The Artists Life - Wild Wonders

   The weather this week stormed in, quite literally, with heavy rains and almost hurricane wind gusts. Trees fell, limbs toppled onto power lines, and some folks were without power for five days. I prayed for the safety of my family as they all ventured out to work or their college classes. My youngest daughter found out she had no classes last Monday once she arrived at the university, which is a 45 minute drive one way. Ont the return home, she got stranded in the town of Searsport when a large tree fell and totally blocked Route 1. For a moment, she thought about taking other routes, but reports of debris blocking other ways home, made that option inaccessible. So, she did the next best thing - waited things out with other stranded travelers at the nearby Dunkin' Doughnuts. That's my girl!

   I feel extremely privileged to be able to work from home, especially on days like these. Even with that blessing, it was still difficult for me to concentrate on either painting or writing with the wind howling and the rain pelting hardily on my windows.  In the midst of all this, I'm in the process of changing things up yet again - stretching my creative muscles if you will. I completed my latest project, which was 30 abstract 7"x10" inch gouache paintings that will be sold as some really funky clothing and/or textile designs.

   I was chatting with a friend of mine to see if she still had power and was weathering the storm (as if I could do anything about it at that time). Somehow, after about 20 minutes, we got on to the subject of doodling. According to Wikipedia, a doodle is a drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be composed of random and abstract lines, generally without ever lifting the drawing device from the paper, in which case it is usually called a "scribble". When I admitted to my friend that I never doodled before, my phone nearly dropped out of my hand by her reaction and surprise. "You've NEVER doodled before?!? You're kidding! I did it all the time in high school when I was bored. Try it - just put the pen to the paper and don't stop moving. At minimum, don't think too much about it."

   I've been reading a book entitled, "The Muse Is In: An owner's manual to your creativity" by Jill Badowsky. She highlights the book with quips and quotes and then inspires the reader to either compose a poem, draw a doodle, or do some free-writing about what the particular quote meant to them. This past Thursday, I gathered my drawing ink pens and chose the one with the thinnest nib. I was weary and unsure of myself. To ease my mind a little, I began with a scribble. After a minute or two, I reaffirmed to myself that what I was doing was not doodling!

  Okay - at that point, as short-lived as it was, I threw in the towel. To make matters worse, and adding to my distraction, there was some sort of construction going on across the street with all kinds of digging, trucks, and back-loaders. However, a few hours later after all the noise stopped, I reassessed my scribble. I began associating words with it; What do I see? How do I feel? Once I had these concrete ideas and concepts down, my scribble at least had a theme.

   After I was done scribbling, then doodling, and then drawing, I took out my gouache paints and added color to the composition. In the end, I really didn't know what to call my work that I just completed. I kinda labeled it an awkward doodle-painting. The piece is not like any of my other works and I'm still not sure whether I even like it or not. To be honest, I never thought of doodling as work. Even so, I'm finding it difficult to just "Let go and let it happen".

   I have no idea what will come out next.
   Until next time,
   Jill