what to do, what to do

Brainstorming

• I can put more paint on the cloth in settled areas just to varigate the surface and to add further cover over earlier imagery
• I can experiment with putting some of the design of the background blue curtain in it to see how the pattern would work
• I can decide to paint over that tulip
• I can decide to keep the tulip but join it to the bouquet
• I can complicate the colors of the patterns in the green cloth even more just for the heck of it
• I can continue developing the flowers, though I want to keep them painty and abstract
• I can develop the bottom of the Limoges vase
• I can figure out the area of cloth nearest to the Limoges vase
• FIX the area of bouquet nearest to the vase rim — needs leaves, stems, something besides just the mass of dark green

My note to self above.

I rearranged the cloth again to get ideas.  I used crumpled craft paper to shape the mounds this time.  Got to remember that for future still lifes.

I’ve tinted the photo to have the cloth color match more closely the colors I’m using in the painting.  This is such a fabulous cloth.  One could make a wonderful painting of just the cloth.  Drapery as landscape.

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more window shopping

There’s one other window that I want to have a look at before I begin working on the BIG painting.  It happens that the Library of Congress has some windows that are rather like the one in Bonnard’s painting of the dining room at the Villa Castellamare.

I would go there right now with my camera, but Mother Nature doesn’t want to do anything these last several days but rain.  Rain, rain, rain all the time.  Of course she’s got to stop raining eventually.  And when she does I’m off to the Library of Congress for more window shopping.  In the interim, I’ve found this picture at the Library of Congress website.

As you can see it’s got the balestrade just like Bonnard’s window (top of the post).  Naturally, you will not be seeing the United States Capitol in my painting.  I’ll be finding a landscape to view from this window if I decide to use it.

My teacher Monsieur Bonnard has just whispered something in my ear.  He says that while he used to love to take photographs himself, that if I want to have a better contact with my motif, I should take a little notebook and a stubby pencil and make some DRAWINGS while I stand in front of the actual window.  “Take your photographs, bien sûr, but makes the little Croquis too.”

Pierre Bonnard, croquis – une fenetre ouverte

So, anyway, either I photograph — AND DRAW —  another window soon, or start building my Ark.  If it’s the latter, I need to get some doggie sailing outfits for Lucy and Zoomie!

Link to the Library of Congress window:

https://www.loc.gov/poetry/poetryroom/3-view.html

the do over

Lucy and Zoomie photobomb the picture I’m trying to take of a 30 x 40 inch acrylic canvas I found in storage that I’m going to over-paint with landscape.  It’s exactly the same size as the painting that has got me stuck — so I could use it to rehearse a second version.

It’s the wrong size to serve as a proper format for an idea that I have in the hopper.  But I’m inclined to use it to rehearse the new idea anyway (rather than deepen my obsession with the troublesome existing painting).  Changing formats is like changing media — it can shake things up in interesting ways.

It will be interesting sometime later on to recall that this picture was underneath whatever landscape I decide to paint here.

The options are this:

https://alethakuschan.wordpress.com/2018/01/17/crepe-myrtles-are-the-best/

or a more probably an elaborated version, in a different format,  of this:

https://alethakuschan.wordpress.com/2018/01/22/little-garden/

 

I will have a window

Actually I will have two windows!  This one has stuff (not pictured) in front of it now.  But I will have a window that I can sit in front of — that I can look through — windows for dreaming — windows for drawing — windows for arranging the light in still life.

Ah!  I will have a room with a view.

the other side of the room

This side of the room will stay the same — but it will be much less cluttered — except for the still life table — I love that clutter!!  There’s a book cabinet not pictured that has to be relocated.  It is ginormous.  Ai yi yi.  Will deal with that in time … all in good time.

Eventually I will have nails in the wall above to hold the still life drapery.  Goodness, this wall needs painting.  (Will think about that later too.)

You can see the little owl peeking out from under the table.  He’ll have a starring role in an upcoming picture.  So that’s some glad news.

I become the little choo choo that could, I’m “thinking I can” all along the way ….

staying motivated

If you started reading a couple days ago you know that I’m reorganizing my studio.  More than that I’m reorganizing my whole house — perhaps my whole life.  I started reading Marie Kondo’s book “the life-changing magic of tidying up” because I knew I could use some help motivating myself to do this rather large and necessary task.  I have become a real self-help book aficionado.

We live in marvelous times.  No matter what the challenge, someone has probably written a book about doing it.

Live blogging the thoughts I have as I go through these changes helps me dream about where I want to be when the task is complete — not just where the stuff will be — where I want me to be.  Mentally, physically, spiritually.

I find ideas and dreams along the way.  Pictures that were behind other pictures in the stack see the light again. They suggest innovations.  It’s a wonderful, wonderful process, house-cleaning is.  But it’s a lot of work too and sometimes the destination seems so far off.  It’s important to stay motivated.  All this stuff pictured above has to be moved!

Along the way the rest of life needs attention.  Dishes must still be washed, dogs must be hugged, groceries purchased, lawns mowed ….

 

First Lines

The first lines of my canvas look somewhat like these dream scattered lines of my notebook.  In the morning over tea I drew my still life from memory.   Now at the end of the first day, I realize that the first lines I drew with paint were rather like these precursors. 

First lines are the gathered essential thoughts, the first impressions, the longed for idea bundled up like flowers.  In their still vague dress of make-believe they merely point towards hopes and longing.  I will love this painting once it’s underway.  I am already enjoying work.  Looking into the depths among my objects I find the hints of so many possibilities.  One small corner of a room can contain radical amounts of color and tone, shape and meandering line, hidden questions and enigmas to satisfy the needs of a hundred painted pictures.  Yet soon after I had finished assembling my still life I found that one core set of forms had drawn my heart into this idea, so I’m inching along, laying down lines, trying to gain enough ground to see the first reward.

Perhaps hiking a mountain is like this?  There’s a lot of work with your head down before you get to enjoy the view.

My first fumbling sketches are a crude map toward my destination.