Topsy-Turvy, Crazy-Making Chaos

Well, maybe not that bad.  But, there are just some days when the proverbial best laid plans of mice and men totally fall apart and you wonder what the hell is going on.

Today was that kind of a day.  I had to make a phone call for some medical stuff – no  call returned, but I’ll push it more later on.  A friend is being badly treated at work – trying to help her figure out what to do in the sea of contract breech and lies.  Then there were the plans to paint which produced crap.  And a lack of sleep at night and an interrupted nap mid-afternoon.  And then, I have just discovered that steel-cut oats make for a wonderful savory addition to a meal and are not as weird as I thought they would be – they paired really well with tonight’s salmon, fermented mango sauce, tzatziki, and salad.  I mean, that is just too strange for my “oatmeal for breakfast” mentality.

The whole day felt really unproductive and messy.  Somewhere I read that for the French, their verb “etre” (to be) is how they live – more in the moment.  English speakers, on the other hand, live by the verb “to do.”  Life in the English-speaking world is accomplished by things checked off on a list, written or mental.  I really like the idea of living more immediately – flexible to adapt, able to plan, able to accomplish and not accomplish.  The French are smart in that way, if such is true.  I just felt crazy all day!

It is so funny how a culture is determined by words and verbs and habits.  Americans are descended from Puritans – the Australians from criminals!  What a contrast – rules and fear and conformity versus rebelling against society out of need or perversity.  When everything does NOT go as planned, what can you do?  Just kick back and laugh, think about it, and move on.  In the end, I had a quite enjoyable – if unpredictable – day!

Under the Oaks

This past spring in California has been one of the most stunning I can recall.  A long period of rain, extending deep into May, produced a situation in which flowers bloomed, and bloomed, and bloomed.  There are still traces of colors – golds and yellows mostly – on the hills when normally the color is beige and dead.  The richness of the wildflowers made the landscape, whether on the hills or under the trees, in the meadows or alongside the freeway, a wonderland of color.  I am still sorting out photos and memories as sources for paintings.

This is an underpainting for the gouache painting I did today.  Wildflowers under the oak trees along a local trial – lupines, wild cucumber, white and yellow flowers of known and unknown species.  Here, a la James Gurney, I decided to do an underpainting using casein paints.  He suggests casein as the underpainting as it cannot be picked up, as can an underpainting of gouache, once it dries.  It primes the paper, too.  While the smell is rather gross, the substrate it creates is stable and I rather liked using it, not just for what it did for the paper, but to lay in some values as well.

From there, I moved into remembering – thin layers to thick in gouache, building to lighter colors and thicker layers as you move along.  I’ve watched a number of videos on YouTube to get a sense of the process.  In particular, I have enjoyed the videos on gouache by Sarah Burns.  It’s rather strange to me, but it worked out.  Below is a painting of blue-eyed grass and white flowers under the oak trees in this stunning California spring.