Painting as Meditation

I'm getting ready to move, and my house has been full of craziness. To rest my brain from this stress, I've been burying myself in painting.

I'm still painting some bluebonnets. So let me clear the air about a myth...There is a myth that it is illegal to pick bluebonnets, but it is just a myth. Don't believe me, see here. DPS says it is legal, as long as you don't pick so many that it is defacing public property and that you don't trespass onto private property. So, I consider my 4 bluebonnets okay. (P.S. They last a long time. 1 week later, and they are still happy in the pot. They just slowly leach the blue out. Now they are a pale sky blue.)

They look quite dark for bluebonnets, but I painted these from real life, and when I squint down, these are the colors I see. (The picture washes out the lighter portions too much for good balance.)

Also, I worked on a large size ocean abstract that is very calming for me to paint. And I started some more ballerinas. (These are unfinished, but you get the idea.)

This last one is the one I am most proud of how it came out. Painted it from a picture on the Internet, but modified it a bit. (I prefer not facing people, so I keep a look out for backs of people.)

Mixed Media

Several students in my class are into mixed media these days. Scrapbook paper is having its heyday. Some of the most amazing artwork has come out of these students, so I finally decided I needed to try to experiment with it...only I took it a step towards wild, literally...

Before I leave Texas (I am moving out of state in a few months), I decided it was time to embrace the state flower: the bluebonnet. It has long been a staple of landscape painting, made famous by Onderdonk. He really made Texas landscape painting its own category.

But when I told my class my intentions, I think most of them rolled their eyes. Every Texas artist sooner or later tries to paint them, and most of them are not considered to be successful. If not trite--a field with the requisite live oak, then there is significant criticism about the right color of the bluebonnet.

It seems I have entered a minefield.

I actually started painting a truck that I wanted to be surrounded by bluebonnets, and I ended up leaving it in a grassy field.

I still plan on painting this gorgeous old thing in the bluebonnets, but it is just a glorious mess of lights and darks for the moment.

On a picture that could definitely be considered trite in normal circumstances, bluebonnets along some railroad tracks, I decided to loosen up.

I started with some wood grain paper and peacock feathers paper. I had a clear vision of an "X" composition. Then, I needed some texture. What I decided to add had everyone in my class pulling over each student in the class to ask, "Guess what she used for the texture?" Can you guess?

Roots. I had a dead plant and pulled the roots out of the pot, dirt and all.

I began glueing them in with thick gloss medium, but I realized it was going to be difficult to work with because so many of the roots wanted to stick out, more 3D than I liked, so I applied a layer of gesso that would also allow me to paint without constantly loosing my texture and dirt to the ground.

Next came the paint.

At least it kept it interesting.

Two more, not mixed media but some good texture: