New canvas

 

I think this canvas is now finished. It's been sitting around in my studio for a while and I pull it out and set it on my easel to see whether I want to add anything. And I don't. So I guess it's finished. 

Just seeing the photo now, I can see some buildings off to the right beneath a stormy sky. It seems to suggest a landscape without being anything like something from real life. 

I love to see what is revealed when a painting is done because I don't start off with any idea of what I want to achieve. This is one of the five I'm doing with the same palette, so it will be interesting to see if anything similar is revealed in the others. I know there are some patterns emerging - circles (surprise 😄), and squiggles, and patches of intense white applied with a palette knife so there are 'sprays' around them. 

Turn it on its head

Turn it on its head... and gain a new perspective.

This page has some almost symmetrical elements and it made me think about how similar it would look if I turned it upside down. Similar, but not exactly the same. There are familiar elements from the other orientation, but they're not quite where you expect them to be. 

It can be so easy to just bowl along with familiarity, but that doesn't make us think. It doesn't challenge our opinions or beliefs. It doesn't open our eyes beyond our filters. Looking at things from another perspective can be done by talking to someone from another culture, reading a biography, having a conversation with someone who has opposing views to your own. We don't need to be afraid to do this - it can help us to solidify exactly what we believe and to see where our own culture and upbringing has shaped our thinking. It expands us rather than threatening us.

Wilful Blindness

Look for the things you are blind to.  

That may seem like an oxymoron - if I'm blind, how can I see it? 

I've just read Willful Blindness: Why we ignore the obvious at our peril by Margaret Heffernan. Excuse the pun, but it is eye-opening. The ways in which human beings ignore the things they don't want to acknowledge, how long work hours don't produce more productivity, and how our brains work when they are overloaded is fascinating. 

The book made me think about how we can look specifically for those things that we may be missing for whatever reason. A lot of it is about asking questions about the stuff you're not receiving information about. It's about raising your hand and asking that question that no-one wants to hear and not being quiet when you don't get an answer. 

We all have filters and biases, but being aware that we have them can help us to start to overcome them.

Don't let the sun go down

 

What do you not want to let the sun go down on?

Of course that yellow circle is the sun on my page. Every day the sun goes down and that day cannot be reclaimed. What do we do with our time? Is it well invested? We all have daily and weekly chores that must be done and they take up a chunk of time. But what do we do with the rest?

What do you want to achieve in life? What would you be disappointed not to achieve? Maybe today is the day to start that project.

Over it

 

I am so over this! At the risk of getting extremely personal and making some people uncomfortable, I am over being in perimenopause. I'm nearly 54 and it should be done by now. Every time I think I've hit actual menopause, there it goes again. I'm over it. I'm sure I'm not alone, but it doesn't get talked about enough.

Inertia

 

The triangles on this page made me think of moving in a particular direction. There are more moving forward than moving back on this page. It's that push-pull you can sometimes get when you're facing something new. There is a desire to move forward, but a pull to stay in your comfort zone. We have to overcome the inertia with a positive input of energy - we have to really want to make the change. 

Broadcasting

 

What are you putting out into the world?

This page made me think of sound. What are people hearing from us? Are we shouting or whispering? Are we whispering when we should be shouting? What do we broadcast to those around us by our speech, but also by our demeanour?

Everything we do and say speaks to others.

Order

 

Where do yo need to be ordered and where can you loosen up?

The crosses on this page go from being ordered both in shape and placement at the bottom to loose and free at the top. They made me think about where in life you have to be ordered - there are certain things that need to be done each day, each week, each year for life to tick along quietly. 

And then there are other places where you can be free and easy, where the consequences of 'getting it wrong' are small. Where, really, there isn't a 'wrong' way to do it. 

There are more places than we might think that can be more free and less ordered.

 

Beneath

 

"Those that try to pull you down are already beneath you." Anon

Don't you feel sorry for someone who feels so bad about themselves that they have to spend time and energy trying to make you feel bad as well? 

Perfect

"My house is perfect as long as there is nothing going on in it." Kathi Lipp

I read this quote on a blog this week and it really stuck with me. Yes, we clean and tidy our houses and it lasts about 27 seconds before someone puts something down/walks on the clean floor/uses the toilet. A lived-in house is rarely 'perfect' and that's its charm. It reflects the life of those who live in it. 

And can't the same be said of a life? A life that is lived to the fullest isn't perfect, because life is messy. 

Is it done?

 

This is the canvas on my easel at the moment. I'm standing back and deciding whether it is done or not. Sometimes it's easy to know that it's finished, and at other times it takes some stepping back and leaving it for a while. 

This one has been mostly covered up from its first outing. I was really enjoying painting large strokes with diluted white paint, especially where it was picking up some of the still-wet paint from the canvas. Here's a video close-up showing some of the details.

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