Summer

 

© Robin Edmundson, 'Morning Wildflowers', watercolor, 9 x 12 inches. Framed, $300.  

It’s summer. It’s hot. It’s noisy. I love it.

I’m not going lie, all these cicadas have been enormously entertaining, but I won’t be sorry to see them go. Every 17 years is plenty often enough. [This is my 4th time experiencing Brood X. It’s never dull.]

To beat the heat and the noise, I’ve been walking early in the morning, when things are cooler, a bit quieter and the morning mist is blue in the shade and orange in the rising sun. Even the neighbor’s cows are orange on those mornings.

So many wonderful things to see on my walks this time of year. The abundance of food has made the turkeys brave and I’ve actually met one on the road a couple of times. There are a few rabbits that venture out onto the road in the mornings and I’ve figured out how to behave so that they’ll let me walk right by them. I’ve chatted with turtles and salamanders and a few snakes.

I also happened to be standing in the right place one morning to see where a pileated woodpecker’s nest was and it’s been exciting waiting for the chicks to be big enough to venture out. There is a squirrel that lives in the next tree over and I was surprised and delighted to find out that grumpy neighbors are not just a human experience. I’m glad I don’t live next to that squirrel.

The gardens are looking lovely. My asparagus is almost finished, my peas are producing like crazy, I have baby tomatoes on some of my plants and my beans are getting taller by the minute. I love this time of year.

Wishing you lovely neighbors and an abundance of magical moments.

Blue & Purple flowers

© Robin Edmundson, 'Blue & Purple Flowers' 959, watercolor, 9 x 12 inches.  Framed $300.

I can't wait for summer flowers in the garden.  Can't.  Wait.

The spring irises came and went and the roses are almost done.  I've got phlox and penstemon.  The veronica has just started and there are big buds on the echinacea and snapdragons.   I can feel them calling me to get ready.

What are your favorite flowers? 

Morning Mist

 ©Robin Edmundson, 'Morning Mist on the Water', watercolor 9 x 12 inches.  $300, framed

I've been studying the art of Richard Mayhew and Donald Holden.  They both had a gift for seeing the essence of the landscape and the discipline to leave out anything that was unnecessary.  

This is something that I'm working on.  It's extraordinarily rewarding, but I confess that it is *hard* for me not to fuss and fiddle. 

I've heard people say about some of that type of work that, 'Anyone could do that!', because it looks so simple, so easy.  Doing a few simple layers, might look 'easy' [it's not],  but I've realized that what is really hard is the stopping, the *not doing more*.   Not anyone could stop at that.  That's where the discipline lies.

I was so in love the with the first wash here that I knew it was a perfect chance to practice.   I looked at that first layer for days until just the right strategy surfaced and I gently proceeded.    

Still, I fussed.  I think it could have been simplified further.  

Red Barn, Last Big Snow

 © Robin Edmundson, 'Red Barn, Last Big Snow', watercolor, 9 x 12 inches.   Framed $300.

After that last big snow we had in February, Eric grabbed a pic of this red barn, gold grass and blue snow shadows.  

Simple Images in whose presence your heart first opened.

©Robin Edmundson, 'Place to Rest', watercolor, 24 x 18 inches.  

$750, framed.

‘Synchronicity’ is that series of events that brings something to your focus again and again in a way that feels more than coincidental. I love it when synchronicity happens.

Over and over again, in the past year I’ve seen this quote from Albert Camus, the French philosopher.

‘A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.’

This resonates so deeply with me. I think most of my life I’ve been seeking to rediscover those things that first opened my heart - and most of those moments involved the breathtaking beauty of everyday landscapes.

In my creative journey as a painter, I’ve often wondered why I was drawn to such seemingly insignificant items in the landscape: haybales, a tree, a mailbox.

It’s because in each painting, I rediscover a deep emotional connection to the seasons, the clouds, the woods, and the everyday sacred things that make up my life. Each time I pick up a brush, I honor those things in whose presence my heart first opened.

