Practicing Bamboo

Art can be solitary, but I find that's a necessity if I want to dive deep into my soul to find my voice. By lunchtime I was amused (after a morning of practicing bamboo) as I had a forest literally growing under my feet.

Bamboo looks easy enough, but I find that it's simplicity makes it one of the hardest subjects to paint! There's no covering up mistakes, and since water & ink have their own voice I can only show up with brush in hand, breath & stay present to what happens on the paper.
This afternoon will be making branches and leaves. Today's goal is to come up with one design that's acceptable. I'll let you know if the water & ink have other plans.

A Morning Ritual

Below is a poem that came across my computer this morning. It touched my soul. This came from a site that I follow and enjoy (Heron Dance Art Studio). Rod is an artist and writer who lives seclusively in the wild, while reading great poets, writing, meditating and painting. 

I find these words valuable as I try to clear my thoughts and heart before entering my art place. A cleansing of sorts- getting rid of those negative gremlins that can dwell in my mind. 

Washing at dawn:

Rinse away dreams.

Protect the gods within,

And clarify the inner spirit.

Purification starts all practice. First comes cleansing of the body--not to deny the body, but so that it is refined. Once cleaned, it can help us sense the divine.

Rinsing away drams is a way of saying that we must not only dispel the illusions and anxieties of our sleeping moments but those of our waking ones as well. All life is a dream, not because it isn't there, but because we all project different meanings upon it. We must cleanse away this habit.

-Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao, Daily Meditations

It's That Time Of Year Again

I found these beauties at a local farmer's market. I learned to enjoy the taste and texture of persimmons a year ago. They remind me that Christmas is around the corner. Anyway, love the colors in this fruit and enjoyed painting this a lot. 

That Certain Color Of Red

I've been painting with different groups of artists each day. Searching for communities of other artists I can paint & converse with about anything art. I'm meeting great people! Today was in a gallery in Montecito painting still lives. I was attracted to this still life for the simple reason that I LOVED the red of the pot. It's THAT perfect red!

Cracked Eggs & Ham

This silly painting was from the Daily Paintworks Challenge.The challenge this week? Painting a broken egg! When setting up this still life my original thought was "Green Eggs & Ham". However, after a few starts I discovered there is NO color green that makes an egg look appetizing.

 I also discovered that when working from real life props (like cracked, raw eggs) one should finish their painting in one sitting. Yuck! Now I'm off to Google the symptoms of Salmonella ;-)

Secret Recipe

Recipe for total bliss:

* pick or p/u fresh flowers
* arrange in a simple vase
* turn on classical music
* make a cup of tea
* lay out paint
* think less, listen more & let my brush dance

Dreaming of a Cool Day

My plan with this demo was to keep cool. The weather was supposed to be in the upper 80's and the since the building I was painting in has no AC I thought I would at least have a cool palette.

However,  I found these hollyhocks too complicated to demo a 2nd time as I needed to let the painting dry at different stages before continuing. I am going to try this process again (in my own studio) on other subjects as I liked the results. It's hard to see, but I got some of the texture in the background by laying in Asian papers as I painted, letting this dry and then collaging the pieces in place.