Hmmmmmm.........

Call me crazy (or maybe others will agree) but I am starting to prefer my looser faster florals that are watercolour and ink over the pieces I slave, sweat and swear over. It's not because of the effort or time that I put into the other pieces that is making me feel this way. I think it is that the inked florals feel more like they have a real piece of me in them - the piece of me I want to be. I get lost in the inking process and it puts me in a real zen state. I have to stop myself from over inking because I go into a little trance like state and could easily get carried away.

The florals that are layer after layer, the ones that I fret over and stare at and think about and plan - I still love those pieces. They are also a part of who I am - a person who worries, stews, overthinks and is rational - but the looser inked paintings, those are the impulsive, fearless, free side of me. Both make me me. They are my yin and my yang. I can't say I could quit doing the planned slaved over pieces but I feel I am moving more towards the carefree, shit happens, go with the flow style. Or at least that is the direction I want to move in. I guess time will tell if the uptight side of me will let that loose side come out. :)

Here is an example. This is a piece I recently completed called 'Bouquet". I love this piece. I love the colours, the flow, the movement within the bouquet. I really really like it. Sure, the analytical side of me finds areas that could be better but I captured what I was trying to capture with this piece and as a whole, I love it. Having said that, there was a lot of thinking and analyzing that went into this piece. Where to have detail where to have less. Where to have midtones,darker values,lighter values. How to get interesting shapes. How to not stray too far from realistic but still have it abstract-ish. A LOT of thinking and analyzing and second guessing of myself. Now look at this one:

This little tulip was done while sitting at the hospital waiting for my husband to get out of day surgery, it was free and loose and the inking took my mind into the zen place it needed to be so that my mind wasn't worrying about my husband being under general anesthesia (no matter how minor the surgery, that is a fear of mine). I did this little sucker with a travel aqua brush - which I discovered today I really don't like but it did the job. The squiggles and doodles with my black ink just happened with no thought, no planning and no brain power. I was in the zone. When I awoke from my mini meditative state, I was happy and content. I wasn't worried if every shape, shadow, tone and value was perfect. I was more interested in how it made me feel and it made me feel happy. After all, isn't that what art should do? Make us feel something even if it's happiness?

And yes, I do realize that virtually no one is reading these blog posts and that it is really a glorified diary and that I am really just talking to myself but what the hell - I do that in daily life anyway and it helps me sort this kind of crap out. If you do happen to be reading this, thanks for indulging my mini therapy session that I just gave myself. :)