It’s no accident that this quote keeps popping up in my life at the same time I‘ve been wondering whether I will ever figure out a way to feel at home with the whole creative process of painting. I’m learning to replace some old and ugly ways of thinking with some healthier ones and I think that Camus’ insight is a good place to rest for a while.

There is healing power in painting those things in whose presence my heart first opened and I trust that, in time, I will discover - or rediscover - the joy of the whole process.

Wishing you a rediscovery of the things in whose presence your own heart first opened. 

Cherry Tree, Last Light

 

©Robin Edmundson, 'Cherry Tree, Last Light', watercolor,  9 x 12 inches.  Framed, $300

This time of year, there a space in the trees on the south that the evening sun shines through and spotlights that one little tree.   Enchanting. 

Pink Poppies

©Robin Edmundson, 'Pink Poppies' 951, watercolor, 12 x 9 inches.  

Framed $300

'Negative painting' is the technique of painting around something to show its shape.   We do this a lot in watercolor, since we can't paint light on top of dark.   We have to paint the dark around the light shape to indicate a light object.   

It takes some practice thinking about things differently, but the effects are outstanding and the process is fun, once you get the hang of it.   

Apples & Scale

 ©Robin Edmundson, 'Apples & Scale', watercolor, 9x12 inches.

I've discovered how much fun a still life can be.  I love this crop where you have a sense of what the scene is, but the focus is just that one red apple in front.  

I took some heat for that from a few people in my critique group, but I stand by the decision.   You don't have to show everything.   

Sometimes a poem is just as powerful as a novel.

Beehunter Creek Series - Failing Faster

© Robin Edmundson, 'Beehunter Creek, gold field 949, watercolor, 9 x 12 inches. 

Framed $300.  

In my day job, we’ve been working on some big projects lately. Learning new things, new platforms, new ways of thinking about things - at the very same time that these same platforms are ‘updating & upgrading’, which means that just as we learn how to do something, it changes. At one point we launched a project and it just wouldn’t work. It was a bit discouraging, but our team has a great mindset and at our next meeting we spent some time talking about the notion of ‘failing faster’.

This is the idea that the object of the game is to blaze new territory, build skills and go where we have never gone before. We remind ourselves that new stuff is…new. There are no crystal balls, you just have to wade in and figure it out. The more you do that, the faster you figure things out and reach your goal. It takes time, effort, and a tolerance for failure and frustration.

This made me think of Thomas Edison’s approach to his own work. You’ve probably heard of his ‘Ten thousand things’ quote. I found the real story HERE.

‘… in 1910 in a comprehensive two volume biography called “Edison: His Life and Inventions”. The anecdote was told by a long-time associate of Edison’s named Walter S. Mallory. Edison and his researchers had been working on the development of a nickel-iron battery for more than five months when Mallory visited Edison in his laboratory.

‘I found him at a bench about three feet wide and twelve to fifteen feet long, on which there were hundreds of little test cells that had been made up by his corps of chemists and experimenters. He was seated at this bench testing, figuring, and planning. I then learned that he had thus made over nine thousand experiments in trying to devise this new type of storage battery, but had not produced a single thing that promised to solve the question. In view of this immense amount of thought and labor, my sympathy got the better of my judgment, and I said: ‘Isn’t it a shame that with the tremendous amount of work you have done you haven’t been able to get any results?’ Edison turned on me like a flash, and with a smile replied: ‘Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won’t work.’’

In 1921 Thomas Edison was interviewed by B. C. Forbes for American Magazine. Edison described an incident that matched the anecdote presented by Mallory although he did not provide a precise dialog [BFTE]:

‘I never allow myself to become discouraged under any circumstances. I recall that after we had conducted thousands of experiments on a certain project without solving the problem, one of my associates, after we had conducted the crowning experiment and it had proved a failure, expressed discouragement and disgust over our having failed ‘to find out anything.’ I cheerily assured him that we had learned something. For we had learned for a certainty that the thing couldn’t be done that way, and that we would have to try some other way. We sometimes learn a lot from our failures if we have put into the effort the best thought and work we are capable of.’

I love that last line.

