Here’s what I’m working on today in the studio.
I did a lot of quick thumbnail sketches for my next Lotus paintings, just to work out the basics of composition. I may not use all of them, and I may do a lot more. For now I’ve started working on the ones I feel are strongest.
I have the plans for my next 5 paintings sketched in pencil onto canvases, and have started painting them!
I’m working on a drop cloth on the floor today, so I can spread several paintings out around me and work on them all at once. I’m listening to music and am in my “painting zone.”
I was just thinking how much I genuinely love painting the Lotus series–I’ve heard that artwork created in a spirit of love and joy will be infused with that energy, and make other people love it. Like I’m somehow filling the actual canvas and paint with a living energy that makes people feel good when they’re around it–a kind of artistic chi. I don’t know if this is true, and it doesn’t make much sense from a logical/physical standpoint. But it’s a nice thought, and people do seem to always love the finished Lotus paintings.
It also makes me think about the idea that whatever you put out into the world will come back to you in other forms. I know this is true in social situations–in general, if I’m kind to people they reciprocate. The same is true if I am nasty or spiteful. This is why I make an effort to be as positive as I can in as many ways as I can–a challenge to be sure, but worth it.
Making art and sending it out into the world is like sending out a gift of beauty and happiness. Does that result in beauty and happiness coming back to me in the form of gifts from others? I think it does. (At the very least, musing about such things while painting makes the work enjoyable for me and keeps me excited about doing it.)
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Cedar,
Thank you so much for sharing the thumbnails! Fantastic! I appreciate what you are doing and the way you do it! God bless you!!!
Lisa
Great post! Hey my garden looks kind of like yours, only circular. Lotuses are sooo wonderful!
Judith
The same is supposed to be true of writing. If you are working on a novel and having fun writing it, it will be fun to read. But if you are not having fun, the general advice is to stop writing and do something else until you can come back to it.
I believe this may be some of the best writing advice I have ever received. It means I have to struggle to write the sort of book I would want to read, not to just write about my life or my experiences per se. As a teenager I struggled much with that my writing was too self-centered, too narrow in focus. But the advice to have fun while you are writing forces you to look outside yourself and make things bigger, bolder, more complex, more symbolic, but also more honest.
I think you successfully accomplish this with your art. :)
I most heartily agree with your philosophy Cedar and it is one that will bless you all of your life.