There is something quite delicious seeing that my other blog, on Balthazar, had two followers...until I check out the 2nd follower and see it is a sales gimmick masquerading as a delectable young Indian woman. The other follower still has me mystified. Perhaps Cordillon hopes I will mirror his compliment and follow his blog on, was it the city of Manchester? But I'm not that desperate. Yet.
In the meantime I have made a decision. It may last as long as the takeaway Thai Richard has dashed into town to get, nevertheless here it is. I have resurrected my journaling habits of the past 30 years and have decided to keep a written journal. Yes, that's right. That soon to be lost skill of hand writing journal entries. The reasons are twofold. One, I am a bit muzzled by the fact that writing a blog, despite it's obvious advantages, is public. My ego cannot be erased that easily nor my sense of propriety. Knowing that there is the possibility, no matter how remote, of having an audience, I hedge my bets while writing. I don't write as freely nor as intimately as I always did while keeping a handwritten for-my-eyes-only journal. The other reason is less easily explained. I think there are distinct advantages to writing by hand. Noticed the smell of ink as I wrote today. I missed that. Also suspect there is something to the hand, eye, brain connection which is lacking when typing at warp speed on the keyboard (am a fast typist which makes for near instanteous translation of thought to monitor - but is that always a good thing? I'm not James Joyce with a stream of consciousness facility).
So I will continue this blog but it will be more a record of day to day events rather than a reflection upon those events.
So today: Lionel is still missing, this is the third day. I fear the worst yet hope for the best. Won't dwell on it any more for there is no advantage to it. I love him and miss him and pray he's okay.
We are going to take Matisse to the vet for blood and urinalysis. He's drinking heaps, peeing large amounts - sometimes in the box, often on the floor, so suspect the beginning of CRF (chronic renal failure). He is not dehydrated, is in excellent condition (perhaps too fat) but his coat is glossy and sleek so hopefully it isn't that but I must know. He's been on the Prozac for 4 days now - with some diminuation of the spraying (from 4 events to 2) but no extinction as yet.
Am working on a pastel painting taken from two pages of the Baroque Horse magazine. Hate that I'm copying yet view it as a learning exercise. Then again, it is already morphing into something quite different than the magazine pictures. Which is a huge relief. Huge.
Am going to invest in a digital photo frame (12 inches) so that photos I take can be uploaded and viewed at my leisure. A brilliant idea I think. It will be portable, clear and accessible - if I can master the techno-stuff. Please please please.
So today, no yoga, some painting, reading and finishing Richard E. Grant's The Wah Wah Diaries (now I understand what a 2nd Director does!) and writing it all up in here.
Showing posts with label pastel painting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pastel painting. Show all posts
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Richard's gone to town. All morning to myself. Should be cleaning the bird verandah, which I will, just later. Doesn't work expand in the time available to do it or some such thing? If it does it will take me all morning and part of the afternoon to do the chores. But that's okay. Feels good to be alone and know my time is my own without interruption. Don't get me wrong. I love Richard and do not wish to live my life without him. At the same time, I believe spending time completely alone is necessary. I breathe more deeply.
I have a pastel painting going that I'm excited about. It's a departure from what I've usually done. It's gone through two metamorphoses already. I'd seen, of half seen, this painting on the wall of a room on a television program. This often happens. I see something or partly see something and it sparks off an idea. In this case I visualized a big big sky, a desert sky with pale blue shading down to a pale sand colour. In the back ground were two somewhat horizontal black slashes of colour, like beetling eyebrows and in the foreground, right near the edge of the paper, was a black sphere. But that painting didn't eventuate. The colour wasn't right to begin with and along the way the impact of that mental image vanished. Then I remembered an intriguing water stain that is on the back of an old horse head sketch. Copied it loosely onto the paper. The big black circle from the previous painting didn't fit so I wiped it out. Now I have this sinuous dreamy painting in greens, yellows and blue with some pink. It's kind of abstract but in it is a woman's anatomically incorrect body and a large face in 3/4 view. Not clearly delineated but they are there. Without intending to I've drawn inspiration from Birgit Erfurt's Karma Tarot. Perhaps in the curvy shapes and shadows but definitely there. Still, I like it. It's a far cry from the meticulously (for me) drawn pencil sketches where I lose myself in the details. This is much looser.
A few years ago I went to the Toowoomba Gallery and saw this painting, totally abstract, that was filled with light. It was almost spiritual this light. I kept returning to have aother look. Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the artist. That painting has stayed with me. This last work has the merest touch of that painting. A glow, a sense of things unseen. Admittedly, it's been fun to work with colour again. Even Natalia is cooperating in not playing with the pastel sticks.
