by Diane: Joyful distractions from painting mount;

 My nails show I have been working the earth in my yard. The yard waste is almost filled ready for the yard waste truck today.  I am not used to the heat we are having so will not do more trimming and weeding today.  The hard for me yard work these past couple days has me concerned that without help, I will not be able to keep my place free of ragweed or is it pig weed that make my allergies worse than need be.

 My 8 inch tiles for the  kitchen sink back splash is here. I have invited my youngest granddaughter and her other best friend to come and paint one each. Started taking pictures of  cross sections of my radish and watermelon. This will be the most fun distraction of all.

Not so fun will be calculating how much canvas I need to stretch over about 16 stretcher bar frames.

So stay tuned maybe by next Wednesday, I will have 2 patches of wild flowers and a new lawn planted. Meaning more time to paint. Painting is my priority.

by Diane: Viewing my entire stash of painting supplies but I am joyfully distracted

 I never dreamed of spreading out all my stretcher bars to visualize a new oil painting series in a big room devoted to oil painting. What a luxury I have. I am so thankful. I never dreamed I would have a large supply of boards just for painting. I did not realize I have old timber stretcher bars that are less apt to bend into warped canvases. Seeing the empty stretcher bars on my painting wall is a glimpse of my future.

Tuesday, April 13

I am going to a friend's filbert farm. Such a generous invitation. Even though it is windy, I am prepared to sit low to the ground and do small watercolors in preparation for oil paintings from memory. May take some photos to jog my memory. Since I am used to looking and seeing differently than what my iPhone camera will record, I do not give the photos much authority. best to sit with the subject and  soak in the atmosphere and naturally struggle with the wind.

Then Susan took me for a ride around near by farms where there were a variety of barns and sites for future painting. At home I prepared ground for the beautiful geraniums. The poppies and vegetable starts wait for tomorrow. As I needed to mow and water the geraniums and lupin seeds that I planted yesterday.

It was a big day and I am tired. 

The large yard is going to be in competition with painting tomorrow. Some lupin and wildflowers have sprouted and both plantings of snap peas are growing. The thistles are going to seed and I have not finished weeding out the ragweed. now it looks good in the spring but change is coming. The clay earth has cracks over an inch wide. Tomorrow I will continue to thread the hoses back on the faucets. Too tired tonight to try and figure out how to turn on the sprinklers.

Tomorrow April 14

Stay tuned, I will calculate the amount of canvas I will need and how to make the best use of it. Will order gesso.

By Diane: Mini-art respite from caregiving update #16: Just making plans or fantasies

by Diane

 

Thursday, August 20,

After our party, a son-in-law took this selfie. 

Fantasies of a family and friends' reunion with some of us staying at the Siletz Movie House and a boat fishing procession to a wayside park and beyond into Siletz Bay. We will celebrate old and new memories. Anybody ever heard of a portable organ we can play at the park. One of Don's brothers is looking for a portable piano keyboard. What we do all hinges on the Covid situation and we are all flexible. We might down-scale our reunion to McDonald's forest cabin.

I have many fantasies. Like keeping the house and inviting couples to stay with me  when one of them wants to just paint and the other plans outings on the ocean or rivers or mountain trails. After our meeting on Friday a granddaughter and boyfriend brought an array of his family's Mexican foods. so comforting! Enough for all and the visiting Hospice nurse! Granddaughter and boyfriend are returning next Friday to paint with me. By then I hope to have new canvases - large ones.

Tuesday August, 25th.

My colonoscopy canceled.

Don's impacted bowels are slow to clear and I am scrambeling to get him a cough assist machine so he won't need to take so many constipating medications.

The good news in addition to the ALS Association can loan us  a donated cough assist machine, we won the appeal for almost $900 for the the current respiratory devise. he uses to sleep at night.

In the very warm kitchen window I've been soaking dried acrylic paint in the jars from my palette. I accidently left the the lid off my palette Friday and didn't discover it until late Saturday evening.  So this is a good time to clean and fill my jars up high in anticipation of painting larger this coming Friday.

Between cleaning up paint jars and cleaning up poop that seeps around the impactment now I am giving away pears and apples because there is no time to can or dry them.

Now and then, yesterday and today I make headway on four old paintings that only need a few brush strokes of change. 

By Diane: Mini-art respite update #5: Rewards and learning experiences

Another week past inwhich I did little active painting. But as always I kept looking both at nature and my paintings.

 

   My swallow paintings are in the final step in the process - critiquing.  Critiquing is slow going.

       Friday my willingness to try something new in painting spilled over into life. Once in awhile my wild ideas result with good creations.
         I learned this week that a hand towel is a perfect window cleaner when the terry cloth is  pulled from a washing machine load and is moist.  I learned that a mashed cooked sweet potato blended with oat milk, whole cow's milk, avocada and butter makes a delicious cold soup.  It is also good as a sauce with meat.
          Another food adventure was not so happy.  Instead of mixing gratted chedar cheese I substituted cottage cheese. Instead of chopped tomatoes I substituted chopped peaches.  Instead of bread crumbs I added gluten free, brown rice crumbs.  The egg held it together but the sugars from the peaches browned much too quickly. After the first test burger, I turning down the heat. I thought it was delicious but not suitable for Fisherman Hubby who would have had a hard time swallowing the partly crispy edges.
          My guilt free, rewarding, comfort foods are variations of sweet potato soup or cream of avocado soup. I made a chocolate pudding when I add unsweetened coco powder. No added refined sugar or sweeteners! Wish I had a camera to have captured Fisherman Hubby's face. I have two desserts to myself. 
           Sometimes Fisherman Hubby has too much congestion and sometimes he over doses the dryin drops and his mouth is too dry. We both agree that his menu and his meds are not working well. Maybe more convenience foods. Bring on the chocolate coated vanilla icecream Micky bars. He liked pot stickers.

by Diane: Update #1, Caregiving mini-art-respite - pharmaceueudical CEOs won't like this

6" square

A more perfect day for painting outside could not have been asked for. Last Friday after not painting last week, all the steps of the painting process fell into place. My past week's observing and incubating the flight of swallows paid off for making the paint-out exceptional. Credit also goes to my paint-out partner via zoom. My phone was set on the painting table so I could hear the scrapping of the palette knife and she could see me paint. Painting together creates energy that becomes part of the painting. Rarely do I paint pictures that just take a life of their own and flow making me surprised that I could have painted it myself.
    Cloudy skies after the rain the night before cleared. The sun's heat was warm on my arms.  The atmosphere was damp, no breeze, shadows spread across the greening foliage.  As the sun climbed towards the zenith, clouds again started to gather.  The acrylic gouache remained moist on the palette. New Lascaux paints - a type of gouache with a matt acrylic finish pleased me. Especially liked the rough Ampersand aquabord used for both paintings!

        A vague comment on last week's blog, I interpret to mean that movement can be expressed on the picture plane with less than three points.  Three points are necessary to make a curve is simple geometry. If my commenter intended to dissagree because it is possible to express curved movement without three successive turning images, she is correct. . A curved direction of swallows can be expressed with a swash.

11"x 14"

       I found it simple illustrating the flight direction change of it's lowest image with swash.. At least while painting it, I was happy and felt it was complete until someone asked are those birds? So made the swish of the middle image more prominate connecting it to the more distant one with a skinny line.




18" x 24"

      Another artist said some painters want others to have their own interpretation While others are offended if their work is seen different from what they intend.  My process here of painting my perception and emotional vision means I am painting a reality I want to share like an illustration. My non-objective paintings stimulate others to see an object which I find pleasantly amusing.

Life beyond painting last week:

Fisherman hubby has a new gadget - a Surface-pro "3 Grid" app on an Ipad. It will generate speech for him. He and one daughter are customizing the files and his speech therapist tries to make changes for easier use. We are now making use of an Oregon Health Science University in conjunction with the ALS Organization virtual 4+ hour ALS clinics. The first one this week.

   The tension of  on line meetings had me so tense that I hurt all over. Then gardening and cutting a watermelon flared up the arthritus in my right wrist. I felt really tired but I started painting anyway.  After awhile, I realized that I didn't hurt anymore. Even an hours later pain free!

    Tomorrow is Fisherman Hubby and my 55th wedding anniversary. We are going to celebrate even if we have been doctoring this week.

by Diane: Mini-respites from caregiving

Painting is in incubation as I observe both an imaginary grid from earth to sky
with a third dimention grid  from foreground to the vanishing distance.
 I imagine placing swallows on my imaginary grid lining up the axes of their bodies.
Friday I may have another virtual paint out with sister-in-law in Portland.

