My Inner Jackson Pollack

While I was painting my porch I stumbled upon some dollar samples of  pastel paints and I decided to go all Jackson Pollack on my black mailbox.  The mailbox had been kicked around the bottom of the steps so my postal carrier didn't have to skate up the icy steps in the winter.  He'd suffered some scrapes and the loss of a handle so I gave him a new look.

I, personally, wanted to put some crimson on the last layer but alas, my better half said nope.  It's done.

My inner Jackson Pollack, however, was not done.  I grabbed my latex house paints and went to town on a piece of plywood.  I dripped with a random stick I picked up.

There is something delicious about dripping layers of paint and watching the randomness blend.

I'm particularly fond of reds and greens.

And yellow!

One of my painting classmates doesn't use yellow and I'm constantly telling her to add yellow!

There is something I really like about action painting.  Next spring I'd like to get out in the back yard with a tall easel and attack a large piece of plywood with color!  It is exhilarating spontaneous creativity and it makes me joyous.  It is the kind of joy I remember experiencing as a child playing and not knowing what might happen next.

Fox

As the next challenge I decided topush myself even more and paint another "thing".  I wanted to take full advantage of having an artist as a teacher and learn as much as possible.  I liked this picture because the fox is running.  He looks happy.  The challenge, as always is to paint a "thing".  This also has shadows.  I thought it would be a real challenge and it was!  I proceeded with the value painting but this time I used green and orange.

The first thing I learned was green and orange trick the eyes.  My values were deceiving.  I kept painting and with help I finished the value painting then I made my next mistake.  Struggling with shadows I painted Gangrenous Fox.

As you can see I am doing fair with the value with the green areas.  The shadows on the fox are awful.  With some more help and advice  I painted on...

I made the nose bigger, added some teeth, did some work on the legs and got the shadows working!  I have been looking at Running Fox for nearly a week.  I want a block of time alone that is peaceful to paint uninterrupted.  It hasn't happened yet.

Painting is becoming a passion for me and I am happy when I paint.  It doesn't matter if I am good, or if anyone likes it, this is something I must do for me.  I don't understand how or why my life takes such turns as it has.  I don't understand why I end up where I do but somehow it is all interconnected and at the time I make a decision it always seems right.  24 years ago I left the arts.  I lost the muse.  Just as abruptly she returned.

I think it is no coincidence that the first painting the muse selected was a fox.  The fox is sly and cunning and can get around tricky situations where a direct confrontation would mean disaster with stronger larger animals. 

For example, I was once dog sitting for my brother and his dogs raced up and down a fence row on our walk.  Back and forth they went again and again desperately thrashing through the brush in the same area over and over again until their tongues hung down and they slowed to a lope.  I called and called and they refused to obey.  Suddenly I looked down the road and a grey fox trotted from the ditch onto the gravel road.  The fox turned and looked at me then trotted away. 

I haven't painted in a week.  I had too many other obligations.  I have looked at my fox.  I have dreamed about a fox.  It just seems right in a very new age way.

With a few more layers I hope to have Running Fox finished.  I will present him to you then.  The holidays are coming and I hope to have lots of painting time!

Sunrise Bird

Remember this picture?


Photo Credit: Don McClure Havre de Grace, Maryland

At my first painting class my teacher instructed us to pick a landscape that had some meaning to us.  The first painting she wanted us to paint a landscape because they are relatively easy.  I picked my friend Don's picture because it had a "thing" in it (a bird) and I had been playing with blending colors.

The first class we did a value drawing like the old masters.


Value Painting



Next I started to add colors.

 

 

 

 

Then I lost the bird.

 

 



But after many layers I was pleased with everything but the bird.  However, Sunrise Bird's new owner declared it finished and I condescended to her wishes.

Had I "finished" it I would have made the bird a bit more like the picture.  But all in all I am very pleased with the result.  Kudos to my painting teacher Christine Kuhn.  She is amazing.

It Has Been A Year!

Hello Everyone,

I can't believe it has been a year since I last blogged. 

It has been a long year with so much loss I can't even recall all the losses in one sitting.  I have had a lot of anger and sadness this year but mostly sadness.  I do not handle anger very well.  For me anger manifests as anxiety.  I am not an anxious person by nature and I'm ill prepared to deal with it.  I'm lucky to have someone that helps me along the way during those times.



Sunrise Bird at Havre de Grace, Maryland
photo credit: Don McClure

 

 

Since I have grieved the loss of my career I have done a lot of soul searching.  I reached the conclusion that I am a person that thrives on self growth.  When I reached the farthest I could go in my career I began exploring other options for learning and growth.  I wrote, I tried sewing, and a few other things until I happened on painting.  I dabbled and the muse left me.

