warm up

today, i refilled my water jar and sat down at my painting table for the first time in a long time. i picked out a canvas i'd pre-painted - which was purple - and started experimenting with some new supplies i'd picked up over the summer: alcohol inks, neon paints, a new stamp pad...and then, i didn't want to put my little paintbrush down!


what you see above is about 90 minutes worth of just doing, not thinking, not planning. my scanner doesn't seem to be recognizing the neon colors, so this looks strange to me -it's actually much brighter! does anyone know how that happens?

one week ago, i finished my final paper for an online class that really drained me much more than it should have, and then escaped for a three day excursion up north, where i captured a bit of late summer sunshine and daydreamed about my next projects while rock hunting and floating on the lake.

this painting is not at all what i had planned - it is about two percent of what i thought it would end up to be. there are no words, the colors are tending toward garish, and there isn't a single piece touched by tissue paper or mod podge. i drew some of these flowers with a yellow dry erase marker. it's messy and experimental.

about one third of the way through, i realized it wasn't going to have words. it was just going to be a like a celebration, and every color was going to be invited.

it feels nice to paint again.