Notes on Studios from Pastel Pointers

"To have a sacred place is an absolute necessity for anybody today. You must have a room or a certain hour of the day or so, where you do not know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody or what they owe you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first, you may find nothing happens there. But, if you have a sacred place and use it, take advantage of it, something will happen.” (Joseph Campbell)

"The French term for studio is atelier. Besides referring to an artist’s place of study, atelier curiously can have the connotation of housing an alchemist or wizard. So besides being a place for meditation and prayer, the studio/atelier can be the place where you allow yourself to experiment, transform, and produce magic – Voila!"   ~ Richard McKinley

Success & Failure

The really great thing about art is that there is seldom TOTAL failure in what the artist does. Of course, the oppositte is true for the novice: there is seldom perfection. Whether we are writers, artists, or cooks, most everything we do is a combination of success and failure. No matter how much we would like for our work to be simply the best WE can produce, sometimes the best we can do is LEARN from what we've attempted. As Richard McKinley says and as Preston King continues to remind us ME!!), not every painting is "precious."  So it is with writing as well. Not every poem "sings" and cliches work themselves in despite my best efforts. Do I always take the time to revise? More so than I used to, but not as much as I should. The key is still what I always told my students, what I still tell myself: hang in there. Persistence is not the only reward. In attempts we make, we are still happier and more gratified for the effort. If we were ever to reach perfection, what then? I shudder at the expectations. No . . . I paint. I write. I make mistakes. I learn. I try again. Not a bad cycle. Hakuna Matata. No worries.

I'll post the last painting I attempted, with notes, as soon as I take a picture of it. The notes will help me remember what I learned.

In the meantime, I decided to work on preliminary watercolors today, in my watercolor journal each student received in the workshop this past fall. The efforts here are not meant to be finish products, but help to capture the color, general shapes, values of  the subject. Adjustments can be made before putting pastel to paper. And there's something . . . nice  . . . about work that one knows does NOT have to be "right" or "perfect" going in. It's like a rough draft for a piece of writing. I can take it or leave it, change it, or refine it.

The Mailbox:

 

 

Clouds (NOTE: I LOVE skies and clouds; my dad used to call me and ask if I had seen the sunset, because on some evening, it was simply beautiful. I missed a lot of sunsets. These days, I see many sunrises and afternoon clouds. Following the watercolor is the original picture, taken from my phone; I mention that because they are NOT as similar as one might wish. Such is life.)

 

 

 

All I can say is that in my next life, when I come back slim--no, SVELTE--and organized, and everything else I'm not now, I'm going to have a camera phone with more than 3 megapixels. LOL!!

 

 



Nonviolent Takeover

This is roughly my fourth pastel painting, and the first one I did truly "on my own." There are a host of errors that accompany this work. There is no real "focal point," for one; it looks cartoonish; the "path" has blocks, not flat stones--because I couldn't figure out how to do them, even after my instructor, Preston King, explained what to do; the leaves and greenery look distinctly individual, instead of "clumped" or grouped.

But still . . . I like it. My son chose the subject, so that helped in its appeal; it looks medieval, which I like; the green and black in the very initial underpainting, on the sides was not bad, but most of all . . . I learned what NOT to do. This was done on Cannes-Tiennes paper, rather than Clairefontaine. I won't say I will never use it again, but certainly prefer Clairefontaine when I can afford it!!  

I continue to learn and I'm thankful for the mistakes and flaws from which I can learn. Sometimes looking back makes me mindful of what not to do.

Lilies

(The following poem needs a great deal of work; the painting also needs to be re-done--I've only painted one other "flower painting." Blooms are very difficult--I've seen some gorgeous pastel paintings of flowers; this is not one of them. Ahhhh....something else to aspire to. (Good thing we can laugh at ourselves, eh?)  The other thing I should say, in case anyone else reads this . . . the poem is purely fictional.)

The day the lilies bloomed was one year to the day
     my sister died.
There were three of us--my mom, my sister and me--
just as there were lilies, pink and lavender.
Three.
But my sister had some troubles--we never knew just what
and that morning, mom called up to wake her,
but silence was all she got.
Mom went upstairs, banged on her door,
but not a sound, not a word
came from behind my sister's door.
When Mom went in, it was her screams that I heard.

There was no note. No reason that we knew
for why my sister did
what my sister felt she had to do.
If it had been a sniper, some teen-age discontent,
we at least could believe that she'd been happy,
that her soul had been at peace, even if it wasn't true.

But she's gone, without a legacy
except the lilies by the door
They've never bloomed before.
I wonder . . . I can't help it . . . next year . . .
Will there be any more?

Camus & Me

"In the midst of winter, I learned that there was within me, an invincible summer.  And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there's something stronger--something better, pushing right back."
~ Albert Camus

Winter Snow - 2011

On Piddling

"You like to piddle more than anyone I've ever seen,"
said my mother.
It was neither a condemnation nor an accolade,
simply a statement of fact.
I had sense enough back then to be sensible.
I knew that a life could not be exist on piddling,
and if I thought it could, my mother's stern attention
reminded me that it would not.
So I studied, became responsible,
did my best, made her proud.

But still I made mud pies, imaginary friends,
listened to all the stories my dad could read or tell,
and piddled.

I still work, but I have plans;
I plan to piddle--all I can.