The whole keeping the horses at home and taking care of the farmette has been a little overwhelming. I love it, but I don’t feel like I have a lot of time for other stuff, like art. Here is a little of what I’ve managed since we moved to Maine (hope I haven’t shared them already, I honestly can’t remember!) I was hoping to start keeping an art journal the beginning of this year, But I probably managed 5 entries, haha. Here are a couple of them:
I took a landscape painting class in the fall of 2016 from a pastel artist - I hadn’t used my pastels in years, and when I did, it was for portraits. I found the ability to scribble with them in quick and loose landscape sketches absolutely refreshing. Most of these are small - 5 x 7 to 8x 10.
The scribbling stuff got me really energized to loosen up the portraits a little, I did a small dog commission with mixed medial last Christmas - it was fun to drag out all sorts of supplies that don’t normally go together, this was done with pastels, markers and gouache.
Then this summer, walking along the low waters of the St. John River, I started picking up pottery and weathered glass pieces and rusty metal bits - people have been throwing their china and bottles and stuff into the river for 100’s of years, and there was something really appealing about taking these bits of trash and making something (hopefully) beautiful out of them. I’m sure the townspeople thought I was crazy, down there wading around with my plastic bags hauling junk out of the river. I’ve only managed to finish one, but have “sketched” several out. I’m using leftover stuff from our construction as backing, and all sorts of old glues and paint and nails and screws to hold stuff together. For once, not worrying about “archival”, but recycling things that would normally be (or already have been) thrown out - how cool is that. I call it my “River Shards” series.
and example of what I’ve found:
One of the “sketches” (yes, those are either deer or cow or moose teeth)
A finished piece:
Detail - I just love the crazing on the old pottery bits:
So, what are the rest of you working on?
I think I played with it more than they did!