Painting color drenched artworks of places and things I love
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| Shell, Pepper, Pot ©2012 Dora Sislian Themelis 8×10 Watercolor on Arches paper |
There was just enough time to squeeze out this painting yesterday. Just enough time to throw these items together and just paint them. I want to say it took twenty minutes, but I really can’t be that sure. Maybe it was a smidge more? Not positive. I didn’t put the timer on.
None the less, I painted. And there just was no time in the day to do any more.
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| New work begins |
Wednesday is hump day. As in the day in the week that gets us over the hump and into the weekend stretch. Not my favorite day. It only means the quiet will be ending and the hubbub, noisy weekend stuff begins.
My favorite day, as I’ve said many times already you’re probably bored of it, is Monday. Sweet Monday. The day everyone returns to normal.
Anyway, don’t pay any attention to me. I am just trying to distract myself from the to-do’s and painting with idle chatter from my brain. It’s noisy up in there.
After finishing the last painting, I had to find a subject for the next one. The 100 Paintings Challenge is waiting. There were a few more photos of my peach at the beach and I decided to just plow in with one of them. And yeah, it’s Wednesday. I lost a few days fooling around with a stomach bug and I need to make up time.
And right now I don’t have a lot of that. Painting #37 is waiting.
“Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.” ~Ambrose Bierce
Oh boy, this is being posted late today. Dinner is done and I’m finally here. The day just flew by and there was no chance of posting earlier. I’m certainly enjoying myself, but time is limited before I conk out tired as a brick. By the time the house is set right again, I don’t feel like doing anything except plopping in front of the television for an hour and I don’t even want to knit. And yes, just an hour, because that’s all I can handle before I fall asleep. I am not one of those people that has the TV on all day, unless there’s some catastrophe or blizzard going on.
One time, years ago, I was painting my basement/den area, rearranging furniture, being really busy. My mom called to ask me how I felt about some big thing that happened. I had no idea what she was talking about. She said “Don’t you have the news on? Don’t you know what’s going on?” Well I didn’t. Now and then I check in just to make sure some building didn’t fall down, or some other disaster wasn’t happening. Sometimes no news is good news.
Well, as I said, I’m busy. Some days more than others. I wish I could wake up really early and get the day started, but I can’t. I already wake at 6 A.M., before the others here. I wrote in my Morning Pages that if I could be up an hour earlier I could run to the studio and paint, just to get it in. Then write the Pages, start the coffee, read my newspaper and do the crossword puzzle, dress, make the bed, run a laundry, decide on dinner, check the calendar, check the refrigerator, etc. It’s just not going to happen.
Can’t get to it early in the morning and too tired to do it at the end of the day. That means trying to find time during the day, in fits and starts, bits and pieces, minutes at a time. Lately, 20 minutes. Baby must be asleep, no one better call me on the phone, or visit me. I can’t really work while talking, I can’t think.
When I was in school and painting during our studio time, we would yap, but that was different. Everyone was an artist, each of us working on our own paintings. We talked about our progress, or lack thereof, the professor, the model or the still life, our supplies, our vision. We had large easels and maybe a small taboret to hold our stuff which acted like a barrier, creating a kind of wall. I’m in my space, and you’re in your own space, but we can exchange ideas around the comfort of our huge canvases.
It’s not like that now. I’m painting on the dining room table while my granddaughter sleeps in a nearby bedroom. Not enough sleeping time for me to paint in the basement studio. Not yet. And I’m using watercolors so there’s no fumes for anyone to breathe.
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| Quiet Leaf (c)2011 Dora Sislian Themelis 8×12 Watercolor |
This is one of the latest watercolor paintings I’ve just worked on in twenty minutes. There isn’t much detail because I keep using too much water and have to get it dry before I can continue. The interesting thing is the more times I get to paint, the more antsy I am to do it again. It’s exciting. I wake up wondering if I will get to it and think about painting every minute until I do. If I don’t paint I get cranky like a whiny brat. Bad inner artist child! Behave before I count to three!
