Creatively Busy!

A detail of the mixed media study...it's luscious up close!

From the Sketchbook, Bones of the Earth, a study, 3/20/2009 (the white circle was added yesterday on the 21st). Acrylic on sketchbook paper with Cretacolor pencils.

Yesterday was a very productive day of creativity! Several works in progress were finished, new work started and some of them were seen through to the end, a few new things are still in progress...it was a good "play day"...my hands...it was a day to take a break from writing, since the last three weekends I have been immersed in my novel, Dusty Waters, and getting her ready for publishing (a new proof is being ordered, the book should be on sale by the end of March!)

Enough about the book...that's Upstate Girl's business...this is Follow Your Bliss...

It's been a long time since I worked on a canvas with any satisfaction, I've been content with paper, and not having to fight with the process of stretching my own, or the expense of buying pre-made canvases in the standard rectangle sizes...well...it's nice to see the art store carrying a variety of shapes, sizes, and clean edges. I pulled out these little canvases that I had stretched ages ago...I dabbled on one about a month ago, hated it and left it sitting looking unfinished and forlorn...then I painted over it, and messed about a bit, set it aside...still uncertain, so I pulled out another and started slopping paint around, didn't like that either...the colors were nice...I mushed them together, then took a piece of mat board and pressed it on the surface, pulled it off...oh, that I liked, so I did it again, different spot...

Go!, March 21, 2009, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 9 x 9

Then I did it with another scrap to the other canvas...hey, now...the colors were doing that nifty thing that I like about monotypes...and the ghost pattern of the rectangle and squares gave me my windows...and then I dug out my cardboard rings leftover from packing tape (normal people throw this part out once the tape is gone, not me, I save the damn things just for this sort of thing!) I squished the circle into the wet paint and made the celestial bodies that repeat themselves in my work...painted the edge of one and stamped it...

Celestial Spring, the Phases of the Sun and Moon, March 21, 2009, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 9 x 8

I had a lot of fun...leftover paint on the mat board was pressed on paper in my sketchbook, overlapping textures and shapes...varying impasto with watered down color...once things started to dry, I began to draw on them...

Go! 3/21/09, 12 x 8 acrylic paint monotype in sketchbook with graphitint pencil

Then I retrieved that little crumpled paper that I've been fussing over on the drawing board upstairs for several weeks...I scumbled black acrylic paint on another canvas, and then slathered paint on the back of the paper and stuck it on the canvas...acrylic paint makes good glue in a pinch...and then I waited for it to dry on there...well, this morning I've been splashing and touching up...so what started like this...



is now this...


I might do more to it...or not...it's an experiment in fun...

Oh, happy day!