Impression - Fall Day

©Robin Edmundson, 'Impression - Fall Day', watercolor, 12 x 16 inches. 
Unframed $300

In 1873, Claude Monet painted a sunrise scene that he titled, 'Impression-Sunrise'.  The critics hated it.  It was the painting that gave the Impressionist movement its name.

His painting has always been a favorite of mine.  I love its subtleties.  He didn't try to say it all.  He simplified.  He made mood more important than accuracy. 

I pull up photos of the painting every so often to study his choices.  What he left out.  What he put in.  The colors he didn't use.  The colors he did use.  Where his focal point is.  Where the lines are.  How he communicated space and atmosphere. 

And then I close my eyes and let my mind's eye take me to a scene I've observed recently around here.  I focus on the feeling, the space, the atmosphere.  I exaggerate the colors.  I play with texture. I use a brush in a new way.  I practice the all-powerful Value.

The piece above is the latest one I've been working on.   I painted the initial washes, then let it sit for a few days, then decided how to emphasize the focal points and how to bridge them.  I added texture, then more, then more. 

And I stopped before it was an overworked mess.   I'm still practicing that. 

I could crop it into a square - and it would be beautiful - but it hasn't decided if it wants to be cropped or not and I'm kind of loving the greens on the far right.

I love that I managed to communicate [and then preserve] the impression of the day.  The bright colors, the clear air, the leaves falling.  This is the kind of creative practice that I love.

So Many Haybales

As part of my creative practice, I've been painting the same view over and over.   I like different things about each one.   Here are a few of them.   

All are painted on 10 x 14 sheets of Arches 140 lb cold press paper.  

Which are your favorites?

Sketchbooks and Sketching

I've been doing the Sketchbook Revival activities over the past little while.  I'm not a sketchbook person, but somehow I signed up for these posts, then forgot and was surprised to get the Day 1 reminder in my email.   Since the vast majority of my creative pursuits are guided by intuition rather than planning, I just went with it. My intention for the Sketchbook Revival was to find a way to be more comfortable with the transitions and to allow myself to be a Confident Explorer.

I've been looking for ways to get more comfortable with the ebb and flow of a creative life.  Transitions are not fun for me.  They are full of panic and fear - and dealing with those feelings only makes it harder to get in the flow of the next project.  Once I'm in the flow, I'm great.

It's transition time right now and here I am getting these great posts and vids all about using sketchbooks, which I don't use the way these guys do at all. [I have sketchbooks that I use for thumbnails, scribbles, notes, really awful attempts at drawing things.  They are nothing to be proud of and I am not exaggerating or being modest.  They are crap.]  As I listened, I kept hearing the term 'creative practice'. 

After a few days, I realized that I don't 'really have a creative practice.   I have a creative business. 

I have a business practice.

I have a busy-ness practice.

No creative practice. 

Huh.    I want to change that.

So, during the very next video, which was the one by Val Webb, I got out one of my crap sketchbooks, my favorite mechanical pencil with an eraser that never stops and a really awesome carbon ink pen [by Jane Davenport that was a gift from my awesome mom] and decided to play along. 

Val Webb is a superb teacher.  Kind, patient and gentle.  Before I knew it, I had a heron sketched out in pencil, then over that in permanent ink.   And then I added all the background stuff and water in ink, spontaneously with no pencil first.   It may not sound like much, but committing a drawing on paper in ink is a big deal for me. 

If I'm going to be really honest, I'm considering doing more of this kind of sketching in a real sketchbook devoted to this kind of work...but only because this one turned out ok.   I have discovered that I'm that person who only considers doing more of something if she can do it reasonably well out of the box.  I don't like to be bad at things and certainly never in public. 

That part of myself is governed by fear and I'm not very happy with that so I'll be thinking about this a lot more.   But hopefully, I'll be doing a lot more of these nature/bird sketches.  I actually ordered a sketchbook for it. I'm going to work these into some sort of real 'creative practice.' 

I'll keep you posted.

Permissions

Experiment in finding wabi sabi.  I'm still learning how to do that.

I've been considering my creative practice lately, which truthfully is mostly about getting through creative blocks.   As part of a plan to find a more comfortable way to work through transitions in the ebb and flow of creative work, I realized I need to give myself permission to do some things.    Here's my list.

It was interesting to realize that I use these with my students all the time, but I wasn't allowing myself the same space to be imperfect, etc.  It's time to fix that.  I have printed them out and put them on my studio wall to remind me of them.  Please feel free to use these yourselves.

• I have permission to make a mess.
• I have permission to work non-linearly.
• I have permission to be afraid.
• I have permission to be uncomfortable.
• I have permission to change my mind.
• I have permission to try something new.
• I have permission to make something that sucks.
• I have permission to ruin something.
• I have permission to do things over and over again.
• I have permission to be a bad artist.
• I have permission to take my time.
• I have permission to give myself time to think about things.
• I have permission to change my process.
• I have permission to garden instead.
• I have permission to stop and learn or study something.
• I have permission to share all of my work even my crappy work.
• I have permission to be a beginner.
• I have permission to go for a walk.
• I have permission to be excited about new things even if they're crap.
• I have permission to be an emerging artist until I am an experienced artist.
• I have permission to make a lot of crap as I explore.
• I have permission to explore all sorts of things.
• I have permission to do bad art  [really bad art].
• I have permission to talk about my bad art.
• I have permission to teach what I know, even if that isn't very much right now.
• I have permission to be happy about this whole process, even if I make bad art and don't know very much.
• I have permission to be a confident explorer of all kinds of new creative things.