Category: Resistance

To Beat Resistance: The Timer Is My Friend

©2011 Dora Sislian Themelis

Here is the last of the sunflower photographs I took during the vegetable share season. It’s kind of Vincent van Gogh-ish. When I get a chance to buy larger watercolor paper I will be painting from this photo. Did you see I said “when.” And “when” will that be?

I could see these sunflowers in oils, too. The oil paints have sat for so long I can’t even think about getting them out and painting with them. Yeah, I know, I need a bit of time to look them over, set them up around the palette, but then there’s the medium to deal with, a large enough canvas to work on. These are the distractions that stop me in my tracks.

Maybe I will do a small and quick twenty minute watercolor? Well, let’s see where it goes.

These are the things I grapple with during my day. The road blocks are my own. Mr. Resistance can wreak havoc on plans.

Watercolor paints are so easy to get out, paint, clean up, and put away. The oils are out, the painting sits wet for days, the air needs to be well ventilated because of the chemicals in the paints and the medium. Unless I sketch quick with plenty of turpentine so the paints dry faster, this could take time.

Do people still use turpentine any more? That’s how long I haven’t painted in oils, don’t tell on me.

Am I making excuses not to paint at all? Gee, let’s see: no watercolor paper large enough, the oils are a pain, I might not have enough time to paint. Sound familiar? Resistance is stepping out into view here.

Now we are on the verge of December, and all that comes with the holidays. How can painting be a priority if there are so many other things to get done?

The thought running through my head right now is this: The timer is my friend. The timer is my friend.

Getting Over the Hump

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.

Every Day I’m Shuffling

Day #2

There’s a wild song on the radio that I get a kick out of every time I hear it and one of the lines is the title of this post. I don’t listen to the radio in the car, or in the house, all day either. I need my quiet. I do enjoy some Frank Sinatra and I have favorite classical pieces, but mostly my brain is too noisy for it.

Now and then I listen to the music the kids like, and some of it is hot. Some people like to listen to the old stuff they liked as a teen. I can’t. Some of that was great, some horrible, but I just can’t go back there. Did it, done with it. Give me the new stuff.

So I’ve been “shuffling” until I got it going with this new piece. Another twenty minutes of working around the composition and it’s starting to feel good. When one area is wet I work on a dry area, keeping the whole painting in motion. Trying to see the piece develop as a whole and not surprise myself by not-so-happy accidents.

From what I can tell by this photo the piece is moving where I want it to go. Brush strokes, paint placement, dark and light, with details to come at the end of it. Maybe I will take one more day and finish up. So far, so good.

Twenty Minutes or What?

Twenty minutes to start something new

As I was saying..yes, twenty minutes to something new on the table, easel, whatever. It’s been a quiet Sunday and I had time to paint, having danced around the paints all week.

I played with beads twice, coming up with two different bracelet designs, and successfully by-passed painting. What’s with that?

Today there was that split second decision to put water in the plastic bucket and just do it.

Isn’t it funny, though, that I can go to my studio where the beading stuff is, sit there to come up with jewelry designs and finished products, but I ignore the watercolor paints sitting on the dining room table? I think it’s funny. It’s really not funny, it’s annoying behavior, and it has to stop.

To be totally honest, I don’t even think I worked on this new piece for twenty minutes. Maybe it was more like ten minutes. Just enough time to sketch the composition and throw down some color, that’s all. You can see the paper is still rolling with water and hasn’t dried when I took the photograph. Quick and done.

Tomorrow I can move this along and get a feel for where I want to go with it.

Just to let you in on a little secret, I am planning to paint bigger. Don’t tell Mr. Resistance. He might throw a roadblock in my way. Just saying.

Don’t Steal my Dessert Please

Turquoise and Howlite bracelet
Design by Dora Sislian Themelis
The weather has changed in New York. Cloudy and rainy days are here after the great summery warmth of a few days ago. There’s nothing anyone can do about it, but put on a sweater and go with the flow. Ok, so I don’t go with the flow so easily. I could almost be wearing my winter coat now.
Winter weather makes me want to stay indoors. That said, I could be doing plenty, but am I? No. Visiting with Mr. Resistance again and it ain’t fun I’ll tell you that. Distractions abound. Luckily Gorgeous told us they were going to be at the last Greek festival of the season and if we felt like it we could meet up. We did.
It just happened that Sunday turned out to be a beautiful warm day and the evening was just as comfortable. The festival was busy with people, food, music and vendor shopping. Gorgeous showed me a bracelet she liked which I had similar beads at home. The next day I whipped it up for her, as you can see in the top photo. 
Towards the end of the evening we decided to treat ourselves to some Greek pastries and frappes. Small balls of dough drenched in a honey syrup called “loukoumades” is a treat because most people don’t make these at home. We found a spot to park our dessert and we all enjoyed our treat and each other’s company.
Gorgeous turned to spear a honey puff and remarked that they were almost gone. Did we really eat all of those puffs so quickly? Do you see that little lady sitting across from our tray of loukoumades? She had a fork in her hand and so did her friend. Did she sneak in on our pastry and steal a couple or what? 
None of us caught her in the act, but doesn’t she look guilty? I mean, really? Well, we all started laughing. I remembered my camera and took a snap. I just had to do it which made us laugh more. Nothing like a good laugh on a summery night to hold off the winter blues.

