Mom loved to draw and paint…
I have vivid memories of it; whenever she had a quiet moment or needed some time to ground herself, mom picked up a pencil or paint brush. She would sit for hours getting lost in the colors and shapes that transferred from mind to paper/canvas.
Sometime this medium for art was in a constant struggle with a broader artistic design to play piano (she usually did this after midnight. Playing Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov… I loved listening to it, drifting off the sleep.
I’ll speak to her music perhaps in another blog. My reflection now relates to how her penchant for art influenced me.
Finding solace, peace, creative design and quiet fulfillment through the endeavor.
Often mom would have me sit with her. She would set me up with all the implements and explain the principals of drawing or painting. She would always start with, “the canvas or paper is white and is waiting for ‘a life‘ that you bring to it." OffI would go—for hours.
Being younger, I would paint fantastical creatures and them there were clouds. Rather two dimensions to start. I knew all the various types of clouds--mom had committed them to memory and loved describing them. Drawing them.
I always found clouds to behave like etherial paint. The pallet was in constant flux with desire to evolve. One moment you have one image, and the next another, an another...
At some point my interest changed to painting trees. I have always liked them, finding them complex yet simple. Rather metaphorical at times.
I’ve decided to track my journey with one particular painting I’m currently working on, speaking to the thoughts behind and techniques (nothing professional for certain) employed to get it all on canvas.
Trees are so absolutely, imperfectly beautiful. They twist and turn, become knotted and “nubbed.” A tree’s branches grow and evolve in any direction, but it always seems to be the right direction, and with each divergence in path there’s character and depth in the branch. I appreciate trees because often in life we strive for “perfection or an ideal” without blemish or variation. Trees embody a contrast to and embrace an "imperfect perfection."
With each twist, there’s personality and a manifestation of that tree’s grit or resilience—it’s will to survive, and a loving desire to grow and change.
The tree above (as I haven’t a name for the painting yet) will have lots of those "imperfect branches" meanderMing across the canvas. I’m not exactly sure how many branches it’ll have in the end (you can see that I have rough-sketched quite a few) I just know I never tire of painting them.
The medium will be blues and purples. I like working within one pallet of paint or a range of color within a similar pallet—it accentuates the surrealistic/abstract feel sometimes my paintings have.
This particular color pallet I find calming and gentle to work with.
Most of the time I work with oil—I like how it blends and argues with the painter. One stroke can change and blend the color bringing different depth and character—more often than not unintended at least when I paint.
This painting however is being done with acrylic.
I use acrylic when I want a little more refined detail and less “happy surprises” with the paint. In the end it’s all a matter of preference and my mood.
So, how this painting is fully realized I’m really not sure—will there be leaves, or perhaps some other natural landscape accents? Will there be something fully abstract to compliment? Don’t know. Just taking it one creative desire at a time.
The colors however I am spending a lot of time thinking over. What shades of purple, blue or grey-blue, etc. will go where and how. One could perhaps say this painting will ultimately be about the colors and the feelings they speak to.
I'll keep posting progress over the next couple weeks as it develops.