Inspite of everything this week, I learned from observing swallows' flight movements and how to interpret movement on a flat painting surface.  But yikes, in today's Covid19 world, most of our doctors' appointments are virtual. Each clinic or hospital with a different apt to download requiring one or another password :(
   I am going cross eyed and my tongue is hanging out waiting for the computers to respond. Sometimes I just don't know the tricks. Often stumped I call the help lines only to be referred to my Iphone provider to obtain a password to an account I vaguely recall cancelling.  What a time sink!  Thankfully we have one of our savy tech daughters who promises to rescue us from cyber confusion and failures.
     This last week, today and tomorrow are the biggest test of my previous plan for taking time out to paint. I want to be attentive to Fisherman Hubby's needs.  He has 7 medical appointments in close proximity - two of which are local and in person. Plus learning new computerized equipment.- one is a cool speech generating devise and another is a watch size devise to check how his VPap is taking over breathing when he stops for a period. Plus my e-mail has been impacted by either mine or a  contact of mine being hacked. The hacker is a very different kind of hacker who starts with only me and one other on my e-mail list.
     At least this week I see the problem of calling my art doings an Art Escape. I don't want to be off in lala painting if Fisherman Hubby needs me.
       

by Diane: Art Escape update #19, last update

I love the comments from a plein air painter from Hawaii and another one from my co-author, Rain.  The painting of these swallows looked like surfers on a  big wave. Rain thought that the clouds look like waves. How poetic? I am naming it "Swallows Surfing the Breeze"

Although I am not finished interpreting the flight of two swallows, one moving closer and beginning to turn back to circle and the other cirlcling in the distance. The closer swallow is more blurred because it moves across more of my visual field per second.

I am beginning to make the birds being more important than the sun breaking through the atmosphere after a rain storm when bugs hatch and fly.

This is the last update of art escapes. Next week will be my first post for Tiny Respites.

by Diane: Update #17 of Art Escape: Painting BreakThrough

Having a painting project in progress makes me feel good and optomistic. Now painting brings me closer to one of my favorite fellow painters. Via Zoom, last Friday, at home I paint out on the far end of our property.  My sister-in-laws in Portland generated the exciting energy I miss painting with others in groups like Vistas and Vineyards in the Mid-valley here in Oregon or the Painting Out There. The later group is in Kona Kailua, Hawaii.
      My art escape helps me relax when my caregiving worries unneccessarily demand an immediate solution.   Worrying about my paintings is more relaxing than being helpless in the face of my husband's health. .After a while painting, when I think about it, I notice the pain in my joints caused by tension is mostly gone.  When I paint, I am engaged in the beauty of the day.



Detail.

A very old, one inch wide sable flat brush seperates at even intervals. With almost dry paint the brush makes parallel lines that reminds me of cubist painting "Nude Descending a Staircase".  



                                                                    Second detail
             Second break through is making the fast movement
                       a little transparent.

 

Tuesday, May 19, I had a few minutes to work and it might be closer to resolved.

by Diane: Update # 16 of Art Escape: assessment and new plan

 

Pinned up drawings and hung new and years old paintings of swallows in preparation for a paint out this morning. The plan is to paint via zoom with sister-in-law interested in pushing color on surfaces like umbrellas in her Portland, Oregon back yard. I will try pushing color spectrum shifts to  the very fast flights of swallows. I will paint the swallows bluer as they fly away from me and more red as they approach me.

I am off to set up on the far end of out property. Will post results on my next blog next Wednesday.

by Diane: Update #15 to Art Escape; How painting the flight of Swallows reminds me of painting waves

Painting movement has been an interest as long as I can remember. When I was very young preschooler, I had an activity book with wildlife birds printed on stamps.  I still have one with ducks in flight.  Then my first painting in an 8th grade art class I painted falling leaves in front of a doe.

So later I tried to draw my children moving  and as they grew I painted them roller skating. I try for showing movement like I perceived it as opposed to what a camera would do. In recent years I am fascinated by the motion of waves in some paintings. At home I do not have an ocean in my back yard but I have the beautiful flight of swallows. I have lived in the same home for over 30 years and just found so many beautiful subjects I could have seen through painting.

by Diane: Update 12, Preparing to submit entries to Art About Agriculture Competition

Thursday, April 23, I got out my paints and set up on the back patio to paint the swallows in flight. The surface was a self prepared watercolor paper with textured Golden absorbent opaque acrylic primer for water media with addition of acrylic red color brushed in with the idea that I would paint a grass field.

