#74 - #79 of 100 Creations in 100 Days: Working/Playing Hard with Divine Inspiration

Working/playing hard today

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I feel as if I’m finally getting someplace I’ve been wanting to go for a long long time. Finally. Time makes a real difference. 

I have five small canvases I started working on before Paris. They’re all of Iceland. I painted them realistically, giving them all the tenderness I feel for the land. Recognizing what I have to give is not what Monet has to give. I don’t have those strokes. I have a tender gentle realistic stroke. 

Then I wanted to infuse the strokes with feeling, with the intensity I feel when I am there. With the light that is behind the clouds. With the energy in the ground. The pieces morphed. I had to start new ones. And/or risk a crazy change and assume I wouldn’t want to do it, wouldn’t have it available in my thoughts, if it wasn’t the right thing to do. It’s 12” of canvas. Who cares?

And magic is happening. I’m very pleased. I have decided to go to Iceland for the month of September. July is too expensive and too soon and I’m already obligated to teach then. 

Here are the pieces:

#74

Finished. I enjoyed the smoothness and subtleties of this. There are many colors in the grey, no black. And lots of colors in the white. And then I had to do this on a second canvas:

Same scene. More feeling. Disregard for visual reality. Attention to emotional reality. 

I did this image several months ago in pastel.  I'd been wanting to try it in oils to see if I could do more glazing and make the colors more luminous. It's one reason I wanted to start painting again - to try this piece again.  I'd begun it before Paris, but today, this is where I went with it...

#76  I love it. THIS is what I’ve been trying to express. THIS is what I want to say. 

This was finished. Then the others happened and I knew there was more to say here. How did I feel when I saw this scene in real life? What was going through me? I didn’t see the grey. I felt the heat, the love, the glory, the beauty. So then this happened. It may or may not be finished. 

Then there’s this which is saying what the photo says but doesn’t show what I love about it. I’m not clear what else to say here, so I’ll leave it for now. It’ll let me know.  

This one went through many iterations today.  Here's how it started:

Here are other iterations:

And the final one.  Maybe.  I'll see how it feels tomorrow.

#79

Obviously this is how I need to be living, what I need to be doing - painting all day, experimenting, listening. trying, looking, playing, delighting in color and texture and form and place. Now to figure out how to make that happen!

I hope your day is feeling equally divinely inspired.