I am not really sure what I am doing these days. I don’t really like what I am painting. Moving into abstraction to some degree, trying to loosen up, trying to be more suggestive than representational. Like anything new, or different, it can be very uncomfortable. A part of me wants to work with less intense colors, and for me, that seems like an impossibility! So, I keep trying. Let’s see where it all goes.
Watercolor, Arches 140# CP, 16×20.
When you work, it is hard to find time to do things you really want to do. At least it is for me. I’m a morning person. I go to work in the morning, and when I get home, I tend to be really tired. I am not a night owl! I get a lot done in the mornings – when I have them. Consequently, as a result of my re-thinking my life the other day, I have simply decided I will schedule something – anything – creative for after work. It may not be a lot. It may be a lot. That will depend on my energy, and my interest. Today I’m feeling rather burnt out, but I did make a commitment to myself. And I kept it, even though the desire is to just go floppo.
I’ve been thinking of what to do that is creative all day. In a way, it is really stimulating because there is an element of the unknown until the point of beginning arrives. Getting home, I thought about what I was feeling. I thought about how that feeling might be expressed. The feeling I focused on was “blue” – which, in general, means depressed or melancholy. Melancholy, today, is more accurate for today’s round of the blues.
Today is cold and wet and damp. Work was long and intense. I have an underlying dread about work lately – probably budget-related – but this dread is very abstract because I cannot pinpoint anything specific – maybe just the unknowns that are waiting to happen. This abstract fear and feeling blue put two things together. How can an abstract fear be expressed visually? How can melancholic blues be expressed?
Well, I don’t know if either really can be, but the mental trip was quite fun. What in the spectrum constitutes “blue”? Blue-green? Blue-violet? Bluish reds? Green blue? So what could I find that was abstract, something I could photograph (I chose that route because I am feeling lazy, and more think-y than do-ing) that is not identifiable. Here it is below:
Abstract, a kind of blue. Nothing clearly discernable. An ill-defined horizon. A lonely object. Blurry, fuzzy things without definition. Is this art? Dunno. The process of getting here was interesting, as is the writing up and thinking about the process itself. Conscious exploration of an abstraction opens the doors of creativity.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 