Friday, April 24, the day was primarily devoted to doctor appointments and husband's future needs. Upsetting to realize his driving days are numbered. His doctor feels obligated to order him to turn in his driver's license.
Now I am walking on egg shells. He claims he is safe for the few times he drives to medical appointments. He wants an assessment - upsettingly difficult because during the lock down his occupational therapist is not conducting driving assessment services. He is on a list to be called when these assessments are being conducted. He is also trying to get on in Salem in case that is faster.

   Is the only option to turn in his driving license before his capabilities decrease?

 Saturday, April 25, I was happy and thankful that I planted a wee little garden of sugar snap peas, radishes, lettuces and carrots. I am thankful that most every time I look outside I see the swallows and I am coming to a greater understanding of how I want to express them in paint. 

There is another call to artists to submit to the Oregon State Art about Agriculture competition and touring exhibition 2020 called Tension/Harmony. The prospectus has an uplifting goal of envisioning the future. I am energized to continue my swallow series. Yes, I see a future of pest controlling swallows in balance in beauty. Swallow power better than insecticides killing too many insects, then swallows too.

 Monday, April 27, winds changed the flight path of swallows. They are faster and the axis of their body wavered side to side as they flew. Started a drawing outside but too late in the day to get maximum activity. This was a good day to add more paints to my palette. 

From my studio window I notice up high in the distance I might pick two swallows flight path may be a topology tangle. Finding a mathematical language to describe some of their flight might be possible under the right air conditions. Don't know if this kind of flight aids in their feeding.

Tuesday, April 28, the morning began with the sunshine on the woods behind the field and the light reflected on the shiny wings of the swallows seen against a shadowed field - my next painting. I hope I can remember the tutorial on how to pay bills. My mind was wondering thinking about how beautiful a friend of mine's painting was on the wall next to the computer screen. I asked for a repeat on how to get to the website. Hope I remember how to pay the bills next month.

The best thing about painting for me at this time is seeing and appreciating beauty.

by Diane: Update on my Art Escape #8

Happy Passover or Happy Easter! Happy? Well possibly an inept greeting during a pandemic for both Passover beginning tonight and for Easter on Sunday. I choose Beautiful.  So I wish everyone a beautiful holiday. It is beautiful to recall stories of overcoming bondage no matter which story is in your heart.
       One day at a time. My Father's wise mantre that supported his care giving for Mother! One day at a time. One day at a time. Do not over fill the day with too many tasks. Stay focused on each task and do it correctly. I am poor at coming up to his level. But I especially follow his example of

Before

 escape into his topology book. Like him  I escape into a few minutes here and there into my painting of swallows' flights.


After painting over but maybe not finished
Hot press watercolor board takes flooding with water layer upon layer without warping.
 Like in topology I am putting a circle around two flights printed from a cut potato.
I like the repetative printing but want to do another while I am observing their flight.

       I find joy. The swallows are back yesterday just in time for my painting process to proceed. Only the cold rain showers means few flying bugs.  So the swallows fly swooping paths over a quarter mile range.  More difficult for me to see how their flight pattern is an example of a toplogy tangle if projected on my picture plane! But their presence allows me to observe how their wings flap and they change direction and elevation.
       I feel close to my father when I am inspired by topology to see nature in new ways knowing my father had joy playing with math. I imagine his being in awe of its beauty.

       Six more museum boxes arrived on Friday. Left them, as a precaution against Covid 19, over night in the garage. Then spent a happy day filling them and rearranging my studio. When I have time I plan to arrange the pictures in order labeling the memories of my life. My work is a visulat diary of my life.
      I was just waiting for an excuse to look through my art and clean my studio. I always like to arrange my art work before doing the more mondaine cleaning tasks.



 On the left is the Blick catalog listing for the 12 boxes that store my archives

by Diane; Update 7 on art escape

Yesterday's resolved attempt to put the flight of swallows on topology tangles, though a break through, was a hasty attempt.

