A Whole Other Country!

This is a lesson in flexibility.  

The willingness to change or compromise.  The ability to be easily modified.

I love the work of Rebecca Vincent. The perspective she achieves with simple bands of color is wonderful.  I don't know what techniques she uses but I thought pouring and swiping could give similar results.  And the February pouring challenge was stripes.  Perfect.

I started with a landscape I had poured a while back, which hadn't turned out great, but had a lovely sky.  I poured vertical lines of paint on the bottom two thirds and then swiped and manipulated with a pallet knife.

To be honest, at this point I was thinking it was kind of ugly.  And it didn't look anything like what I was going for.  But, I let it dry and then went upstairs for a second opinion.  No, I don't mean I prayed about it.  😇  I showed it to my sister who said it made her think of Na Pali in Hawaii.

So I googled it.

Well, would you look at that!

Okay, time for that flexibility I was talking about.  

Instead of going to farm country, we're going to a tropical island.

Add a few waterfalls.

And sand and water.

And we're in a whole other country!

Lean In

Did you read the previous post?  Did you guess which painting would get the makeover?

When I finished this pour, I was pretty sure I'd be using it as a background or changing it in some way.  While it has an impressive number of cells, it seemed to lack structure or focal point.  So I set it aside until one day I glanced at it, not really thinking about what to do with it, when I began to see something.  Do you see it?

I'll give you a second,

or two.

Okay, time's up.  Here's a hint.

I could have left it at that but I decided I wanted color.

I tried out several ideas on Autodesk.

Using acrylic washes is a bit tricky.  I wanted to be able to see the details of the underpainting, but still have true, even colors. 

I may tweak it a bit more, but for now I'm calling it done.  

Wait, no, I'm calling it Lean In.

I lived in Kansas for about 25 years. 

Kansas, named for the Kansa Tribe, aka People of the South Wind.

I learned the best way to keep your footing in the wind is to lean into it.

Challenges

We all face them from time to time. Sometimes they're welcomed; other times, not so much.

One kind of challenge I welcome is an art group challenge.  It can give direction, boundaries; helpful when the options are vast.

I recently participated in a pouring group challenge:  create a piece, using any acrylic pouring technique, but using only blacks and whites.

First I tried out a technique using string dipped in paint and pulled across wet paint.  A lot of fun. 

Some of the details are so pretty.

Next, a dirty flip cup.  It went mostly grey but I got a gazillion cells. Go ahead, count 'em.

And last, but not least, a puddle pour. Oh the drama!

I'm still amazed at the variety achieved, even when using the same materials.  

Speaking of challenges, this post started out with a different idea but because I find keeping my focus and staying on topic a challenge, it went a different direction.  No worries!  Come back for my next entry when I get back on track.  Hint: one of the paintings above got a makeover.

Test, test, this is a ...

I love it when a simple test swatch produces such fun results. I was just testing some custom mixes for a black and white challenge. I dribbled some of each on a 4 inch square of paper. After a little swiping and swirling, I ended up with this:

I usually take few pictures of the results, just in case. And I'm often rewarded. This time I didn't see it at first. Really.  But once I did, I couldn't not. 

So, I just had to play with it 😉 in Autodesk. 

If only it wasn't the size of a postage stamp!

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear is a very familiar carol. Most of us can probably sing the first verse from memory, and maybe the second and last. However, the third and fourth often get passed over. 

This arrangement by Robert Rice, as sung by The King's Singers, not only includes the middle stanzas, but even accentuates them. And because Rice has used a tune less familiar to me, I've been hearing it with fresh ears, so to speak. The fourth verse has been especially meaningful to me this year. The last few years have felt like a "weary road."  This carol helps us remember/gives us permission, to rest, listen, and hope!

It came upon the midnight clear,

That glorious song of old,

From angels bending near the earth,

To touch their harps of gold:

"Peace on the earth, goodwill to men,

From heaven's all-gracious King."

The world in solemn stillness lay,

To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come,

With peaceful wings unfurled,

And still their heavenly music floats

O'er all the weary world;

Above its sad and lowly plains,

They bend on hovering wing,

And ever o'er its babel sounds

The blessed angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife

The world has suffered long;

Beneath the angel-strain have rolled

Two thousand years of wrong;

And man, at war with man, hears not

The love-song which they bring;

O hush the noise, ye men of strife,

And hear the angels sing.

And ye, beneath life's crushing load,

Whose forms are bending low,

Who toil along the climbing way

With painful steps and slow,

Look now! for glad and golden hours

come swiftly on the wing.

O rest beside the weary road,

And hear the angels sing!

For lo!, the days are hastening on,

By prophet bards foretold,

When with the ever-circling years

Comes round the age of gold

When peace shall over all the earth

Its ancient splendors fling,

And the whole world give back the song

Which now the angels sing.

To listen click: https://youtu.be/ftiff8AjREQ

I'd like to share with you an old recording of I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.  It's an arrangement by Ovid Young and sung by Dean Wilder.

Now, I know it may not be in a style that many will find to their liking, but this is my favorite arrangement of Longfellow's poem. Let me tell you why. 

I admire the ability to hear how two different tunes can be combined into one song.  And Young did this beautifully. He begins and ends with the tune by John Baptiste Calkin, first used in 1872.  The middle section uses the tune written by Johnny Marks in 1956.

The two familiar tunes transition naturally from one to the other, and in so doing, perfectly capture the emotions of the words.  Words of sadness, discouragement, and yet, hope!

I'm also fascinated by the collaboration of four individuals, over the span of more than 100 years, each one separately contributing to the final work.

As I said, this is old - 1976!  So the quality isn't the best.  But I hope you'll take a quiet minute to listen.

Greetings and Salutations

And thank-yous and thinking-of-yous.

I made cards!

My supplies:
Plain notecards, gel medium, sharpies and gel pen.

My pallet:
Little snippets of paint skins.

My process:

 I started by selecting coordinating pieces in varied sizes and adhered them to the card stock with gel medium.

Next came the doodling:

 sometimes penciling in ideas first, 

sometimes getting a little help from Autodesk Sketchbook.

e-sketch

Finally, it was time to commit and pick up the permanent markers.

Most were flowers.  Some had borders.

And then some mushrooms sprouted!