Blocking it in

Please excuse the glare. 

Slapping on some color. Still just base coats. Nothing final yet. I am really enjoying this piece! 

My youngest has been on a Lego movie kick, so when I look at certain parts of the painti

Funny how strong connections in our brains can be with very little effort on a conscious level. When I was a teenager I would listen to music while reading. My favorite pastime was immersing myself in a good book. Anyway- there is an album called In My Time by Yanni that I listened to while reading and to this day, when I listen to songs from that album, I can see the images my imagination conjured up from the books I read. Some were fantasy books with Knights and castles and mythical creatures, but the most vivid images are those from All Quiet on the Western Front. As I replay snippets of the music in my mind, I see yellow and pale lime green leaves on trees, pattering against one another in the gentle breeze in a scene described in the book. The main character was alone, away from the blood and terror and loss, and he saw beauty in the simple things most everyone of us takes for granted. I still love that book.

There are emotions and colors and smells and sounds all wrapped up and forever connected in my mind to a few quiet, rippling succession of notes. 

Each painting is the same way. Whatever we focus on, our thoughts and emotions are tied into every brush stroke. My business mentor told me once that an artist paints from the heart. Much more literally than we like to admit. He said that you can always tell when an artist is struggling with something in thereI personal life because the paintings are off. But only until the artist can put their heart back to rights. So true. 

My creative bursts are cyclical. But I have had my fair share of letting putter crumminess affect my work. 

One day, I will keep a record and see if the moon or the stars or the seasons have much influence over my insanely productive periods, or if it is all just chance... Or the Cosmos tossing me bits of artistic growth, like cookies. Sweet little rewards for painting when I don't want to, or when I feel like I have lost forever that divine connection we mistakenly call inspiration.  

Jibber jabber.