Although we had (yet another) heavy rain storm last night, we’ve been having glorious summer weather the last few days. Perfect swimming weather. Lila is great fun to swim with. She usually goes from one person to another (when there is more than me in the water) and checks on them, to make sure they are okay. Very reassuring.
Meanwhile I’ve been painting when I can [when no one is here, as usual, because the builders are still painting the outside, although I think (maybe, quite possibly!) it’s the final few days]. After all these years, it’s still an interesting process, seeing the way a painting changes from beginning to end. As always, I have no idea what a painting will look like when I am “finished” working on it. But I find myself wanting not to repeat the same solutions I’ve been using. I can see new, raw elements demanding to stay, not be painted over. And I can feel the impulse to “tidy” the paintings up. Most of the time I can resist, can stay with the new unexpected elements. Sometimes I can’t.
I have an Independent Studies student this semester, a painter. She’s naturally drawn to abstraction (pun intended). She works hard and does some amazing pieces. One of them is an idea I would like to use. It’s a multiple panel piece but each panel is a distinctly different color. Stealing from my student! O my! And she said she wouldn’t mind if I did. There are just so many possibilities and so little time to paint. Sometimes I feel like I am just starting to figure it out.
Posted by leya at August 2, 2006 08:01 AM