The Daily Spectrum - How Does My Art Evolve?

Sometimes I'm just not sure!  I settle myself on my chair and prepare to begin just to find that I need to hold onto my hat - whiplash- the painting has begun on its own momentum- the idea dangling way out in front and I have to run like a greyhound after a rabbit to keep up.

It stops as abruptly as it began.  The next painting follows suit.  I have had painting sessions where I've completed a dozen small paintings in this manner...they shot out the gate and left me with wonder in its wake.

Not all sessions have been that lively or quick.  I've had some still life paintings take weeks to plod off the paintbrush.  It was a process of methodical layering and waiting for drying to happen in between.

I remember painting a series of abstracts starting in 2011 that went until the summer of 2012. The canvases were various sizes, from 8x10 up to 16x24, but all involved bright colors with embedded positive words in them.  A number of these works ended up in a gallery showing in March 2013 in Camden Maine. Numerous show attendees studied the works - some said they were intense, others said they were playful. A third person said the work featured below "looked peaceful" to him.  (I hadn't considered the public's reaction to this line of working.)

For me, creating art, for the most part, is peaceful...it is a slow, methodical process where I need to focus intently on every move of my hand.

Peace in the universe--flows through me- my hand- out onto the paper- for the viewer to have peace too...

That is the best evolution I have observed to date.

Until next time,
The Happy Painter,
Jill

The Daily Spectrum- Is My Art About Me?

For better or worse, it is all about me! :)

Trauma struck our home when I was five years old:  my father died.  I didn't know how to grieve such a loss.  Depression plagued me for most of my childhood.  I did big dark charcoal drawings of black clouds overhead.  I remember a sailboat with its sail fallen over the boat in a storm.  I drew a disjointed house, mangled animals, and many other such disasters.

My mother bought me a set of pastels and told me to add color to my drawings.  She wanted me to "brighten up".  I also learned to mask my feelings and hide my face behind make-up.  I began drawing exotic peacocks with their tail in full array ( a defensive pose, I later learned), a puffer fish, and other animals in attack mode.

Later on, I met my husband and fell in love.  I also changed to oil paints. I painted still life--that's where I was- still- not progressing. Emotionally, I hadn't grown up at all.  Everything I had painted was frozen in tone on my canvas.  I could see the world, but I couldn't live in it.

I had to have therapy...yet, it was my own art therapy that had to happen.  I saw a friends' art of her anger, pain and suffering on display.  I admired her courage for being able to do and display her pain.  I told her I couldn't paint pain, yet, I had.

I did a series of acrylic string paintings where I "whipped" the canvas with paint.  Granted the design looked appealing even though it held all my anger.

There are a lot of things I don't understand about life and God.  But one thing I do know- Art heals the child within all of us.

Until the next time,
The Happy Painter,
Jill