It’s true for art as well. This is why we work in series - to explore an idea by putting into the effort the best thought and work we are capable of.

Recently, I’ve been working on a series of paintings of Beehunter Creek. [You can see some of the early versions here.] For each study, I have a question: What happens if I use this brush? What happens if I use these colors? What if I reverse that? What if all I do is pay attention to the edges? What if I start this way or that way?…

It means that I end up with stack of things that didn’t work, but slowly, slowly I collect the things that did work and if I keep going, then some day all those things will click into place and a higher and higher percentage of the studies I do will turn out well - precisely because I will already know what doesn’t work and I’ll be able to focus on what does. [The painting above is the 5th study I did of the Beehunter Creek scene. I’ll continue to explore it - larger, brighter, looser, etc.]

I’d love to know the things that you’ve been working on, that you have stuck with until you know the things that won’t work and the things that will. Drop me a line and tell me about it.

Here's another of the studies I did in this series. 

© Robin Edmundson, 'Beehunter Creek, 948', watercolor, 16 x 20 inches. 

Framed, $575

Beehunter Creek Series

 ©Robin Edmundson, 'Beehunter Creek, purple', watercolor, 16 x 20 inches.  $475, unframed.

I'm doing a thing this year where I work from one reference photo and spend the year painting it so at the end of the year I have several versions and can let myself experiment in all the ways. 

The reference photo was taken last March on a cloudy day.  Mostly beige, but I love the lines. It's a good photo to work from.  I want to emphasize here that the point is *not* to copy the photo, but to use it as a jumping off point.  

This means that I'll leave things out, simplify, go crazy with color, experiment, paint different sizes, etc, and if I drift away from the literal, that's ok - great, even!  [In the ref photo, there was a large tree branch coming in from the left.   I left it out completely.]

©Robin Edmundson, 'Beehunter Creek - 856', watercolor 8 x 10 inches.  $190, unframed.

©Robin Edmundson, 'Beehunter Creek', pencil study, 4 x 6 inches. 

I have a couple more paintings of this scene already in the works and I'll post them as they're done. 

Color - Big Color

 ©Robin Edmundson, 'Dark Red Tree', watercolor, 16 x 20 inches.   $475, unframed. 

[Affiliate links below]

I discovered the art of Richard Mayhew recently.  It was one of those totally serendipitous things where something caught my eye and then I did a little research and quickly found myself falling down a rabbit hole of brilliant color and landscapes that break all the rules.   'Transcendence' is open in my studio all the time now. 

It dovetailed nicely into the study of Wolf Kahn's work which I'm doing now, too.  I love reading what he has to say about his work and his process.  He's another rule breaker, in love with color.  

As I was playing with the ideas they presented, I realized that for me the trick will be how to think about the light first, then let loose with the color.  I have a lot of work to do. I worked on this piece for a couple of weeks, a bit here, a bit there, a lot there.  I left it up in the studio for a while, not really knowing what to do with it.  Then Claire came in and said, 'I love it.  It's done.'  

I'll be playing with these ideas more.  

Winter Woods

 ©Robin Edmundson, 'Winter Woods', watercolor, 8 x 11.5 inches.   $225, unframed.  

I have the tremendous pleasure of working with Angela Fehr as her director of operations and part of my job is to spend time in her online community.  The membership focus is to become heart-led in your creative practice; to work on mindset as much as technique; and to learn to enjoy the whole creative process in a way that allows you to become your own favorite artist.  It is truly a joy to spend time there every day. 

Last month, one of the lovely members of our online community posted a reference photo and told everyone to paint it their way.   [Thank you, Deborah Ropp!]  The painting above is my version - leaning more toward a southern Indiana woods, than a northern woods.   [Yeah, it's what I know.]  

Deep Woods, Sacred Ground

 

©Robin Edmundson, 'Two Trees, Deep Woods', watercolor, 18 x 24 inches.  $650, unframed.

Someone asked me recently what my personal symbols are. Those things that show up in many areas of life - the way some people have rainbows, or butterflies show up everywhere. I was mystified for a while. I don’t really collect things like that. 

