painting notes B

On Saturday, Sept. 5th, I spoke about 

this piece. Four minutes.

Detail 1

Detail 2

Detail 3

Detail 4

Early layout.

Jungle In The Side Yard, 

acrylic on cradled panel, 24 x 24 inches.

pond painting

 

      Our property has a natural waterway along the southern edge. Many tall trees, some with vines, and with some undergrowth. To the west, our lawn touches a pond that runs the length of the Colborn sub- division. As land was sold, houses have popped up around it. It has a shallow depth and in the summertime is completely covered with duckweed. People ask me how the fishing is. I have no idea. I do not fish. And it is not my pond to manage. For which the geese that frequent our property are grateful. The past three weeks a number of geese have bedded down in the shade, nibbing, and pooping, and not being disturbed by outside visitors.

     I had scouted a handful of scenes in our yard and placed a wooden stump seat by each. So when Thursday morning came I was ready to begin. Suited up, I carefully carried supplies down to the pond. As always, not knowing what would be accomplished. My main objective was to T-R-Y. As it turned out I spent two mornings on the pond piece. And after lunch and a nap, I worked on a second piece of equal size, at another location on the property. This post covers the progress I made over the mornings of Sept. 3rd and 4th.

A stump to sit on. Supplies ready. Blank canvas measured 30 by 40 inches, edged with blue tape.

The palette started out with Utrecht phthalo blue, titanium white, cadmium orange, and crimson alizarin red. From this I mixed the colors I needed. Later I added Hansa Yellow Pale.

Unpacking tripod and EasyL paint kit and paints.

Video is three minutes.

At 10 am the sun began to peek over the tree tops. That was an element I wanted to keep. (detail)

There were trunks standing in the water. (detail)
A lovely reddish dirt bank curving toward me on the left side.

And a swarm of small yellow pond flowers with orange stems and green leaves at my feet. A simple blue wash for that. (detail)

At 12:30 Thursday midday I stopped as the light had changed significantly.

    The next morning (Friday) I got up earlier and began at 7:00 am. I wanted to work on areas in the shade. The surface on the pond was questionable. I liked an sunlight on the left side of the middle trees near the bank, but I did not want scattered sunlight to the right. It was as you see in the above detail, all over the place. It would obscure the elements I wanted to showcase. See next detail. I removed the sunlight patterns my eye was seeing.

Next detail, off to the far left, the lawn grass was as green and vibrant as ever. Darker colors helped subdue their brilliance.

Where the trees meet the front yard was a problem. I wanted the eyes looking in the backyard, where my design was. So I darkened the edge. Compare next two details, before and after.

 

Above detail, I brought blues down into the flower area. Dotted yellow, orange green stem swoops, and some greens that I used elsewhere in the painting. That was one reason I got up earlier. To see what the flower patch looked like in the shade. Next detail. Double click to see enlarged.

This photo of the flowers showed its denseness. My version suggests what my eye was seeing. The color decisions are more valuable than the quantity of plants. The kind of yellow, the orange-green swoops, the strong blues, these make the flower area a part of the whole painting. The same colors need to be distributed in brush strokes throughout the painting. That is what gives the whole painting "harmony."

Nine minutes.

and then

 

 and then 

and then

The sun peeking over the tree tops was kept. White titanium sunburst. An off-white mixed-blue diffuses off to the left and the right. The way the tops of the tree clusters taper down to the sides and the way the sunburst is central at the top was intentional.

The reddish dirt bank was tricky. The colors on either side of the bank made it too blue or too purpley. It took some doing to make it reddish.
The eye goes to the sun patch and follows the bank on the left side forward to the flower patch. The secondary sun patterns also draw the eye forward to the patch.

Hoping only to work for an hour stretched into two and then three hours. Soon it was 10:00 am and the sun peeked over the tree tops. Now was the time to wrap it up. Keep the elements I wanted.

     The surface of the pond to the middle and right needed to be de-emphasized. Made uninteresting. I mixed a blue gray. It wasn't until the next day, and my wife pointed it out, that I realized what that gray shape did to the whole design. It helped create depth. It divided the pond to a far side and a near side. See next detail. It was not my intention, but I am going to keep it for now.

What I have so far, next image. Letting it breathe.

Me getting used to it. Okay with what I have.