Did I say busy? Yes, really busy doing all sort of things on the never ending to-do list. Trying to cross things off the short list takes forever. What about the long list? Fuggetabottit! That’s NY-ese for forget it. Not going to bother. The long list can take a long hike off a short pier. And in these times, the long list is never going to see the light of day if this keeps up.
The short daily list is about all I can focus on. However, there are alot of things on this “short” list. I know I complain all the time about no time, but what else can I do? Who cares if I have lots of things, everyone has things!
Today I had to double track because with all the things I had going on yesterday, I left some important things off and they just had to be done today, like hitting this blog. Mind you, there are plenty of things, but Surprise! they’re not going to get done because, well, I think I might want to ignore them. So there. Hah!
Besides the usual errands, I need to arrange Son #1’s old bedroom to accommodate his new baby’s crib! Now THAT I don’t mind doing, it’s a fun thing! I get to purchase new baby bedding and such, for when Gorgeous goes back to work and I get to babysit. Fun! So you know the to-do list is getting shuffled around to accommodate the fun stuff. Who needs to make doctor appointments and other phone calls, fix the light in the studio, call the dishwasher repair guy, organize the computer desk, shred old papers, etc. Who really cares about those things? I’m hunting around baby items!
Ok, so not to look like I’m a complete jerk, leaving important things off the list of to-do’s I found time to paint yesterday afternoon. The opening in the day was there, the rocks and broken shell waiting patiently, arranged as they were on the dining room table, yes-not in the studio. Out popped the travel watercolor set and a half hour of freedom!
I think I’m on to something with this “no time” business. Things seem to get done and I find a small window of opportunity to paint. This must be an omen, or a directive: have still life items strewn around, the small travel paints and paper pad out and available. Is the small set with mini brushes and paper less intimidating? Maybe. The long to-do list certainly is intimidating and possibly costly. All the better to ignore it, my dear.
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| Rocks and Broken Shell, (c)2010 DST, 7×10 Watercolor |
Sorry I was a no-show yesterday. I had one of those days that would not stop for anything. My morning started at the farmer’s market. I was disappointed with the produce as the veggie guy didn’t have much with him. Maybe he was having a bad growing week. Then the fruit guy was out of fruit, so I visited the cheese guy and bought cheese. Okay. Cheese is not fruit, but I decided to splurge. I love cheese.
When I returned home I had phone calls to make that I have been putting off. House stuff, laundry (people need clean clothes you know), oh and a library stop to pick up books I ordered. Tried to cross things off the to-do list and not making much of a dent.
After lunch I was meeting a good friend for Starbucks coffee and to dish the dirt! We don’t get too many chances to get together often so it was a real treat. That took up three, nice long hours, but worth every minute! She’s an art lover and is encouraging me to set up some sort of gallery show somewhere. I’d like to do that, but I’m afraid I may not have enough work. I have to think about it.
Later I had to plan our dinner, prepare the dinner, serve the dinner, clean up after dinner and finally sit down in front of the TV to just veg.
Painting? Nope. Thinking about painting? Yup. Planning the next painting already even though the current one isn’t finished at all? Uh huh! What’s interesting is that I’m not in resistance mode, just moving along.
I’ll try again today.
I read a blogpost and a “tweet” yesterday from Alyson Stanfield, author of I’d Rather Be In The Studio and The ArtBiz Blog, that said if an artist cannot commit to hours in the studio at least try to do 15 minutes (here). That statement speaks volumes to me!
I can definately do 15 minutes a day! In fact, whenever I go to my art space to just look at my supplies for a couple of minutes I end up spending hours painting, where I had no intention to do that. Now, if I could get myself to go to that place every day for just the 15 minutes I’d be on my way! It could happen. It has happened.
Whining about time looks like something I like to do, but I don’t like to whine. I try to keep my whining to myself, but now that I’m blogging about it the cat’s out of the bag. I never thought of myself as a whiner. That’s why I picked up Alyson’s book and read The Artist’s Way course. These two books have allowed me to identify the blocks I allow to fall in my way to creativity time, at the very least. More over, they have led me to make more art these days. I can finally say to myself, ok, the housework/errands are done or can be done later, now is studio time.
I’ve learned to be unconciously concious. Does that make sense? Aware of my time is maybe a better explaination. When I allow myself to become distracted by mundane things I’m more aware of it and can turn it around now. Before I would end up drowning in laundry and letting it happen. Things have definately improved in that sense.
Ok, I’m off to do my errands. Be back in 15 minutes!
The Pearl Paint Art Supply in my neighborhood is having a sale of 50% off everything in the store. Are they going out of business? I asked the sales people, but they said no one told them anything. Looks like going out to me if they’re selling to the bare walls. That much off is a good sale, even better than buying online which is usually cheaper. Pearl’s prices are high first of all, and lately they were trying to compete with Michael’s Crafts, which turned me off. If I want craft stuff I can go to Michael’s. I want a quality art supplier when it comes to art stuff.
Well, I picked up a large pastel pad, a couple tubes of MaimieriBlu watercolors, and quite a few half pans of Windsor&Newton watercolors for my travel set. They had some semi-precious stones I liked and for half price I bought a couple. I spent enough yesterday. Paint is expensive. I need to go back another day to get a Vyco cover for my desk. Next week is soon enough unless they close the doors tomorrow which didn’t look like it was happening.
Feeling empowered after my art supply shopping spree, and relaxed from my little tantrum, I got down to business. Amazingly, the light was working in my studio yesterday. I took my purchases to my desk to take inventory of my supplies. I have some older tubes of watercolor that I need to use up. I thought I used up my watercolor paper, but forgot about the cherry blossoms work that was still attached to the block. I’m not sure if I’m done with it, but I took it off the block anyway. Since it was there, bare, and looking at me I found another photo of the blossoms from the swipe file and there I was penciling it onto the paper. Soon as I did that and took some pics, I was filling my water cups, dipping the brush and throwing paint on the paper! Wow, how did that happen?
Knowing myself I stopped before I made a mess of things. Watercolor is not very forgiving, in my opinion. I could take it too far, and then that’s it! So I left it and decided to organize my bead supplies. There I was stringing a couple of bracelets! I finished one and need some findings for the other, but I worked on two pieces. I just need to photograph the finished piece and shop online or in person for the needed findings for the second bracelet.
All in all, yesterday was an amazingly productive day. I’m still in shock that it all went so well! I better be careful and not mess up the momentum today.
“Decide to make the most of the time you have and to stop whining about the time you don’t have.” Alyson B. Stanfield, Art Biz Blog
I received an email update from a wonderful site I found a little while back. Ms. Stanfield is the author of I’d Rather Be in the Studio,(http://www.idratherbeinthestudio.com/), book/blog that helps artists in marketing their art, social networking, and such. It’s very informative and inspiring.
For the new year Stanfield sent out an article and podcast titled, Decide What Your Year Will Look Like. All the to-do’s in this article are noteworthy, but this particular one jumped out at me. I’m always complaining about how much time I don’t have to do what I really want to do, but is it true? Do I really have the time, but allow other things to just drop in my way? In The Artist’s Way course I became aware of doing such a thing by working my way through the twelve weeks. (I’ve suspended finishing Week 12 for the holidays. Convenient? Hmmm…)
Seeing these directives in print makes an impression. I’ve printed the list and plan to post it in a place that I can read it every day. It’s good inspiration for a new start to the year.
We put our tree in the house just before Christmas Eve and it doesn’t come down until the Epiphany on January 6. I’m always surprised when I see a discarded Christmas tree out in the street on December 26 with bits of tinsel clinging to the branches. Who takes down the tree on Christmas night for the garbage early the next day? I like having the tree and decorations around to usher in the new year and to celebrate Christ’s baptism on the Epiphany.
There’s no way I’m getting any where near the art studio this week either. I don’t even have the energy to knit at night on any of my many socks-in-progress. There’s gatherings to attend. New Year’s Eve and my daughter-in-law’s birthday are the same day. New Year’s Day we visit my mom. The weekend will be a short respite until January 6 and another round of parties. There’s more celebrating to do and people are already pooped!