 

I have a better way to represent the birds. Plan to finish before next Wednesday.

by Diane; Update #6, When best of plans fail

Spring is calling; my interest in topology wavers: my acrylic paint palette is hardening. I have an urge to finish my old projects.
       I framed and hung my recent topology inspired pieces with one small abstract I did in 2003. Going against my plan to not be critical, I became critical of the one on the white wall. I am falling back to my usual process of the way I throw myself on the empty canvas and mid way become critical.
        Looking through older work that had promise but never came to a finish that I could for long find acceptable, I added more color but the flow of the swallows flight still does not read well with the color and texture being more dominant than the flights. 

         Liking neither the tangle painting on the white wall or the swallows and tractor, I just recognized that the flight of the swallows could be described in topology tangles. Could I have stumbled on an application of math to describe an event in nature? I was inspired to change back to working from topology. Can topology be used to describe movement through time?
         The tangle painting that I did not like is now not a failure - just unfinished. I hypothesise that the swopping in and out of the swallows could be mapped to show that their flight patterns help them work the air together to catch insects to eat. Their flight route could be drawn in a a two dimentional projection like a topology tangle.  I am looking forward to doing more observations in this new way when the swallows return.

    This week I am much to absorbed in my art to be my husband's helper in his time of need as his neuron motor disease symptoms are bound to worsen. We are still navagating the medical specialists when most of their office have all but shut down. When the pandamic is over, we have great expectations of being included in a comprehensive clinic which will have professional advise for all his needs in one visit a month.

                  

by Diane; Update #3 How my changes in the studio and palettes make painting more relaxing during stressful times

The past three weeks after hanging 34 paintings at the Albany Publc Library, I have worked to make a space conducive to enjoying painting when I have limited small segments of time. I want to also be there for my husband whose hiatal hernia surgery eleven weeks ago has failed to relieve most of his symptoms. Currently there are many tests underway.  He is in good spirits.

          First, I cleared the clutter.  Too many tools! Nice to have them shelved in our shop.

          Second, I have several palette designs for testing. They each have limited colors. My palette keeps the acrylic paint soft without having to twist off caps and prepare the colors every time I paint.

          Third, for the sake of relaxation, I  reduced the necessity of making complex choices in the process of painting.  I choose only one painting tool on the second painting - the back end of a foam bullet found on one of our neighborhood streets.  

           To be worked out  for the next painting: how to find the most expressive handeling of the bullet.
            Fourth, best of all, I did not need to clean brushes. Too often in the past I left brushes with acrylic paint drying and sticking to the hair.

 

Plastic clam shell from the bakery accommodates 3 jars 
left over from Yoplait's Oui yogurt.

Also fitting into the clam shell are fruit cups, small Tupperware,
and of course one pint size paint jar.
The clam shell is easy to close when I need to instantly drop painting.
to be helpful to my husband.

 

  The canvas board of the first painting was too textured
 for crisp stamped marks.
 I saved the painting by increasing the punch of  yellow and red.
I reverted from my goal and returned to my old ways of resolving paintings.
In the second painting, "Three Color Ability of Knots", I achieved a more relaxing painting time.
On the second one
The second, lower right is on
unfinished wood.





by Diane: Update #1: My process in making a new painting goal

Clearing the way for an exciting new direction 

 is one of the best parts of exhibiting my paintings.

Studio before hanging my exhibit

 

Thirty paintings stacked against the wall

waited to be hung at Albany Public Library January 5 - February

Love seeing my work in a large space like the library! The spaciousness of the library gives me a different perspective in which to self-judge my direction!

With a good many of my paintings gone, I have room to clean and organize my work space. 

   For my quest to make a resolution  in addition to house cleaning, I watched the DVD Netflix documentary, "Monk with a Camera."  For me, an admirer of Buddhist philosophy, but with no plan of becoming Buddhist, a movie about a convert stimulated my questioning the psychological health of playing with art as I do.



Inspired by my 2002 painting
of a China /Tibet
 monk's studio, I am removing all
but the most necessary 
tools from my work space
to make a  relaxing,
 soothing, contemplative,
painting place.
 Easy to use while I continue
 as a care giver
the next two months.
 

        
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

"Monk with a Camera" is a 1914 documentary about the spiritual journey of photographer Nicholas Vreeland, the grandson of Vogue magazine editor, Diana Vreeland and Ambassador Frederich Vreeland. Nicholas rejected the life style of privilege that he was born to especially the glitz and expectations of high society.  Seeking the advise of the Dalai Lama, he moved to India where he in earnest studied at the Rato Dratsang Monastery.

