In February of 2014, I discovered that I was blessed with a gift of painting. I have always been interested in, and dabbled in, other areas of art involving three dimensions. I was mesmerized by macrame in the 70's and 80's, I played with clay in college, I currently design and sew my own line of project bags, tote bags, and small purses. Two-dimensional art (drawing and painting) was never anything I believed I could wrap my brain around, so I never tried.
Until February 14, 2014.
On February 14th, 2014, I attended a Wine and Canvas event with 3 other teachers from school. It was our single ladies Valentine's Day celebration. They "wined" and canvassed, I "designated drove" and canvassed! It was really a lot of fun. The company provide all the materials, the venue (Viking Vineyard) provided the wine and snacks for purchase. An art instructor guides you through painting the same picture. True to my go-outside-the-box nature (always wanting to make things uniquely mine), I just began playing with color and changing things in the painting because I was fascinated with the acrylic paint. The artist kept coming over and telling me she loved what I was doing with the colors. At the end, several people offered to pay me $1 to have their picture taken with my painting so their friends would think they painted it. We all had a good laugh. I thought it ended there.
But that experience had ignited a spark in me. I went out the next day and bought a basic set of inexpensive acrylics, a tabletop easel, a few sizes of canvas boards and semi-decent brushes. They sat at home for 2 weeks. I had a painting in my mind, but I didn't know how to start. I was scared to try. I had never taken formal art classes in high school or college, and I had no drawing background. My mind was as blank as a new canvas!
Finally, on February 28th, I sat down in front of my easel with a big paper plate for a palette, a few mason jars for water and a brush holder, and a few rags. I squeezed cadmium red medium, pthalo blue, cadmium yellow medium, titanium white, and a squeak of mars black acrylic onto my paper plate. Those were such foreign names to me then, but somehow I knew I could use them to mix whatever color I needed. I knew what the basic complementary colors were and the colors they made when mixed. That's basic elementary art stuff. So I dove right in.
I painted a sunset sky with a few green hills and two sheep standing on the hills. The first sun looked like a cartoon, so I fixed it and like the effect much more. I didn't know how to paint sheep, so I looked them up online and figured it out. However, now I know they need shadows under them to "ground" them. I don't know whether to leave it, since it was my very first on-my-own painting, or to fix it. This was completed February 28th.
But then I knew I loved this painting thing and I wanted to try some from pictures...a flamingo for my daughter, Morgan, was first. I found a photo of a flamingo online and cropped it to what I thought would make an interesting painting. I had such fun mixing colors and seeing what happens, and I learned about shading with different values of the same hue (although I didn't know what those were called at the time). I didn't like the black in the beak, though. It was too stark and bothered me. So I mixed in some of the darker pink in the flamingo and I liked it much better. It seemed to "fit" with the picture. This was completed February 29th.
I took it to show the art teacher at school, and he explained about mixing your own black. So I decided that would be my next thing, as a bunny painting for my son, Tyler, was next. He had a little toy stuffed bunny he adored as a child (and still has it). He had named it "Patches", and I wanted to paint a real one for Tyler. It was from a picture of a painting that is another artist's copy of a painting called "Blue Dutch" by artist Richard Murray. I mixed my black with a blue hue and used burnt sienna a lot with the background. Complimentary colors, right? Brings out the blue! This was completed March 5th.
Then the horrible tragedy of March 12th came. It was a snow day for us due to the frigid cold, so we were not at school. In the early afternoon, I got a phone call from one of the teachers on my team that there had been a shooting in a home, and it was a Stanton student who was shot. An hour later, I got the horrible phone call from our Guidance Counselor that it was AJ, one of the sixth grade boys on my team. He had been shot accidentally with a handgun in another home, where AJ was visiting while his parents were working. It was the most heart-wrenching thing I had ever experienced in my teaching career. About 15 minutes later, another teacher on my team called and said that the kids know, as it was being posted all over Instagram. I got on Instagram, and was instantly visually bombarded with the multitude of repostings of the only selfie AJ had ever posted on February 20th.
I was haunted by that picture, and kept being drawn to the little smirk hiding behind the serious look, as if he was trying not to smile. A voice in my head said, "You have to paint that for his parents." I said no way...I had barely started painting, and attempting a portrait was way beyond my thinking. That voice in my head said again "You have to paint that for his parents." I believed then that it was God speaking to me and I said aloud "I will, but you must see through my eyes and and guide my hand, because I don't know what I am doing". He did just that. I had never painted faces, noses, eyes, mouths, chins, hair...oh the colors in his hair...nor fabric! When I got stuck, I prayed and the answer to try this or that came to me. I was in such an emotional state with this portrait that God had to be guiding me because I cried so much while painting it, and while NOT painting it. It gave me more peace to sit down at the easel and see AJ's face appear. It was hard to give it up, but I knew in my heart it was not meant for me.
