Good morning, Helga. Maybe it is afternoon for you already.
I am waiting for paint to dry; so, I thought I'd post some work I've done so far this morning to take me through the weekend. All of these are starters; although, two are work in my art journal. The art journal work started with paint spread on two adjacent pages I leave open while i work on something else. I use the left over paint because I don't want to "waste" it. I go back into some of the pages later and attempt to make something "more" out of them.

Here is an example of a page where I slapped it with left-over paint, drew over it left-handed with a graphite pencil using a post-card image of a linen frock hanging on a sewing form. The right side of the image is a photo I shot just a few minutes ago after i took artist crayons to color in the forms. I merged the two photos in PhotoShop Elements so the comparison is easier to make.

I am ok with these images staying medium size because i like to look it as if "from afar". I use that perspective to help me better see the composition and color blocks. Photographing the progression helps make that process easier. Blogging about it - now that we are doing this - forces me to take a good look at what I am doing, knowing that you will have something pithy to say or playful to do with the images.

I decided this morning that I've been getting too tight with my paintings. Here is what happened to the one we talked about this week. I realized yesterday that I was agonizing over it instead of letting myself "go" with more fun, free style. I'm including it here so I can rationalize to you why I took the turn I did this morning. It may have to rest for months before I go back. I'm wrecking it!!

Don't even talk about it today. let's move into the next three on watercolor paper (x2) and wood panel (x1). For these three, I lined up the substrates, each having a painting on them already, in a row at my counter, selected three analogous harmony colors on the color wheel along with a graphite gray color and let my 2" wide synthetic paintbrush work along with the music playing on my iPod. Again, these are starters for something this weekend after the paint dries.

Finally, the next is the other side of the open art journal where I was doing nothing but adding color swaths then made slightly more deliberate attempts to bring out the dark shape. Hmmm...where could this one go? Maybe to a larger canvas to see if I can intentionally reproduce the composition, colors, and wonderful application of paint.

Can you see why I needed to step back to a playful approach? Crank the music and let it guide my hands without thinking so much about it...

OK, Helga. Show me what you've done these past few days. Talk us through your thoughts and processes.

Eileen