New Art: Love's Daydream

Love's Daydream; 16x20; acrylic, pencil on canvas; framed; $350

The enchantment of a dream. The power of love.
Tendrils of love delicately growing around me,
holding and supporting me, helping me to grow.
A beacon from my heart, showing me the way to go.
Opening my heart to the truth, offering me a drink
from Divine Wisdom - my cup runneth over.

Flowers floating along like daydreams.
A mother's pregnant belly, live moving downstream and out.
Shelter from the storm, a place inside my heart.
A sandpiper on the beach, waves washing upon the sand.

I didn't know what I was going to create when I started this painting. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I could feel the deep yellow color in my heart. Once that was dry I just started drawing on the canvas in pencil. I had a marvelous time drawing. I came by drawing naturally, very early on. It felt so good to just draw. I haven't drawn before with the sole purpose of setting up a painting. Usually I just paint. Once the drawing was done however, I knew it was going to take some time to fill it in.
I filled in the white dots first, I could feel that much. I tried to work on the flowers next, and I did fill them in roughly, but I didn't like what I was doing. I left the flowers and went on to work with the swirly shapes. I loved the look of the blue-green over the marigold color, I found it exciting. I just kept going, kept on filling in the shapes. The painting began to have a balance of positive and negative, shape and detail. I painted the flowers at the very end, and they look just right.

I worked on this painting intensely. I spent 40 hours on it. I said to myself 5 days in a row, "I'm going to finish this tonight". Three layers of paint per color and lots of detail and edges. It was worth it. I love it.

NEW Feeling My Way; 16x20; acrylic and pencil on canvas; framed; $300.

For over 2 years now I have painted (etc.) almost exclusively abstracts. Artwork that has come from a deep desire and need to move through me. For the energy of the art to pour through me, to be released, with a piece of art being born in the process. Aside from last week's work, the only character to surface was the girl in the Mercy collage (April 2008).

Much of the work I did in 2002 had characters (children) in them. Most of them representing me in some way. I have included 2 examples here: Innocence Lost (left) and Ill Communication (right) (yes, referencing the Beastie Boys song).

Both the painting from today and the one from last week had people in them. With, of course, some degree of abstraction or stylization - I don't want to give up the abstract completely!

I am curious about the return of the figure as well as the again prominent use of drawing in my work. I have been feeling the need for color pop and contrast. For the Tryst show I was exploring tone-on-tone; enjoying the relationship, the kinship of the colors. I think I got that out of my system for a while. I am feeling energized and satisfied by painting with vivid color in very illustrative forms. Additionally, I see my emotions coming through these last two paintings in a more figuratively representational way. I feel good about this, happy and excited.

You may or may not know that I have 4-yr old triplets; two girls and one boy. We go to the library weekly and we read together daily. I love looking at the illustrations and reading the blurb about the artist. I am currently attracted to the illustration style of artist David Shannon. I was definitely aware of being opening to his style as I was painting today.

It feels so good to be trying something new and yet familiar at the same time.