I finished it March 17th, the day after his funeral, and I took it to the local frame shop downtown. We found the most beautiful frame. It took a week for the framing to be complete, and I delivered it to his grieving parents during spring break. It was a complete blessing for all of us. His mom's first remark after the wave of emotion subsided when she took the paper off the painting was "You captured the smirk in his smile and his beautiful hair." I had no idea of the signifcance that selfie held for his mom. She told me that to her, it was a marker of AJ reaching the time when he was coming into himself as an adolescent and putting himself out there to see what response he would get, mostly from the girls. His little 3 year old sister, to make the blessing complete, took one look at the portrait and kissed her brother's face three times.
A tragedy like this changes one's life and one's perspectives on life.
I was beginning to get a feeling that there was some grander purpose to having been given this gift of painting, but I wasn't sure what it was yet.
I had to paint something happy after that, and chose a photo of this chubby little cardinal for Mom. I really put a lot of time into the feet and the branch. I didn't realize that the cardinal had such significance when appearing after a loved one had passed. This was perfect for Mom since my dad had just passed away in March of 2013. This was a completed later in March. The background is not that bright, but is a softer, deeper green.
I took my first beginning watercolor class in April of 2014 at the Cuyahoga Valley Art Center. Our first assignment was to copy a painting from a favorite artist in one color - monochromatic - to learn about value. I love Monet and tried a painting of his, but it did not read well in monochromatic watercolor . Then I looked at, and was intrigued by, at his self portrait in oil paint, and there I am, trying the face thing again. I made him a little chubbier than his starving-artist original, mainly because I have a little trouble with proportion since I don't really draw. But I had a wonderful time working on it. I discovered that watercolor is much harder than acrylic because you have to leave the light areas and work your way to the darker areas...like thinking backwards!
Monet painted this one.
I painted this one.
Our next assignment was a lesson in painting negative spaces with a blended wash of two colors. Our instructor suggested ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. I wanted it darker and had bought this lovely indigo, so I used it with burnt sienna and LOVED the colors! The neutrals are wonderful! Midnight Birches is the result. I had it framed downtown, and it was suggested by my water color instructor that I enter it in the juried watercolor exhibit at the art center. I did, it was accepted, and it was on display (with another watercolor painting I did of tulips) for a month. It was wonderful attending the exhibit with mom, seeing my paintings up there with those of all the wonderful, talented watercolor artists in the area. After the exhibit, my mom told me that my son really loved Midnight Birches. I have it hanging on my wall, saving it for his first house. Mom has the tulips. I didn't photograph those yet.
Our final assignment in class was a landscape, but I did a woods-scape. This is the most freely I have painted and the most watercolor-style looking painting that I accomplished thus far. I used a picture and altered it quite a bit. It reminds me of the clearing ahead when hiking the trail in the local woods in my town.
In August, I was called by a woman from the CVAC asked if I would contribute a painting to their entry of a collage of paintings about Summit County for the Akron Art Prize competition. The painting had to be all blues, all reds, or all yellows. The title of the collage was Primarily Summit. I was a bit confused because I hadn't been painting very long and wasn't as accomplished as these other artists, I thought. I told her I had only been painting since February, and she chuckled and told me she had been in my watercolor class and KNEW the work I did. I was honored to be asked. I knew what I wanted to paint. The Cuyahoga Valley National Park system has set aside the nesting grounds of the Blue Herons as protected land. I wanted to paint a blue heron...in all blues. The darkest blue in the painting is mixed with, of course, burnt sienna, and heavily saturated to look almost black. This was painted in 2 days.
Completed August 17th
They still needed a few more paintings, especially in yellow, so I decided to paint Goldie. The "black" is really perelyne violet mixed with cad yellow and heavily saturated. The "white" is titanium white with a little touch of cad yellow light. (I LOVE the names of paints!) I painted those feathers 4 times to get it right! I finished it in two days, so I was in a rush and I don't like the foot. I can fix that now that I have the paintings back. I am also painting out the two lower flower things and maybe the big lower leaf bud...they don't need to be there.
Completed August 20th
I am certain now that my gift of painting is intended more for others, not so much for myself. I am happiest when I start a painting for someone special in my life. I think of them while I paint, pray for them, bring up old and new memories of times with them and how they have touched my life. Maybe this is a little about me, too. I get so much pleasure from watching the painting unfold, and I am so very relaxed and happy when I paint.
I purchased a new camera and want to take my own photos to paint. Katie, my sheltie, and I will take long walks to area parks and nature preserves. I got rid of all my eclectic dining room furniture, some lovingly passed on to me by friends 10 years ago, some purchased at the secondhand store 13 years ago.
And I turned my dining room into a wonderful painting and sewing studio. I LOVE it! I have collected fabulous tubes of acrylics and watercolors with color names that just feel delightful to say. I have acquired separate sets of lovely brushes for watercolors and acrylics, I have different sizes of nice canvases and quality watercolor paper, and the ideas for paintings for friends and family keep building up in my mind, aching to be let out. I just purchased a bunch of used books on beginning oil painting, along with wonderful walnut-oil based paints made in Oregon and lovely brushes that are begging to be filled with paint. I am SO ready to learn!
Sadly, I don't really have time to paint with the needs of school and teaching.
But what an adventure I can pursue in retirement!