      

        He worried that the more he took pictures, the more he would want to take them.  Making art would be intoxicatingly presumptuous of his importance. As a monk, in contrast to being a photographer, his identity was abandoned first by shaving his head of hair. Without hair on his head he felt in a sense naked of identity. He lived a sparse existence with only the most necessary things needed to live. He gave up his immaculate perfectly polished expensive shoes. After years of being a monk when charged with elitism because he was polishing his sandals like he used to polish his shoes showing off his elite superiority.  He explained the difference,"Polished sandals last longer." 

          As a monk if he spent his time taking pictures, he would be thinking as a photographer even without a camera in his hands.  If he was thinking like an artist photographer much of the time, his ego would be gratified so gretly that he would wipe away the humility of being a monk. In becomming a monk ones former identity is abandoned and individualism does not exist. Photography in addition would become an addiction.

      

         In my opinion being immersed in a pictorial art form is transforming  my values. I gradually  become resistant to advertisements. I do not desire most material things. The longer I have marketed my paintings for sale, the less my ego feels stroked by sales and more and more my art is about sharing my experience.

         Maybe I should take from Niki's first Buddhist teacher Kyonal Rato who at age 80 bought a chest full of windup music boxes in the shape of stuffed animals. He enjoyed orchestrating the play of these boxes to make a pretend musical show. And at more than 90 years of age he took child-like pleasure with his toys but kept them segregated from most of his life. His separating play just like the young Tibetan students at the monastery who played a board game on Mondays.  The China Tibetan Monks also were playing "football" (soccer). Buddhist Monks play. And  I feel confirmed in my art journey. Shouldn't I consider painting serious play fulfilling a basic human need to play?

 

       Another Netflix video "ADVANCED STYLE" by Ari Seth Cohen has one parallel philosophy - "Money cannot buy style."  The video exposes the under recognized fashion sense of individuality in seven women in their 60's through 90's. They embrace shopping to build outfits expressing themselves as art. They flourish showing they are better than the advertised merchandise trying to sell the latest fad to all.  They have found the zest of being alive and vibrant in the  same New York City that Nicki rejected.
         The ladies of "ADVANCED STYLE" celebrated the importance of being individuals while Nicholase Vreeland rejected the importance of the individual when he became a monk.
 

       Also pertinent to my considering a different direction for this period of care giving is a Great Courses selection, "THE SHAPE OF NATURE" of lectures by Professor Satyan L. Devados inwhich the most important concept is that form and function is interrelated.  For me as an artist, the design of my studio space is the form in which my art making is the function. 

       In my next update, I plan to share my self critic of my work at the library and hopefully show  progress in rearranging my studio. Maybe even new paintings.

 

 

by Diane: New Decade/ New Year's look at my life as an artist

 Before considering my resolutions, this decade, this year, I question my life as a practicing artist. In my current stage of life going on 77 years of age in 2020, I consider my age and the changing of our living location or remaking our home to suit our needs - an expected soon to be reality.  Plus all the conditions of the world around me need to be considered. Putting aside immediate issues for awhile, I consider some hypothetical possibilities far from my reality.
      How would I practice art if I was a Yellow Hat Tibetan Monk? Will such an improbable question stimulate an enlightened goal?


What is missing from the monk's painting paraphernalia?
 No rags? No large container of water to clean brushes?
No container of many brushes?
Only a thermos for his tea and another for water to add to his paint?
Only stir sticks in paint pots to keep paint at the exactly right creamy consistency.
Are the sticks in each color pot tipped with a brush head down in the paint?
Do I remember a few hand made brushes?
 If he uses a different brush for each color, the purity of his colors would be maintained
without contaminating cleaning water or rag. He will not contaminate the environment.
His method insures no waste of precious mineral colors.
Can a brush remain in a gouache type paint without ever being cleaned?
Did he paint with sticks?
Do I see a receptacle for scraping off and collecting excessive paint before applyication?
Knowing his exact working method does not matter.
I have an idea of how I can change my work space process.
 