 

July 4th in the midst of severe anxiety over an unsolvable life issue I started the process of painting my porch.  My poor porch had peeling paint from a previous owner and was in awful shape.  It was incredible!  For the first time I felt like I was in control of something that would turn out very very good.

 

 

 

Pressure Cleaning Said Porch





I was able to get so involved in this project my mind was blank.  It was lovely to be calm and peaceful.

 

Finished Porch

I didn't pick the color.  It was a mistake but for the better!  The first mistake I've made in a long while that worked out better.  I was such a painting fool I painted the old table and chairs too.

Table and Chairs on Said Porch

 

 

 Painting is therapy for some people so I went to Lowe's and bought different colors of sample paint and picked up some scrap plywood for free.  I went home and started to paint.  I wanted to turn all this sadness into anger.  I couldn't access the anger.  That was the plan anyway.  I got so much pleasure from the porch project I thought I'd give actual art a try.

 

Next I will show you some of my therapy. 

 

 

 



Squirrel Hunting

As many of you know I have a squirrel as a best friend.  It is a sad state of affairs when I love a squirrel  more than the majority of my co workers.  By majority I mean a very high percentage too!  It isn't that they are bad folks they are just so very different from me in most ways.  I pretend that they find me exotic.  I have no idea what they really think because my mind doesn't work like theirs.  They think it is very strange that I put bananas in the freezer for my smoothie.  Obviously, smoothies are too hippie for them.  Given this information it probably won't come as any surprise that they would be shocked that I would go squirrel hunting. 

Rest assured that the squirrels were safe from me.  I wasn't really hunting.  It was all for show.  When I visit my brother back in the woods I just have to get outside and in the last few years he's a bit offended that I don't want to spend all the time with him.  In the house.  In front of the TV.  Ugh.  Hunting gives me the perfect excuse to get outside for some tranquility.

I haven't hunted in 40 years.  But it is no different now than it was then.  I did a little target practice with my brother's .22 the night before just in case I decided to get serious.  Besides, I love shooting a .22 and this was one sweet Remington.   I could hit a 2 inch square at about 30 to 40 feet.  That isn't great shooting but for me after 40 years with an unfamiliar firearm I was satisfied.  It wouldn't hurt my feelings if I missed a squirrel anyway.


The next morning it was nearly freezing and not a living thing was hardly moving in the woods.  I saw two birds and heard 3 squirrels.  The squirrels laughed at me.  I sat and listened to the leaves and the laughing squirrels.  I was fine with that.  Naturally, since I was squirrel hunting a flock of wild turkeys appeared.  They were close enough I could almost see their eyes.  But since I didn't know if they were in season I just watched them walk over the hill.  Proud Tom followed by 7 or 8 hens.  They cackled as they sauntered away.  I smiled. 

 (The turkey below is the one I chased across the parking lot into the brush here at the office a couple of years ago.)

I scouted the woods out and found 4 places where the squirrels were eating.  The leaves were still on the trees and the nuts were still falling.  There were lots and lots of hickory nuts.  I think the squirrels are eating acorns for the most part and they'll be back for the hickory nuts later.  At least it looked that way to me.

The next morning was warmer and the sun popped out.  I saw lots of birds and just strolled through the woods with absolutely no intention of killing a squirrel.  I heard the turkeys.  I went to the shag bark hickory tree and listened to the squirrel eat above me fully hidden by the leaves.  On my way back to the house I saw a gray squirrel on his way back to his little home in the tree.  He seemed unafraid and moseyed along.  I tried to get him in my sights but he knew just how fast to hop.  Like I said.  The squirrels are safe from me.

Getting old is funny business.  I don't like to kill things and that is why I quit hunting.  But somehow being out in the woods by myself just being quiet with a rifle in my hands made me feel young again.  I've had a hankering for some fried squirrel too which is what got this whole hunting business started. Just sitting there waiting I felt like the day held so much promise like it did when I was a kid.  Of course, the rifle has nothing to do with that, but it is a link to my past.  As I get older I find comfort in these old memories of the things I learned.  Sitting motionless listening for the sounds of nuts dropping, the rustle of leaves and watching for a branch to shake when it shouldn't reminded me of the days when the opportunity to go into the woods and hunt was an event that I anticipated for weeks and weeks.  The day of the hunt we'd get up before daylight and head to the woods to find a spot and wait for the light of day. 

Next weekend I go back.  Don't worry.  The squirrels will be safe from me then as well.  I'm sure they will laugh at me again.