This is the lesson that comes with the watercolor set I bought.

Makin’ stuff all day. I painted the paper for two small photo books, plus three more recycled art projects, plus one painting/collage. Thinking about doing projects like Marianne. (see previous entry). Sometimes it makes me feel like it’s my inheritance. Sometimes it feels like I’m doomed. Sometimes I feel defiant about it.

My sisters have coined a very personal term: to “Marianne” something.

My mom did like to make stuff, and painted for 10-15 years at the end of her life, but often creations were on the fly – so her ideas were perhaps slightly off, or lacked money, time or practice. Like papering the outside entrance of the house with New Yorker magazine  covers. Or her classic: icing warm cakes and having them slide sideways.

So I wrote in this blog about having difficulty transitioning to a new art studio/classes. Then I made my move and re-entered my own home studio, ready to play and make things again.

I jumped on a pile of old CD’s and DVDs, ready to give them a new life.  I totally Marianned them.

I have been having a time, trying to keep what I started with the studio in Portland, and yet returned to really traditional drawing lessons. My current teacher IS an experimental kind of painter. So I’ll get there – but is that where I wanna go? I have felt out of touch with what Mary Oliver called the “wild silky” part of me. My Portland teacher said my willingness to experiment would serve me well.

I just need to do it. I had fallen into thinking that I wasn’t doing things the way my new studio does stuff. But I don’t really know what they do or don’t do! I’m seeing some paintings – finished and in process in the new studio.  I got in there (at home) and painted today. it was fun.

A little tired of a diet of spinach. Spent the last brief drawing sessions at home trying to draw envelopes that look flat on a table top and draw scatter rugs that look flat on floors.

When in a better mood, I understand that it’s great to play music by ear, but a musician has more options and tools and choices if they can play by ear and read music, too.

So I will buck up and continue to do “my scales” and my own interests – both.

Two hours of putting in more and more details of this room. My brain hurts!

A five-minute sketch.

My assignment this week was to draw interiors using perspective. My teacher showed me some interiors by Giacometti, a 20th century Swiss artist.

Mine don’t look like that.

I am getting used to my new art classes/lessons/teacher. I’ve done four classes. I’m not making things – we’re going over a drawing curriculum on an individual basis.

So, back at home, I’m trying to integrate the two teachers’ offerings. I don’t have to abandon what I did in Portland. It was far more personal and intuitive (so far in comparison).

So here is a return to my Portland classes: a drawing warm up in which I try to use as many kinds of shapes and strokes as possible and not make decisions.