      I remember my first impression of the artist monk August 13, 2002, at the Drepung Monastery in China, Tibet. Seeing his fascination with my sketches and pen, I handed him a brush pen that I was using. He wanted to try it and I gave it to him for keeps. In my sketch book he drew a self portrait. Later at home I painted Pintolanden ( my poor phonetic spelling of his name). I clearly remember my impression because when I came home, I painted him. His studio was rich in color. I was impressed how cozy he was in stark contrast to the desolate landscape outside. Above all I wanted to work from color pots like his.

The monk's drawing of himself.
 I never explored the meaning of his pose.
Or the meaning of his Buddhist name.

My painting reflects how suited his work space was
to making Thangkas. It should be an ideal space
for meditative, spiritual painting
but I saw this space was impacted
by the world of soda pop and clutter of
plastic bags from recent shopping.
Over his robes he wore a sweater
and under his robes - sweat pants.
He had Western style running shoes.
 On the floor was an open paperback book.
Possibly a corrupting novel?
 

        Historically monks painted meditatively soothed by repeating the same traditional details with minimal need to make independent choices. All their colors were spread out in little pots so they could paint continuously without interruptions to prepare the next color. So impressed, was I that I found a couple of clam shell plastic boxes in which I put  a quarter cup of each acrylic color. I grouped colors that I often mix together. Spritzing them with water whenever they start to dry, these colors remained workable for months. Now I see much more that I can use from the monk's art process.

       On a deeper level, I was impressed in 2002 by the impact of the world on the Tibetan painter, "Pintoladen". He was not isolated from the world.  Tourists like me must be interrupting his work rhythm. He was making thangkas not just for the monastery and local Buddhists but for tourists who may or may not be on a Buddhist spiritual journey. The sale of his work along with other spiritual items made at the monastery supported the monastery in today's world driven by money. Today's world is not perfect.  Neither would returning to a theocracy be better. In by gone ages, the peasants provided for the the ruling monastery.Now it is moneyfrom maybe the Chinese government and tourists.

        At home in 2002  I failed to think of our core similarities and differences until now when I watched a film about a Buddhist convert. Next Wednesday's post will be a review of "A Buddhist with a Camera".

In the next couple of Wednesday posts,
 I will update what kind of art and how I make my work space
comfortable and workable.

    

by Diane: About the header painting

 

The header is a detail  from "Rock and Snow," an oil painting on cradled 12" square by 1 1/2" deep board. It is one of a series begun the summer before my senior year in high school. The first painting was of Humbug Creek with a big moss covered rock - my first oil painting on location.

1960

I have been back to Humbug Creek camp ground two more times and painted the rock and creek. Abstracts often evolve into this series at isolated times.

July 2,000

 

Nov. 3, 2019, down stream from Fall Creek Fish Hatchery and Research Center

 

My demonstration for afternoon watercolor workshop

at

2019 Fall Creek Arts and Crafts Festival

November 2, 2019

 

Painting the rock is always a comfort zone painting reminding me of pleasurable outings into the out of doors. The most recent was done on a marvelous sunny day with not even a breeze at the Fall Creek Festival.  More on the festival watercolor workshops I taught in my next blog Wednesday, Nov. 13.

by Diane; A fix for the painting, Howler Monkey Mother

 

 Yesterday I was unhappy with this painting because it suggested black face to me. After washing away surface color that has not stained the paper, I feel better about the painting. Also I enjoy the way my previous building of the shapes left a texture. Yet I like the contrast before washing the painting and will use the contrast with colors that work with future subjects.

 

Red Howler Monkeys 12" x 9" on smooth hot press Instead of a filbert the brush is Simply Simmons 1 stroke * Plat Long 1/2"

Hot press papers are good for fine detail but also like here the colors spread in great blooms with most of the pigment staying on the surface. Every little touch shows. Also the hot press shows the full brilliance because less pigment doesn't soak into the paper. In this one the brush strokes did little to shape volumes.  I was distracted by the marks in laying down the under-painting in the first step. So never blocked volumes in an abstraction natural to the character of the brush. The lines were made by turning the brush sideways. The square flat shape strokes were from the flat side of the brush.

 

 

Since the Fabriano hot press paper was a big factor in how I reacted while painting Red Howler Monkeys on Thursday's I returned to cold press Fabriano so it would be more comparable to  the painting that was washed in the bath tub. The perfect synthetic Simple Simmons plat was the only brush I used. the rectangular strokes are very regular. My preference is the filbert brush.

 

 

 

 

 

Next Wednesday the blog will be about the influences I feel from the trip to London and Paris.