Slant

Slant

Can or can't you feel

a dominant handedness

behind the randomness

of loss? Does a skew

insinuate into the

visual plane; do

the avenues begin to

strain for the diagonal?

Maybe there is always

this lean, this slight

slant. Maybe always

a little pressure

on the same rein,

a bias cut to everything,

a certain cant

it's better not to name.

-- Kay Ryan

Alone

Here is my entry for this week's Paint Party Friday. I'm posting it early because I don't know how long I'll be able to access my blog. I've been locked out of Blogger for the past three days. I couldn't access my own blog or comment on anyone else's. That made me very unhappy, cranky and many other things I won't go into... So while I can still sneak in here I am posting now. ;)

This piece has so many layers on it I lost count. Fun! Tissue paper, paint, ink, rub-ons, stamps, everything within reach went onto the canvas. It also helped me to use up some of those supplies I've been neglecting. Make sure to check out all of the other entries at PPF tomorrow. The party seems to get bigger each week!

Suspended Wishes

Inspired by Misty Mawn's wonderful book, Unfurling.

Mystery Girl

This is my entry for Paint Party Friday. I missed last week and wanted to try and get back into the groove again. This one started as a sketch on paper and then just went from there. I had these textured papers I made from the 21 Secrets journaling class and decided to work on one of those. It is a recycled magazine page, of all things, with gesso, lots of gel medium, paints, inks and whatever else I could think of added to it.

I call her my Mystery Girl. I'm not sure what to think of her. I can't say I trust her really. Once you start to look at her you get an uneasy vibe. Better trust your first instinct! ;)

Make sure to check out all of the other entries for PPF. You'll find so much talent, inspiration and cool art waiting for you!

Aftershock

Deferred Silence

  by Kay Ryan

There is a

deferred silence

which only follows

a deferred sound.

As when an oak falls

when no one is around.

The violence waits

for someone to approach

to have just stopped.

There is that ozone

freshness to the aftershock.

This painting has been through so many stages I forget what it started as. That's what I love about acrylics. If you don't like it, you can always paint over it. I don't usually paint this big but I'm stretching my wings. ;) It's a 24" x 36" canvas. I like that size for abstracts!

I'm taking some great courses online right now. One that I was really wanting to get caught up on is called Soul Restoration offered through the Brave Girls Club. It has been such a help to me. There will be a Soul Restoration 2 starting in June. You can read more about it at their site. I'm bad about signing up for too many courses at once. Then I panic when I realize I'm behind in them all and they will soon be ending. But this one is really great. Even though the official course is over this week, they give you another four weeks to complete all of the material, watch the videos, etc.  

I said that I would show a photo of my easel. Here it is with my painting on it:

I know I said the art room is de-cluttered. And it is...but when I paint I have to put down the canvas tarp (under the easel) to catch all those fun drippies! ;) And you have to excuse the stuff to the side...that's my heat gun, vent fan, etc. for my encaustic station set up just off camera to the right.  

So now that I've started to work off some of my aggression on this painting maybe I can work on something a little more pleasant. ;) We'll see what develops. At least I've broken in the easel. Now there's some paint smeared on it!

Finding My Way

I want to thank ALL OF YOU for your comments from my last post. They really meant a lot to me and I appreciate all of you taking the time to leave such encouraging thoughts. Things are starting to look up.

I spent the weekend de-cluttering my art room. Once again I've gotten it so that I can barely walk in there. Every time this happens I get visions of those TV shows about hoarders. It's not quite that bad but I can see how it happens to people. Anyway, there is another reason I needed to clear some space besides my fear of becoming a hoarder. While on my trip I got a nice, BIG painting easel! It was too big to fit into the car when I bought it at the store (bummer!) so they had to ship it to me. It arrived the day before I got home. Hubby lugged it upstairs and assembled it for me.

So now I can really get busy! And that is just what I plan to do.  ;)

Acceptance

It's Always Darkest Just Before The Dawn

-- Kay Ryan

But how dark

is darkest?

Does it get

jet -- or tar --

black; does it

glint and increase

in hardness

or turn viscous?

Are there stages

of darkness

and chips

to match against

its increments,

holding them

up to our blindness,

estimating when

we'll have the

night behind us?

I'm having to deal with some hard lessons this week. I hope you're having a much better time of it! Hope to be back in the swing of things soon.

Tandem Andy's

Warhol Collage                                    9" x 12"   

I am on vacation this week so I am posting my Paint Party Friday entry early. Plus, tomorrow will be my birthday and I hope to be out celebrating! I promise to make it to all of the artists' blogs at some point this weekend. I am entering two of my older pieces. I call these my "Tandem Andy's". They are two versions of the same piece. The first one is a collage of Andy Warhol. I used CitraSolv papers and acrylic paint on this painting. 

For this second piece I printed the collage out onto silk and adhered it to a  12" x 12" wood panel. Then I painted it with encaustic paints.  

 



I like both versions for different reasons. I like the colors in the CitraSolv papers and the effects they give in the collage. But I really love encaustic paint and the bold colors they brought to the silk. Plus I LOVE the splatter! ;)

Don't forget to check out the other artists at Paint Party Friday. It's always a treat to see what everyone has been up to this week.

Blue Lady: Journal Page

Things Shouldn't Be So Hard

A life should leave

deep tracks:

ruts where she

went out and back

to get the mail

or move the hose

around the yard;

where she used to

stand before the sink,

a worn-out place;

beneath her hand

the china knobs

rubbed down to

white pastilles;

the switch she

used to feel for

in the dark

almost erased.

Her things should

keep her marks.

The passage

of a life should show;

it should abrade.

And when life stops,

a certain space --

however small --

should be left scarred

by the grand and

damaging parade.

Things shouldn't

be so hard.

-- Kay Ryan

I don't know why this lady ended up so sad. Poor thing. But I felt better after I painted her so maybe she needed to make an appearance.  ;)

I'm leaving tomorrow for another trip to Columbus, OH (my real home)! Yay! Going to visit my BFF Sharon for a week (or so...). While I'm there I'll be celebrating my birthday (now I may know where the sad lady came from!), attending a few other festivities, catching up with my sorority sisters, and seeing a few other very good friends. So I'm spending today getting packed and trying not to forget anything. And of course I'm taking my art supplies. On my last trip I took more art supplies than I did clothing! ;) And while I'm there I'll visit the Blick Art Store and see what goodies I can pack into the car trunk...