Welcoming Fall

And the last of the warm studies.... 12"x20" watercolor. I was getting antsy by about the tenth tree but I do like the way it turned out. My left index finger is stained purple from flicking my paint brush. I find this amusing in lieu of last night my right index finger being stained indigo from cleaning the oil tube out... I'm glad I finished this tonight as Sept. 1st is tomorrow which to me, constitutes the start of fall and this seems a very "fall" painting.

Catherine's Movement

"Look around the room, what are you noticing?" A common question with the woman who I credit largely for having me up and walking again. "I seem to resonate with that purple painting..." And then my eyes are jerked up to the ceiling, where the trim is painted a bright mustard yellow with a line of red. I start chuckling.
"What's that?" she asks.
"The trim,"I say.
"Oh, that. I was playing. It doesn't really work does it?"
"Well, it makes me laugh and it is kind of your colors so you could leave it and it adds quirkiness but technically if you wanted it to work you'd need to find something to pull that color into the room."
"Where am I going to find that?"
"I don't know. You have a bunch of paintings..." And then we're back to working out my nervous system...
She's been on vacation for a bit. I just want to be DOING art. I don't know that I want to sit and think out anything amazing, I just want to be doing. Move some energy out that way. And so I create Ireland's cousin, as I think of it... or Catherine's Movement as choice one for that trim to pull into the room:

Day before School

I figured I needed to spend the time quietly today, working on projects before school begins tomorrow... and so, here are the paintings/projects (one very much in it's beginning stages, and the other complete):
Actually, in reflection I think I need to resize my head in the first one as it's too long, but for tonight it's done :)

habits...

So I use to have this habit of putting my paintbrushes in my mouth between colors, except when I got to college it was suggested I stop doing this because of all the chemicals in oil paints (also asked by the blood guy in June) and just in general around paints..Well here I am painting and I think, huh, what a gross taste in my mouth... woops. Guess old habits die hard...

Birch study pretty much done

The last of the oil studies on birches is complete. Now I have a nice wall set to hang while I wait for them to dry and decide how I want to try and sell them. I'm thinking they may be shippable in the mail but it would be much easier to hand them off to someone who wanted to purchase them. My hope is my selling some art here and there, it will offset the living expenses due to be me being on strict "low stress, one job" kind of orders. So, I start my old first job back in about a week and a half and will cross my fingers that my health maintains it's forward climb. (I consider myself 90% there, but I do take extra good inventory and relax when I am doing things that might spike the system). Anyways, I decorated the apartment with my friend a few weeks ago and I have a wall that is designed to fit paintings of about this size which is typically the size I work at and I'm very happy with the outcome of the way the birches look in conjunction with my old Ireland painting. Kate Elizabeth, the friend, joked I should put the clear tape with titles and price points on the wall under each one. Someday... someday.. in the meantime I must be off to finish my sister's new baby's quilt....

In progress Oil Birches

I have been drawing and painting and drawing and painting compulsively. I'm on day five or six I think. I wake up, I sit at the studio desk. I've mostly been working on the birches. But then I sit for a moment and want to keep working so I do quick sketches of Orion. Quick paintings in the sketchbook.
The first round of oils dried so I set in some of the birch white paint on the blue one and then kept going on the colorful one. Still need to work up the background.

Creative spurt

The past two days I have had the most energy I have had in a huge number of months. Last night I stayed up till 12:30 drawing, sketching, prepping some new oil painting ideas and DANCING. Really, when was the last time I danced? Simple pleasures.

This morning I woke up and stayed in my pj's until two, dancing around the house, drinking two cups of coffee, cleaning and just feeling an overwhelming sense of happiness. Orion & I went for a few walks, sitting out and looking at the tall pine trees, thinking about painting and then beginning painting... next door, there has been a dj rocking out music for some function and surprisingly he has good taste, so with a nicely provided soundtrack, I pulled out a sheet of paper from my friend Faye and started in on the painting I prepped for oil in watercolor as well. It has been a LONG time since I have painted with watercolor so large but it was a good exercise and I was able to stay standing the majority of the time which was also pretty awesome for me... I still feel the twitching for another painting. It is as though my four months off of drawing are now spilling forth in happy abandon and my hands are staying ninety percent still so I don't find myself frustrated and can enjoy just expressing the ideas circling in my head....

Sleep in?

I peel the paint covered tank over my head, precariously balancing it on the bookshelf hoping it will not cover the shelf in Prussian Blue as it did my face earlier.
I slip into my boxers and throw another clean tank over my head. My hair is dripping from the quick shower. The clock blinks midnight. Orion is sprawled out on the floor looking up at me as if assessing wether he can in fact go to sleep or needs to move again to follow after my fleeting form.
I bend down and kiss him between his ears.
"Thank you for staying up while I painted. I love you. Now, try to sleep in."