More gouache, this time on toned paper – tan specifically. The tan paper seems to give an extra warmth to the colors applied over it. Besides using toned paper, I am trying to venture into different areas – here I am doing a totally urban scene. One thing nice about painting old buildings is that standardization wasn’t quite like it is now, so my door don’t all have to be the same size, nor my windows! Heck, even the cobbles are rather rough.
I like painting in gouache, but there are times when it gets to be a bit tricky as it re-wets and it is easy to pull up lower layers of color. To help prevent this, you need to start with thinner paint and add the heavier colors later. If a drop of water falls off our brush, you can make a bit of a mess in the area it lands. Most people when they use thicker gouache paint smaller paintings – it is not a paint that spreads out generously and stays opaque. The charm and challenge!
I’ve spent the last two afternoons following along with an online class in gouache. It’s been fun. The main focus has been skies and their moods as shown by clouds and color and time of day and weather. For some reason the dark and stormy sky stayed in my mind’s eye, and visual memories of days of yore came back.
I don’t know about where you live, but here in California where I am, the clouds are seldom domineering and frightening like they can be in the tropics or midwest. I remember one day when I was about 9 coming home from school and the sky was nearly black with clouds. It was still daylight, but it was in the fall of the year and cold. It was eerie and scary and beautiful. All the colors in the surrounding fields and meadows and trees were brighter than usual, almost to the point of being unreal.
That is what I have tried to catch here – intense light, strange light and colors, a wildness waiting to happen.
Like most people, I look back over the past year, I look ahead to the new year. New years are like morning – something to anticipate. Yesterday is the past, and so is a past year. There is a bit of melancholy in looking back as awareness of passing time grows more acute each year but, it is always offset by the anticipation of the future. I don’t know if other people feel like that, but to me there is always an element of joyful anticipation even in times of gloom and sadness. I’ve lived long enough to know nothing lasts forever, but the patterns repeat, and therein lives hope. There is enough change and enough consistency. And I prefer to dwell on hope rather than despair – but to avoid it is foolish.
So, what has happened in this past year? For me, the most difficult thing has been the loss of my closest friend on November 30th. I am not lost because of his death, but just feeling a loneliness. On the other hand, I have rekindled a friendship from years ago that could prove to be a pleasant addition to my life. A door closes. A door opens.
I have also learned and realized a lot about my family – my parents in particular. I found two letters, one from my mother, one from my father. The first was a letter written by my mother 6 months before she married my father. The second letter was one written by my father 12 years later. While the contents are personal and private, what was most important was seeing my parents as people in a very different perspective – such different personalities and approaches to life! I think of the grasshopper and the ant in Aesop’s fables – my mother had the gaiety of the grasshopper but lacked foresight, went along for the moment, and my father was the ant, always planning and working toward the future, but often failing to value the moment he was in. (I’m sort of both!)
In some ways – perhaps in many ways – 2022 was about re-evaluating life and people. As I move more into retirement and into free time, I am less concerned with the connections -the ongoing desire for connections – with people, but more appreciative of them when they occur. It is so easy to want more from others than is realistic with copious free time, and it takes a bit of effort to rein it in. Once done, though, a bit of disappointment – but again, another door opens, and there are things to look forward to doing and experiencing.
For me, life is always a balancing act. There is sorrow and sadness, there is joy and hope. Reality is a harsh teacher, but if you pay attention, there is much to be learned and the subtle pleasures of little things – like the yellow volunteer flower on my doorstep – remind you that the small individual person, event, critter, plant, in the big, vast world has a whole universe within to be explored.
We should get rain for several days because of an atmospheric river traveling through the vicinity, unless it decides to go someplace else. In our drought-ridden county, that is a blessing. Little spots like this are harder and harder to find, and are a real pleasure when you do.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 