Reworking an old painting and trying out something new

I’ve been feeling very tired lately. I know it’s partly to do with shooting weddings and not getting enough sleep (I’ll post some pics at another time). I’ve never been a good sleeper and it’s catching up to me. Plus, I’m not a young chick any longer (boo) so that probably has something to do with it too.

I decided to take it easy today and Stephen, my love, totally gets it and he handled breakfast and dinner. I’m so blessed indeed.

I took a painting that I ‘finished’ during last year’s Creative Every Day and changed it a bit here and there. I think it may be done now or for now (again). I know, I’m not a painter at heart not did I ever take a single painting class at art college but lately the paint has been calling to me.

This was the finished piece from last year…

…and now today. It looks more balanced to me and feels like there is more movement and energy. Goddess creating.

Reworking an old painting helped me warm up to doing something fairly intimidating: I have been very intrigued by Flora Bowly and had checked her book out from the library. She is a very intuitive and free-style painter. I think I live vicariously through her. I am so tight-assed when it comes to creating that I’m pretty sure I could learn a thing or two from her. Maybe someday I can fly out to Oregon and take one of her classes… 🙂

So I took a chance, a plunge, went in to this one with my eyes closed but I used some pretty cheap paint. Tomorrow I go buy better paint. Lesson learned there. It felt good nonetheless to just apply paint in an automatic fashion. Flora’s book is amazing for ideas and inspiration, process and technique. She doesn’t tell you how to paint like her because she wants you to paint like you. I don’t know me that well because I’ve always had that creative part of me under wraps, behind bars, in a deep pit, so I’m still getting to know that side. I find I need to let go of what keeps me feeling afraid to create. Painting for painting’s sake makes me feel so freaked and ill-prepared but I know I want to have more flow and freedom in my work, which will take work. Perhaps a lot of it.

After adding some paint to a canvas I decided to stop and come back to it when I have better paints but it was fun to just plop paint onto the surface and see where it took me. If you are interested in a freer form of painting or art expression you should check out Flora’s book. I keep going back to it to get more ideas.

I still felt like painting after that huge fail with cheap paints. I feel badly that such low grade paints are what I’ve been using with the boys for years!

I’ve been itching to try some new iridescent watercolours I just purchased. It’s difficult to see the metallic sheen in this pic so I apologize for that. I didn’t paint for long because I realized I had no idea what I was doing (ha!) so I added some plant sketches to the page instead. It looks like a desert to me…think I will try more of these!

I cannot say I created anything momentous today but it felt good to do something that is totally out of my comfort zone. But the act of creating and letting myself go a bit made me feel like I climbed a mountain today.

Happy creating! Hope you climb a mountain too!