Two More Sunflowers

Two Sunflowers (c)2011 Dora Sislian Themelis
14×20 Watercolor on Lanaquarelle paperr
Motivation comes in strange ways. I need to have my painting implements staring me in the face to be able to feel like working on the art. After reading everything I have, and taken the great workshop last weekend, what is it with the resistance?
I must admit making painting a daily habit is working more than not working. At least I know in the back of my mind I have painting to do. At some point in my day it will happen. There is no such thing as painting all day long. No such thing. You just have to try to go to the studio, or the dining room table, and get to work.
There are a few more sunflower photographs I have at the ready. This is another that I started painting. Here is the progression from sketch to dropping in color. I allowed myself those precious twenty minutes of time and stopped.

Twenty minutes of painting time is the best thing I ever started doing. I get to paint every day, sort of, and stop myself before I make a mess of things. Rather than get bogged down in detail, which was my hallmark, I know I don’t have too much time so I am use brush strokes and color to say what I need to say.

I could have stopped at this session, but I felt that the work needed just one more go to make me feel as if the painting was finished. Each time after the paint dried I felt different about my work. Something about how the paper flattened back down, how the colors looked, gave me confidence I was on the right track.

If I had kept on going past the twenty minutes I might have had to throw it out, as I have done before. I am master of my domain! Yeah, right.

Friday’s Photo on Saturday

Three Beach Shells (c)2011 Dora Sislian Themelis  8×12 Watercolor

Fighting resistance with everything I have this week. Sometimes I win. Sometimes Mr. Resistance wins.
What’s with that?

If you give in to it, low motivation can last longer than you would like and that just can’t happen anymore. I don’t have time to waste, so Mr. Resistance needs to get kicked out the door. He overs stays his not-so-welcome welcome every now and then.

Two of these shells were collected on one of the last great beach days a little while ago. The cracked smaller shell you have seen before. The watercolors were out, the shells and the paper ready, and I had the time so I pushed through the fog to paint. Twenty minutes later and I was done.

I tried to use only as much water as would allow the paints to flow so I could continue and finish without waiting for it to dry. I think I figured out how much water to keep on the brush. I also think I need better brushes. I was using synthetic brushes, but I went back to using sable. I like the way the paint flows and the point might be more pleasing. A visit to the art supply store may be in order, just to get some info.

These shells were similar in color and value so I needed to establish the ground there were sitting on by throwing on some color. I think it adds a little something and perks up the whiteness. You get the idea.

What is your Creative Code?

Seeing that I’ve been having a bit of resistance fun with the master, Mr. Resistance, I kicked it up a notch. How? Oh no, not by painting, mind you. By going back to reading my kick-me-in-the-butt creativity books. Well, yes, I finished Artist’s Way and it helped immensely. Now it’s Twyla Tharp and her book The Creative Habit.

I left it off for a while, having beat Mr. Resistance at his game. Notice I said for a while? Well, art, as life, is a roller coaster with ups and downs. So it is that I’m on the downward slope right now. Painting in fits and starts, as is my habit when it begins. Some days are freer than others and I can get to paint, but only if I’m prepared. Other days who feels like doing anything?

So it’s back to the book for me right now. Need a little fire lit under me. Maybe it’s the weather?

Chapter 3 is entitled Your Creative DNA. Tharp suggests we all have a “creative code”, a kind of creative hard wiring, our own distinct creative personality. Some how we have to tap into that and find what works for us creatively. Are we working hard to be a photographer, but we are really a dancer deep down? It’s like that.

“Rare is the painter who is equally adept at miniatures and epic series, or the writer who is at home in both historical sagas and finely observed short stores” writes Tharp. How we artists need to work is inside each of us. Some painters need to see paintings from a distance, others need to see the brush strokes a nose away. Tharp calls this focal length. Each of us “focus best at some specific spot along the spectrum.”

Some artists see the big picture. Others like specificity. Tharp explains this by the ancient Greek words Zoe and Bios, both of which mean life, but not the same state of life. She says zoe “is like seeing Earth from space”, bios “distinguishes one life from another.”

I guess it’s a matter of expansive vision or minute detail. How do we see ourselves, our art?

Getting a “handle on that creative identity” is key. Finding out who we really are in terms of our view is how we can channel our artistic drive. Why do we do things the way we do? What story are we telling? What is our weak or strong points? The answers to these questions help us to know who we are, and who we are not.

Tharp points to a lecture she gave where she invited various art students to assemble on the dais. A music student, a painting student, a writer, a dancer. She asked the art student to describe his impressions of the colors the other students expressed by their improvisation skit. He talked about feelings, himself, stories, no colors. Finally she heard him say one color. Suddenly, she stopped the student to tell him she was unconvinced he wanted to paint. He was in “DNA denial”, he needed to be a writer!

Well, it’s interesting isn’t it? We might be really good at painting, but we’re really wired to dance, or some other thing.

Sometimes I think I’m not a painter, I should really be a chef or a baker. Then I like to assemble jewelry with beads and other things, and think maybe I am a sculptor. I really like the colors of the beads, arranging them in a pleasing manner, and think I’m still a painter who just needs these other things as a distraction. It’s Artist Attention Deficit Disorder. That’s what my resistance is all about.