Musing

This Period of Learning To Paint

For the past several months I have been on a learning journey with watercolor and gouache. I never anticipated working with a paint brush in hand but here I am being thoroughly challenged by it and waking up each day wanting to do more of it. I have absolutely loved this period of learning to paint, of feeling new frustration and new challenges and of occasionally rising to meet them. Painting lets me create in a more fluid and flexible manner than needle felting. While rush and hurry are not my goals, seeing notable progress on a piece is certainly satisfying.

Watercolor on paper 5 x 7″

For the last couple years I have been wishing away the work load of looking after the real sheep and the real dogs in order to sit still and create artwork of them. Yet doing all the leg work a farm requires and being immersed in daily experiences with the animals fuels the desire to create as much artwork of these subjects as can be fit into the remainder of life. The worry of wasting time and not being able to create fast enough is real and distinct.

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Drought, Resilience and Art

When tagging and sorting market lambs this fall I was pleasantly surprised at their weights. A look back at a few photographs from the summer season and the surprise seems unfounded. So does the dry conditions of the prairie apparently. All I took note of this past summer was the lack of water and the abundance of grasshoppers. I missed what the prairie was doing, how much it was continuing to grow, regardless of the hardship it is under. I have been going on at length about the dry conditions here and yet even with drought and grasshoppers the photos show an abundance of quality food that any sheep would be eager to dive into.

summer grazing sheep

There is a resiliency in the land that makes my heart sing to see it, the weights of those market lambs are all nature’s doing.

This makes me pause to consider what I have been missing in my pursuit of being artist. At first glance into my studio what I take note of is the growing pile of abandoned efforts, ruined attempts, and false starts. Some days it’s a struggle to even go into the space and try again. I don’t even see the successes of the summer. I forget that while I am struggling with a new medium pieces are still selling. I forget that, as long as I show up and put in effort, what will emerge is a skill set I did not have before. What will emerge is artwork that is my own style and therefore re-energizes me. I feel as though I am in an artistic drought, meanwhile my artistic resiliency is being built, the seeds still being planted for when that hint of rainfall finally does arrive.

collection of watercolor paintings in progress

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Begin Again Before You Feel Empty

How it can be so difficult to put words, or brush strokes, or pencil marks, onto a blank page is a mystery to me. Taking the action to start any activity of relevance in one’s life is one thing that does not seem to get easier with practice.

It is certainly true for me that the hardest thing to do is put the first words down, or lay the first fibres out, or make the first pencil mark on that too-clean, pristine white page. Doesn’t matter what activity it is, the starting point is a hangup. Even though I’ve conquered thousands of previous starts this is still the case.  And the level of difficulty with starting looms ever larger whenever I leave a significant gap between writing one article, or making one piece of art, and the next. Left in the gap, the resistance grows thicker and heavier until the idea of making anything at all is shrouded in doubt and purposeful forgetting. Even if I manage to do other writing, starting the project that has been lying in wait is a near impossibility.

Starts are so obscure. They are indistinct and vague and they are subject to certain deletion or remaking. They mirror real life a little too much, and like life, they require courageous rising up every single time in every single day.

wool sheep eating grassesThis brief reflecting brings me around to sheep of all creatures, and to a solution that sounds a little like heaven to me. I know it works for them… when you do get going, just go ahead and graze, do not stop until satiated, and always begin again well before you feel empty. I believe the last part is key. If life would cooperate with such a schedule I’d be a happy camper indeed.

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