The success of the application to quarry the mountain made for a couple of crappy days. It was as though someone had died. I grieved at the same time as I was angry. Rather than pretend I wasn't feeling those things, as useless as they were, I just let them through. I was mad and sad and that was that. Luckily the feelings passed and I'm my usual cheerful self again. In fact, in the past two days there's been this subtle but pervasive feeling of joy. Perhaps because it is finally over. When living under a shadow for such a long time, one forgets what real sunlight feels like. There's a long hard road ahead. We have to make the house saleable which means painting four rooms and, once the house is ready, cleaning the outside of dust and cobwebs and then keeping it that way. I ceased to worry about the thousands of black house spiders which make their homes under the eaves. There are so many and they are so tenacious that almost as soon as they are removed they return. Richard has to clean out the shed, a mammoth, nay Herculean task. He's been collecting 'stuff' for twenty years in case something might come in handy. There is some concreting to do and some gardening but otherwise just maintenance stuff. I'll have to clean the feed and tack rooms and keep them dust and web free as well.
Then comes the balancing act of putting the house on the market at the same time as we start looking for a place of our own. I've searched for real estate from Tenterfield to Nambour, from Byron Bay to Nanango. I am confident we'll find the right place - then comes the move. Thirteen birds plus two others that must be caught to take with us. Felicity won't survive without supplementary feeding and as Suki is her mate he needs to come too. Moving aviaries and birds will be the most logistically difficult - but not impossible. But first things first and the first thing is to clean the ruddy bird verandah!
I have a pastel painting going that I'm excited about. It's a departure from what I've usually done. It's gone through two metamorphoses already. I'd seen, of half seen, this painting on the wall of a room on a television program. This often happens. I see something or partly see something and it sparks off an idea. In this case I visualized a big big sky, a desert sky with pale blue shading down to a pale sand colour. In the back ground were two somewhat horizontal black slashes of colour, like beetling eyebrows and in the foreground, right near the edge of the paper, was a black sphere. But that painting didn't eventuate. The colour wasn't right to begin with and along the way the impact of that mental image vanished. Then I remembered an intriguing water stain that is on the back of an old horse head sketch. Copied it loosely onto the paper. The big black circle from the previous painting didn't fit so I wiped it out. Now I have this sinuous dreamy painting in greens, yellows and blue with some pink. It's kind of abstract but in it is a woman's anatomically incorrect body and a large face in 3/4 view. Not clearly delineated but they are there. Without intending to I've drawn inspiration from Birgit Erfurt's Karma Tarot. Perhaps in the curvy shapes and shadows but definitely there. Still, I like it. It's a far cry from the meticulously (for me) drawn pencil sketches where I lose myself in the details. This is much looser.
A few years ago I went to the Toowoomba Gallery and saw this painting, totally abstract, that was filled with light. It was almost spiritual this light. I kept returning to have aother look. Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the artist. That painting has stayed with me. This last work has the merest touch of that painting. A glow, a sense of things unseen. Admittedly, it's been fun to work with colour again. Even Natalia is cooperating in not playing with the pastel sticks.
The success of the application to quarry the mountain made for a couple of crappy days. It was as though someone had died. I grieved at the same time as I was angry. Rather than pretend I wasn't feeling those things, as useless as they were, I just let them through. I was mad and sad and that was that. Luckily the feelings passed and I'm my usual cheerful self again. In fact, in the past two days there's been this subtle but pervasive feeling of joy. Perhaps because it is finally over. When living under a shadow for such a long time, one forgets what real sunlight feels like. There's a long hard road ahead. We have to make the house saleable which means painting four rooms and, once the house is ready, cleaning the outside of dust and cobwebs and then keeping it that way. I ceased to worry about the thousands of black house spiders which make their homes under the eaves. There are so many and they are so tenacious that almost as soon as they are removed they return. Richard has to clean out the shed, a mammoth, nay Herculean task. He's been collecting 'stuff' for twenty years in case something might come in handy. There is some concreting to do and some gardening but otherwise just maintenance stuff. I'll have to clean the feed and tack rooms and keep them dust and web free as well.
Then comes the balancing act of putting the house on the market at the same time as we start looking for a place of our own. I've searched for real estate from Tenterfield to Nambour, from Byron Bay to Nanango. I am confident we'll find the right place - then comes the move. Thirteen birds plus two others that must be caught to take with us. Felicity won't survive without supplementary feeding and as Suki is her mate he needs to come too. Moving aviaries and birds will be the most logistically difficult - but not impossible. But first things first and the first thing is to clean the ruddy bird verandah!
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