor of the InterTown Record. I also got into charcoal landscape drawing and became more of a gardener.

Then, when my mum passed, my entire world fell apart. A part of me was ripped away. She’d been my rock, and I became a severed rope end flopping haphazardly in the wind with no connection. In downsizing to move to Hillsborough, a lot of things got thrown away – part of me got thrown away shattering my heart even farther… but it needed to be done.

Hillsborough was about pulling myself together and trying to figure out who I was now. Past passions no longer held me. I gave up massage, tai chi, and flute playing. Charcoal drawing turned into pastel painting (which I love). After a couple of trips, I stopped traveling, then stopped going places at all except to do errands or an interview for the paper or to bring paintings to a show (although the latter is now waning due to expenses.)

Why and/or how has this happened? Have others experienced similar? It’s almost like I become another person with each house/town. Or has it just been leading me to accepting the person I am and have always been on the inside?

So, this morning, while brushing my hair and seeing the flutes in their stand on a cabinet, I was filled with guilt. I haven’t picked one up in over a year or more. And those flutes were not cheap to purchase, and I have many. What does this mean?

Perhaps each house experience was kind of a rite of passage. It seems I’ve always been experimenting to find out what works best for me. (I’m still trying to put these thoughts together, i.e., trying to make sense of it all.) It’s like each situation has helped me further recognize who I am and have always been even when I didn’t realize it.

It’s all about learning to accept who I am and be OK with who I am. Yes, there is always room to grow and learn. I have become stronger in my beliefs. I recognize who I am and there’s nothing to be ashamed of. I stand strong in stating, “I am not a sheep. I AM the odd duck.”

 

Some Thoughts on History

The past few years, I’ve been watching a lot of history shows and reading history books. It’s repetitive, in a way. Times and technology change, but, in many aspects, human beings don’t. There are always those who want to control the masses (to put it simply) and they’ll say and promise anything to get people to follow.

The latest shows I’ve watched parts of are from the series “What Really Happened: America’s Wild West…” It’s an eye-opener, and yet, it’s also a sign of what I’ve been coming to believe and understand for some time.

All our lives we’ve had our history drilled into us – as “they” wanted the U.S. history portrayed – and now, we are learning and hearing more from other sides and stories. How does that old saying go? Something about the conquerors getting to write the history which always portrays them as being in the right.

There is more than one side.

And, all our lives, we’ve been taught that the U.S. is the best country in the world, that our government is the best, and our leaders want the best for American citizens… And I so want to continue believing that, but I don’t anymore.

To see other sides, to start having other truths come out, I have come to the conclusion we’ve been manipulated our entire lives. I’m beginning to think our leaders aren’t much better than leaders in other countries. Men are men. Humans are human with all their frailties.

Oh, I believe many leaders often start out trying to do good for the people they represent, but when the power of control gets hold of them, it all changes. It becomes not about the people in general but about protecting those in power and getting richer from it.

Manifest Destiny – leaders believing they have the God-given right to do whatever they want because they believe they are in the right. They believe their ways are what’s best… and they don’t care who they destroy to get their wants fulfilled.

How many cults and cultures have there been? Someone always thinks they’ve been given some divine right and it always proves to be false. Oh, some benefit, but in the end, most do not.

Leaders create rules for the people they themselves don’t have to follow.

If you’re not pushing your agenda and beliefs on others, they’re pushing theirs onto you.

I don’t know what the real answers are. Yes, there are stories and sides that need to be told. It’s hard to sort it all out.