And the beat goes on . . .

It is Thursday, a lot later than usual for me to be writing my post.  Life seems to be moving at warp speed and my body is reluctant to follow for some reason.  I am fine, there is nothing that a few more good nights of sleep and eating some regular meals might cure.  I suspect that a lot of my energy is being eaten up by all the planning going on right now for my move.  There is a lot to plan for, but at the same time, I cannot ignore my painting.  Painting soothes my soul and keeps me grounded.  If I am feeling unsettled as I have been for the past few days, I pull out the paints and work until I think that I will fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.  Unfortunately, right now, I have had to use a lot of my painting time to take care of the paperwork linked with moving.  I had forgotten how time consuming it was to purchase a new place to live.  It has been over 18 years since I bought this flat.  I have never sold property before, so this is all new to me and when added on to the work of making the offer, then purchasing the property, I have doubled the amount of paperwork and then some with my solicitor taking care of a few other things for me.

But, right now, my focus is on art.  Art Deco seems to have captured my attention right now for some reason.  I have gone through my country look in my decor, and right now I seem to have transitioned over to a quasi Oriental/Modern look.  I like the way these two go together.  My wicker furniture provides just the right setting with select paintings of my own along with some wonderful pictures, taken from a calendar, taking ownership of the walls.  At this point, I am not putting up any more paintings as I do not want the new owner of this unit to have to deal with any more holes in the walls than necessary.  My new flat will utilize floating shelves to display my paintings.  This will give a much more consistent look throughout the flat as well as keep the newly painted walls looking their best.  I will do my best to think twice before any nail is put into a wall.  I am hoping that I will follow through on this promise as well as the one to keep the art clutter confined to the studio room.  That way, I'm not scurrying around to hide all the detritus of my daily life when I get word that someone is on the way for a visit.

So, you might ask, what have you been up to this week?  Well, I am still working on Art Deco themed paintings, three to be exact.  I still have to finish "Lady with Attitude" shown on the right.  There will be two other paintings which will be part of this series.  Both will have a background reminiscent of stained glass with the center panel containing a vase of flowers, calla lilies to be exact.  Calla lilies seem to be one of the flowers associated with the Art Deco period.  The natural length of the stem along with the wide open flower lend themselves nicely to the period with their graceful shape being found in wall sconces, vases and detail work seen in wood work as well as other pieces.

I am putting up one of the two panels that I am working on that will involve a vase of calla lilies.  I am having a great debate with my muse about the look of these vases of flowers.  My muse is telling me to keep them both the same, but I am inclined to have subtle differences in the canvases.  I will not tell you what those might be as I want to see who can pick out those differences.  The two canvases are identical in size and both are painted to the same stage as the one to the right.  I still want to work on the black lines a bit more and polish up some of the areas where the "stained glass" panels are shown.  The inner section requires one more coat of white paint before I go for the impact part of each painting. 

Truthfully, I am surprised at the amount of time it has taken to get these two canvases to this stage.  I like to mix my colours and I suspect this is where I am losing the time.  I am concentrating a lot on obtaining the correct shade for the panels.  This is critical or to me it is since there are not too many panels on the canvas.  I suspect that four more panels will appear, but I will not guarantee that point.  I will have to sit down quietly and map out one such scenario and see what colour could go in those panels and how it will affect the overall painting.  I know of a painter who paints one complete painting each and every day.  These are not small canvases, they are a good size and have a lot of impact and detail to them.  I do not know how he does it.  But, I suspect he does not have a litter box to clean, carpets to hoover or does much if any cooking.  That would free up a lot of time and maybe if I could ignore these chores a bit more, I might be more productive with my painting.  But, I doubt it.  I do like to read, run out to have a coffee with a friend, or just look around the mall at different displays to get ideas for future colours to try out.

However, I will put all nonsense aside or as much as possible over the next few days and try to finish the two paintings that are going to be almost duplicates.  If I can persuade myself to really push the envelope, I might even finish the painting that started this Art Deco fetish.  I know how I want to work on the tattoo.  It is the woman's face that is still vague in my mind and I think a few dry runs in a journal, set aside for this purpose, will be necessary.  I am in a quandary about how to approach the colouring in her face.  I really have to give it some thought whether some subtle colour is required or whether I should stay true to the nature of the painting and keep with the colour palette as it stands now, with the flesh tone being the only other colour outside of the black, grey, Payne's Grey, white and the blue that was added to the black/white combo.  Again, this is something to work out in my journal and then transfer the resulting decision to my canvases.

I cannot wait to see how this all turns out!  I type that and it strikes me as being very amusing.  I am the artist who is painting these three paintings and I do not know what the end result is going to be as yet.  Oh well, maybe that is part of the fun of this journey.  I never know where it will take me or what I will find or learn in the process.  One thing that I do know, I am never bored. Each day and each painting sets me off on a new adventure.  What more could one ask of life?

Sincerely,   Rutheemac