This shows the painting on a wall in our house, next.

painting notes A

For two days I painted outside in my backyard last month. Thursday and Friday, August 20 and 21. My favorite drink by my side. Lemonade, honey, and siracha mixed in hot water. Mmmmm.

Detail of ivy, right.









Detail of limbs, left.

 Two days set aside to work on it.

Detail of flowers.

ABOVE, detail of myself painting. I used a mirror to render it. Actually, the heavy quarter-inch bedroom mirror fell over outside and cracked into itty-bitty shards. It was carefully gathered and put in the trash can. Bye bye heirloom. Bought a four dollar replacement from Shopko. Ha.

The arching tree with ivy. A tall viney tree at the edge on my yard. A bed of flowers.




Below, notice lake added to background.

Canvas measures 24 by 30 inches.

(Double click to see images enlarged)

On Saturday, Sept 5th, I spoke about this piece.

Video is eight minutes.

feeling it

    I woke up this morning from a dream about mom. She was telling me how it was when she was with her doctor after I was born. Her grappling with the absence of my feet. How she herself was in a daze coming out of the ether. It wasn't until she unwrapped the bundle that was placed in her arms that she noticed my legs were straight with tiny toes at the end of them. No feet for her baby. The doctor pronounced her first child had clubfeet.

    In the dream she wasn't specific but implied that the doctor knew things that were confidential. The dream said no more than that. As I typed this post, it was the stories she had spoken to me that filled in the gaps. How they had been at a beer party earlier that day, driving over a bumpy rural road to get her to go into labor. And so on.

    I thought about a Carrollton friend Charlie when he cried over the phone to me, scared to death with the reality of his own grief. Its awkwardness, its tumble, what it is like to FEEL it bubble out, without dignity. The words of David came to mind in Psalms 56:8. How all our struggles and tears were kept by God in a bottle, as a valuable part of our existence, given his attention.  How precious were our tears. In contrast to sharing the pain, life has told me to keep those pains shielded from public view. Hold the grief down. Hang on to the hurts. Build up walls. Be like an island or a rock, as the poet Paul Simon wrote.

    One morning as she headed out Jan told me that I should take some time to think about my mother and write down the memories I have of her. (Double click to enlarge images)

She advised me to be open to crying. "Let the tension and stress be released." As she spoke memories began to surface. So,  I acted on my wife's idea, curled up in the recliner, wrote and drew in my journal.


It was like the lyrics of Running Blind by Michael Hedges. The way memories went "tearing its way through my heart."

Hedges' song here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBiQAEBYIWY and lyrics follow.

Somewhere defined in aimless words
Somewhere within my angry herd
of stampeding emotions
Love was running blind

I read my way through those scattered pieces
Gathered up all the trampled feelings
And built up the fences strong
so l could hide

But all night long I would stare
at all the moon and the stars I could bear
Then from daylight on
It would tear through my heart
It went tearing its way through my heart
Tearing its way through my heart

Dazzling circles slow too soon
But dancing to some forgotten tune
You weave in the sky some pattern I can trace
Fading to taste the afterglow
Pure as the song you sing so low
Your senses came down to meet me
Face to face

Baby all night long I would stare
at all the moon and the stars I could bear
Then from daylight on
It would tear through my heart
It went tearing its way through my heart
Tearing its way through my heart
Tearing its way

As I drew and waited and put down more, it happened to me. The thing Jan suspected took place.

The Holy Spirit of God unlocked the muscle memories within.

 

The silence in the house was broken with deep sobs felt in my stomach muscles.




Groans and coughs.
Spitting into the wastebasket.
Letting the memories out.


Like the way she relentlessly squeezed my pimples when I was a teenager. I hated that about her. That memory of violation. Like the way she drank alcohol during her pregnancy and the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome that deformed my feet. The shame and rejection put onto my little heart. The restoration that God brought back to me through the prayers of Betty, Larry, Jan, and others. 

 
By his stripes we are healed, Isaiah wrote in his book 53:5. To me that meant my reality today could be altered by what Jesus did, when he died and resurrected from the dead. His act was like a historic vortex that sucked up every harsh memory I chose to go of and infused an x factor that brought release and healing to my mental state in the present.

When I told Charlie about my mom dream God spoke through his words to encourage me. What was so damn important about being needy, emotional, feeling these feelings, and asking for help? The way that dream came to me. The way You put me in that position. The way You chose to visit and open the door for Charlie to help me.