A New Slant in Artwork

"Observers"

11" x 9.75" on paper
mixed media

Sometimes we just need to move away from the familiar and explore another path, use another medium, a different tool just to shake things up a bit.

I've tried working abstractly in the past but mainly in oils on canvas. Somehow it never truly seemed to work, to feel good.

So this time I pulled out the acrylics, oil pastels and pastels and watercolor papers in the hopes that I could move past that sense of holding back, of trying to be "a serious painter."

I worked on about 6 or 7 paintings that day, all on paper and all some form of mixed media. I found myself losing my sense of time. Before I knew it, it was late afternoon. I went upstairs and had some coffee on the deck, then went back to look at what I had scattered throughout the studio space.

I liked it. Some were funky pieces of just java mugs and teapots with attitudes; some were bursts of summer flowers from shots of my garden last year. This particular one stood out as different and where it came from, I couldn't tell you.

I've always been fascinated by works of the abstracted figure or nude, from Matisse's odalisques to David Hockney's earlier paintings. But if I tried to do a portrait, I usually ended up frustrated.

Maybe I've turned a corner here . . . who knows? But I know one thing: that working freely with the acrylics, watercolors and pastels on large and lovely pieces of paper seemed to allow me the freedom to loosen up, to throw caution to the wind.

I liked that feeling. I must remember that.