Nothin' but time

Usually at least one weekend in the month i have a CRAZY action packed two days of a total frenzy getting ready for a class and a workshop and a book swap. July is different. I took the month off from teaching! Our altered book round robin group is on summer hiatus - so no workshop to prepare and no book to alter.

So there should be lots of time for PLAY. Sadly i do very little of art for art sake. I mostly work in round robins or swaps and prepare for classes - doing up samples, etc. The past few months i have particpated in a dozen or so weekly challenge blogs. That has been fun - but honestly - i just make up something little, very quickly, and don't spend much time in my art room.

I have been thinking a lot about painting again. I went through about a 3 year period where i painted non-stop. But hardly anything in the last 6 years. I mostly do copies of other people's art. I am pretty good at recreating a reasonable fascimile of an existing piece. I suck out loud at doing anything original. I always thought if i spent more time on it - i would develop my own style. But i got into paper arts and the painting fell by the way side.

Up top is a painting i started a few years ago and never quite finished. Mind you it is decent enough that it hangs over our bed.

You can see the original by Sabzi that i was copying from above.

We plan to finally get around to painting (or having painted that is) our living/dining room, stairs and hall. Our neighbour runs a painting contracting service - so he will give us a good price. I have narrowed the colour down to a half dozen perfect robin's egg blue with a hint of green - neither too minty nor too baby blue. We plan to pick one and go for it. As my hubbie said, we are known for our bold colours - so it is not time to go all pale and subtle. You can see the current yellow ochre colour the walls are now in the shot at the top of the blog entry.

I pulled a couple of clippings out of some magazines/catalogs with some artwork i think would look cool with the new blue walls. This first one is by J.B. Hall and was shown in the Ballard Designs catalog. I love the colours and how the circles look so architechtural while at the time evoking coffee stains. yeah - i am pretty sure that's what the artist was going for.

This next piece is by Beatriz Milhazes from an Elle Decor magazine spread. Again it features circles and is collagy and painterly at the same time. See more of her work HERE.

It reminded me of the work of Anahata Katkin, especially her mixed media mandalas. Here is her blog.

So we'll see what trouble i get into this weekend - that looms ahead of me with no "must do this" obligations. I generally work best with a deadline - so it is hard to motivate myself to just "do some art". I could paint or i could just watch TV and read magazines. But i think i will paint. It is time.