And then one day I looked around the studio. Trees. A forest of them on my walls. Big ones. Little ones. Trees in all the seasons. 

Trees are a potent symbol for me. One of my favorite symbols is Yggdrasil, the Norse tree of life. Often it is depicted with a large beautiful crown - and an equally expansive root system. Balance. Strength [as opposed to power]. Life.

I can see woods from every window of my house. I walk there every day. The woods are my sacred ground. I move through the woods and the woods move through me. It’s an exquisite dance of spirit.

It’s hardly surprising then that trees show up in my work and on my walls. 

I’ve been thinking about ‘sacred ground’ ever since. Mulling over what that means for me, what it means for the woods and how we approach and care for them. 

The woods are a temple of the spirit for me. A place of rest, of peace, of solace. The dwelling place of god. Or God. Or Goddess. Or Spirit. Or the universe. Whatever works for you. 

It’s a good place - the best place - this sacred ground. 

I hope you have a chance to find and tend your sacred ground this season.

Ironweed

©Robin Edmundson, 'Ironweed', watercolor, 8 x 10 inches.  

Framed to 11 x 14 inches.  $280.

I love ironweed.   I could [and do] stand at the side of the road and just look at it swaying with all that pink gorgeousness in the breeze. 

Lucky for me, the cows hate it and will eat around it, and fertilize it, thus ensuring that it proliferates with abandon.   

Spray over the Dunes

 I grew up in northern Indiana, not far from Lake Michigan.   I spent delicious summers with my grandparents right off the lake and we walked there often.  The lake was a big part of my childhood.   

©Robin Edmundson, 'Spray over the Dunes', watercolor, 10 x 14 inches.  

Framed to 16 x 20 inches.  $375.

On stormy days, it was impossible to tell where the sky ended and the lake began.  The waves would crash into the dunes or the breakwater and spray would fly high enough to see from a safe distance away.  To a little girl, all that water power was magical. I think this is where I learned to love the power of big water and weather.

Course Review - Ian Roberts' 'Brushwork & Color' Course

Earlier this month, I finished a Brushwork & Color painting class with Ian Roberts.  It was transformational.

There were a few challenges:

• Ian is an oil painter and all the demos were in oil.  I am a watercolorist, not interested in working with oil.
• We had a specific set of primaries to use.
• I am an inveterate comparer of my work to others'.  This does not go well for me. 
• I wanted to stay caught up despite a number of other things going on:  big house projects, kids dealing with covid & college/job stresses, my own job, etc. 

Some of my aha! moments:

• A good Standard Operating Procedure will get you a decent painting regardless of whether you're having a bad day or a bad attitude.  Follow the SOP.  
• Green in bright sunlight can be represented by a number of colors that aren't actually very green.
• Start by thinking about the focal area; let the rest fall into place after that.
• You can't ignore backgrounds.
• Sometimes the 6th version is when you get it.
• Value studies are very enjoyable.  I don't need an excuse to do them.   [I feel a series of value studies in purple coming on....]
• I'm better at still life than I think I am.
• It is perfectly acceptable to mix all the colors I need to get a color/effect, despite the watercolor 'rule' to never mix more than 2 or 3. 
• Purple vines are freaking awesome. [I already knew that.]
• Evening light goes really pink.
• I know my watercolor pigments well and have an excellent grounding in color theory.  I can trust my choices in primaries that are appropriate for watercolor. 
• It is possible to paint flowers in large simple masses and have it work
• Consider everyone's piece on its own merit, not on how closely it matches the ref photo.  Look for the genius in their work.
• Goal:  Sing the song on the paper, with gusto, my way.   It doesn't matter how everyone else is painting the same scene.

Now that the course is over, I'm formulating my goal for the next few months.  It will probably have something to do with working through my own reference photos and seeing if some of the bad ones can be salvaged.  [Seriously,  Ian had us working with nothing but greeeeeeen ref photos that had good bones, and showed us ways of tweaking them to make them really interesting.  I am sure I can find ways to do that with my own ref photos.]

