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My librarian mother recently noted that I draw and paint many stacks of books in my scenes. And this is very true. Reading is one of my life’s biggest obsessions after art… and maybe food. I really love food. Art can be an escape for me, and so can books… so why not bring the two together as much as possible and enjoy a double dose of what I love most?
While today’s piece of art does not contain any heaps of paperbacks, I’d like you to imagine reading there. I’ve drawn the same bench in a tangly shaded space and a sun-soaked desert space. If you choose to read in the jungle space be sure to take bug repellant and if you chose to read in the sun, remember sunscreen and shades! Nothing worse than being blinded by trying to read the glaring white page.
The Bench, watercolour and ink on paper, 5 x 10"
I am retreating this very moment to the yard on the right, complete with glowing paper lanterns that can sooth anyone after a long day. Now if only the yard on the left existed… sigh. That’s where I’d like to spend all my afternoons.
Backyards, watercolour and ink on paper, 5 x 10"
I began this lovely Tuesday morning with an activity I normally reserve for Saturdays: weeding! The front flower-bed… (er… cacti-bed) was overrun with all sorts of different weeds. I counted six or seven different types, although the only one that really matters to me is the one I call “evil spike”. Its little burrs break your skin through thick gardening gloves! So you can imagine how I felt when I knelt on a whole clump. They are NOT the soft sticky type of burrs I grew up with in Canada. Those you could get in your hair or on the back of your pants and walk around for days with them stuck there without knowing. Nope, you know instantly when you get these buggers stuck to you. yowch.
I’ve decided today I don’t like weeding tangly wild lawns. But I do like drawing tangly wild lawns. That is an activity far more suited to my temperament.
Side note: Tangly Wild Lawns would make a good band name no?
Tangly Wild Lawn, watercolour and ink on paper, 5 x 8"
Watercolour Pine, watercolour on paper, 5 x 7
This is the sort of vegetation that seems to be thriving in my backyard without very much water at all. Very beautiful very large and very pokey if you walk to close.
I’m falling in love with ink really quickly so you can expect to see many more drawings like this in the future:
Bush, ink on paper, sketchbook (5 x 7)
Here is a sketch I did the other morning on campus. I didn’t have time to capture the doves cooing maniacally and poking about the puddles so just imagine them in there!
Trees and Puddles, ink and watercolour on paper, 5 x 7"
I spent my morning weeding the yard before it got too scorching. I now have green leafy plants on the mind… except the one I painted is a bit more pleasing to the eye than the ones I was yanking out of the dry earth…
Blossoming, ink on paper, 5 x 7"
This is my second foray into the world of pastels. The result is much more abstract than what I create in other mediums but this makes the practice even more valuable to me. It is my hope that sketching in pastel will provide some great inspiration and source material for paintings in the future.
(Side note: it did not rain today… this is from a downpour just over a week ago. Maybe this post will work some magic and bring on another downpour soon? Here’s to hoping…)
Rain in the Yard, pastel on paper, 8x5 x 11"
When the chores pile up there is nothing to do but… well, chores. That doesn’t mean however, that you can’t take a break to paint them. I remember Danny Gregory‘s advice for the “too-busy person” on how to make time for sketching, I read it in one of his books: draw those dishes just before you do them, draw your food as you eat it etc.
So maybe you can tell I’ve become a very busy person recently and seem to be working on rather small pieces… and I am, just trying to satisfy that itch to create even when there doesn’t seem to be any time. I really must add though, that I think it is just as important to do the little sketches and record simple moments of beauty in small paintings as it is to make the big works that take more time and planning. Each type of painting works in its own way, allows me to express completely different feelings and thoughts as well as process things differently. I hope you can see the value in the different types of paintings I’m creating too.
This one may be slightly less successful than my last laundry painting since there is far less colour contrast, but I rather enjoy how the whites are billowing and blending into the sky. I find it calming and peaceful and hope you do too.
In the breeze, oil on canvas, 6 x 6"
Theresa the Tree, oil on canvas, 10 x 10", SOLD
