Author: -N-

Thinking About Things

 

As I get older, the more I find I want to just slow down.  I am not interested in this experience followed by that one, of rushing here to be able to rush there.  I just want to slow down my life and enjoy it.  This is probably related to simple math:  the older you get, the less time you have.  As a result, you want to enjoy it.

Retirement from an official job and job duties is looming ahead.  Preparations for such are underway.  While a lot of information has been gathered, there are still unknowns – which hopefully will be revealed in the not-too-distant future – so that final decisions can be made.  There is also a potential golden handshake coming in the next year and a half, and if so, I hope the qualifications are in my favor.

I have been on vacation for the last two weeks, and have enjoyed my time immensely.  Each day has been conscientiously filled with things I want to do, with my thinking about what I want to do and why.  I’m an introvert, so it is very easy to get lost in my head and forget to reach outward for human contact, whether family or friend.  Those contacts are very important.  With them, the world becomes balanced and isolation does not set in.

In the past 20 years, 7 people I have known have died, through disease or accident, and few others are seriously ill.  Most have gone in the past 5.  My mortality is right there in front of me.  I no longer feel like I will live forever, like I did just ten years ago.  Even my own health has its problems.

So, yeah, I’ve been thinking.  And doing.  Doing is the key to it all:  action and take in what I have around me.  Savor it.  Cherish it.  Live it.

Negative Painting: Sycamore Leaves

Now that I feel a bit more accomplished in some of my watercolor skills, I have taken the time to think about a few things.  Specifically, what to do next.  I think negative space, or negative painting, seems like the next best step.  I am not sure why – it just feels right.  That is how I painted my two moonlit sycamores.  Now it is time to paint their leaves.  Below is a photo I took the other day, which is my reference point.

I started out with three primary colors:  Cobalt Blue, Cadmium Yellow, and Permanent Rose.  First, I wet the paper and then made a few distinct areas for each color.  Then I tipped the paper around (it’s mounted on a board) so the colors would blend and bleed.  As it is probably only 90# paper, there was buckling and pooling, but decided to just let things happen.  After it dried, I drew in the shapes of the leaves, and then worked around the leaves and twigs with a wash of varying strengths that combined Cobalt Blue and Burnt Sienna.  The veins were a bit of Hookers, Sap, and Cobalt Green.  Altogether, there are multiple layers of washes / glazes – some successful, some not.  The final overlaying wash was a mixture of Carbazole Violet, Cobalt and Ultramarine Blues.

This painting has a lot of problems – too tight, too overdone – but the problems also present future solutions, which I hope to visit in the not-too-distant future.  I feel like it is moving toward mud, too, which is something I always have to watch out for.