cedar’s blog

Cedar January 16th, 2007

The Poets & Painters event on Saturday night was a success! I met a few other working painters in my area and made some new friends and valuable contacts. It was a night of poetry and music, and my senses were overloaded even during the parts when I was not painting on stage.

As for the painting part, I felt like I really had no idea what I was doing, but on the upside, this freed me to experiment. At times it was really challenging—how do you take a piece of music that is going so fast you can’t keep track of the lyrics, or a poem that covers very abstract ideas, and use that input as inspiration for a painting, as you are listening to it?

Me, listening hard:

Some of the time, visuals popped into my head as I listened to the performers, and I just went with that, attempting to paint what I saw in my head. Whenever I drew a blank, I just tried to paint how I was feeling, by use of certain colors or brushstrokes (for example, frenetic vs. calm energy, passion vs. sadness, etc.) I was working under time constraints—the rules said I had to start a new painting every time a new poem or song began, and this gave me literally less than 5 minutes to work on most of the paintings. This yielded some interesting results—some paintings that were very uncharacteristic of my usual style, and some that felt more like doodles to me than completed artworks.

But the crowd was really excited to see me paint—I got lots of applause, which made my heart flutter! I sold 2 of the pieces I made that night, and all-in-all, it was a lot of fun. I will probably do it again.

I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed this week. My husband has a cold, and I’ve been trying to keep him supplied with medicine, juice, soup and hugs. My dog threw up everything she ate yesterday and hasn’t eaten yet today, and I’m worried about her. I’ve got a huge pile of paperwork waiting on my desk, and I’m trying to keep up with getting orders for posters out quickly. I have 10 portrait commissions lined up at the moment, for which I am so truly grateful, but as you must know if you too are a busy person, being swamped with business sometimes makes you feel frazzled!

I am looking forward to the springtime—I just can’t get it off my mind. I’m probably affected by spring fever more than anyone I know…I get it bad, starting at the beginning of winter, and lasting all through spring almost until summer. My dreams lately are filled with things like long days spent outdoors, warm breezes, twittering birds, and healthy little buds and shoots popping out of trees and dirt. Every year, the springtime jump-starts my creative energy, filling my mind with imagery and great ideas for paintings.

Every year, I never even realize quite how dead I was feeling all winter, until the springtime makes me feel like I’m coming back to life. Maybe you can relate? Maybe I’m just being melodramatic. *sigh* (Silly melodramatic artists!)

Here is a peek at what’s going on in my studio today:

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