Saturday night viewing, complimentary virtual wine and cheese served

I'm still here! I'm feeling so much better in every way, body mind and spirit. So I thought I would jump back in for a minute and instead of yakking on and on about all of that, I'll just give you a little bit about what I'm doing right now to keep it that way ... better.

I am painting!  I've been trying and trying to get back to this for 9 years. Thank god I never got depressed or hopeless enough that I threw the brushes or the paints away. I watercolor and watercolors are exceptionally versatile because they are so portable and they never get old! I have paints that are as much as 25 years old and all you have to do is add water, wait a bit and voila!

Taking a break from everything, and I mean everything, was/is healing. After a little while I began to breathe again and let me tell you how good air feels - in my lungs, my mind, my heart/soul.  I had no idea how shallow my breath was in trying to get to all these vital places.

So now I can hardly stop - painting.

This is a little bit of what I was doing all those years ago when I was painting pretty consistently..sort of. I was really afraid that I had lost it all. The first few attempts were a little scary, but once I started opening that door, I didn't care how good I was anymore. The thrill is addictive.


The first one I did (about 3 weeks ago) when I put water to the palette and picked up the brush was so bad that even Liz looked at it and said  "What is it?" We laughed almost to tears and I tossed it.  Which is a big deal for me because I used to be in the place, a long time ago, where I just wouldn't paint because I was afraid it was going to be awful and then I would be wasting paper.  Go figure.

These first 5 are from a long time ago.
I was painting in a pretty realistic style. I enjoy that, it's a real challenge to grab the subject and get it on the page as close as you can to what it really is.

This is not a mountain scene. Ha! It is a reclining woman done with a masking out technique.
                                                                                 

                                                                               

Now that's a bum!

I love this little girl hold a bird, it's a very small painting and had to be done with a magnifying glass.  The pigeon one is actually one of my favorites, if not my most favorite of all. In person you could see each little hair on the feathers on the floor, they were exquisite. Sadly it was stolen from my estate sale when I lost my home. I think I will always mourn it's loss, it was very special. And no, when people say "Oh, you can always paint another." it's simply not true.

This last one is a true exact  copy of a very old painting of the facade of the Paris opera house.  I would have to take it out of the frame to get a really good photo of it, sorry that this is such poor quality.  But it was exhibited at the Portland Art Museum in the student foyer when I was taking some classes there (ions ago) and I was very proud of it! It's a very big painting and I was so poor that I framed it in cardboard that I painted and pretend gilded.

I like these and I will still use this genre, but I've been wanting to try something looser.


After the first "What is it?" try, I took a little time to really think about what I was doing with the brush, I'm being very cautious with the subject...but I used a big brush, pretty brave!
                                                                                 

If you click on these they will, of course, enlarge. That will work with the older ones, but maybe not with these new ones as my camera is set at a ridiculously high level of pixels and I have to call android to figure out how to lower them, it's way down the list. So they may enlarge to mega and you won't be able to even see them. Sorry, but when posting, I don't see a way for me to know how they will turn out on enlarge.
                                                                              

A little bit looser, but not very adventurous.
                                                                                

This was crazy fun! I work from other paintings, mag. clippings and actual photos from the web. This is, obviously, a clip from a magazine. So it is a "copy" for lack of a better word. And while I am at it, I want to say that when I look at a painting, photo etc. I am not trying to copy the image exactly as the artist. Unless the work is antique and then it is legal to do so. I'm not trying to pass them off as "original" (but obviously I painted these - they just are not my original idea), hence, I could not/would not ever try to sell them. I am trying to teach my self technique so that I can figure out the process, which with watercolor involves a lot of calculation about what goes down first and then second, etc. to get the effect you are looking for. Transparency is an art in and of itself and timing is a real brain twister if it isn't so honed that you can do it like riding a bike. I fall off constantly.
And also, I'm not criticizing my work here in a way that would say - I feel bad about this, I really fucked it up. No, there is no failure here of any kind, if you miss getting something the way you wanted to, then that's just one thing you can cross off the list and lots of times you go back and forth and that's just how you learn.
                                                                            

I was trying to be "creative" here ...... I call it "You think you don't snore, but you really do" !
                                                                             

This is actually a very large painting, it's 26" x 22". I did it once before but I really like the colors so I tried again using the overlay and I think I did pretty good. I especially like this close up of the vessel.
                                                                                  

                                                                               
Now, I'm starting to get somewhere.
                                                                              

I don't know why, but once I got that hair, all the splash of it and the freedom, then I knew the rest of it was a cake walk.

I don't think I'm ever going to be the kind of artist that does abstracts that are metaphors or expressions of deep spiritual of social issues. I've always secretly wanted to be, but it's just not in me. I like what I do, I'm very happy with it and especially it's constant evolution. And really, every painting holds it's own "message", they all speak.

So there you have it. I think you might be a little drunk by now, that was probably a three drink exhibit.

I'm going to try a bit more blogging, we'll see. The whole thing is so different for me now, I've still got to figure it out a bit more.

So glad to see you!