Here is some of my work from the course: 

Value Study

Muting Color: Still Life with Squash

Muting Color Exercise 2

Limited Palette: Purple/Blue instead of greens.

Painting Light 1

Painting Light 2

Poppy Field

Daisies

Sunflower & Rose

Confession:  I'm not ready for winter.  So I was happy to find these small floral paintings that I had done over the summer and never posted here.   

I'm thinking you need a bit of cheer, too, right?   I hope these do it for you.

©Robin Edmundson, 'Sunflower', watercolor, 11 x 7 inches. 

Framed to 11 x 14 inches.  $280

©Robin Edmundson, 'Rose', watercolor, 7 x 5 inches. 

Framed to 8x10 inches.  $125

Explorations in Abstract Expressionism

 

©Robin Edmundson, 'Abex #1', watercolor, 10 x 14 inches.  

Unframed.  $250

Some things are just hard to talk about, and that's exactly what is great about 'abstract expressionism'.  It's art for the sake of expression - with no words or realism needed.   

Each piece is devoid of representation - except for what the viewer brings to the experience.  

I approached each of these with a personal idea/theme in mind - and I just let my intuition guide me through the process.   In the end, I learned quite a bit about myself and I find these exercises extremely enlightening.  

As I've shown them to people, the reactions are quite different from what I thought I was expressing and I am delighted at how personal the experience has been for me and for each viewer.  

I used each as an opportunity to explore compositions, intuition, new materials and new colors.  

Here are a few more that I've done lately: 

©Robin Edmundson, 'Abex #2', watercolor, 18 x 24 inches.  

Unframed.  $650

©Robin Edmundson, 'Abex #3', watercolor, 18 x 24 inches.  

Unframed.  $650

©Robin Edmundson, 'Abex #4', watercolor, 18 x 24 inches.  

Unframed.  $650

What have you been doing these days to express the unexpressable? 

Slowing Time

 

© Robin Edmundson, 'Backlit Barn, Early Fall', watercolor, 10 x 14 inches.  $375.

It's October already.  The leaves are turning and we've had our first frost. This year has kept on moving despite all the upheaval.  

I've been thinking a lot about time this year.   Sometimes it felt as if things were standing still and other times, I blink and it's 3 months later. 

I find myself a little anxious that things are moving too quickly for me and I feel like I'm always behind.  I want things to slow down.

Do you remember the Star Trek movie, Insurrection?   One of the themes is the ability to slow time.  There are a couple of lovely scenes where Picard is focused on something so intently that time slows right down.  

It's that intention, attention and focus that helps me 'slow time'.  

I was in the garden the other day, quickly picking beans, trying to finish and cross that thing off the list, when I looked up and saw a vulture gliding in slow curves on an updraft.  I heard myself breathe deep and as I focused on that beautiful arc of movement in the sky, I could feel time stop for moment.

And I watched.

We talk about time slowing down, but time is a constant.  Time marches on.  Time flies.  In Latin, 'tempus fugit' literally means time flees. It runs away.

It's we who have to slow down.  To stop. Time slows when we slow.  

That afternoon in the garden, it was not time that slowed and stopped. I was the one who slowed, who stopped for those moments with intention, to pay attention and to focus on that miracle of flight.  

That smooth glide through the sky.  

That silent, joyful, gentle spiral.  

Higher. On a breath of warm wind.  

Higher.  

Higher. 

Around in another slow arc. 

One more time.

Higher.

I stopped; time stopped.

The vulture floated higher and my heart rose with it.

I hope, my wonderful friends, that you take a moment to stop time for something lovely that crosses your path today. 

Ease

I've been thinking a lot about ease lately.  

This year has been the antithesis of ease.  Mostly I do just fine, until suddenly I find that I am so very not fine.  Navigating the roller coaster is uncomfortable and difficult.  

Everything seems harder.

Over and over lately I've been repeating the question:  How can I make this easier? How can I make this easier?   How can I make this easier?   What am I doing wrong?   How can I make this easier?

Which begs the question: What is ease?  

For me, ease is the quality of a process that obtains maximum results for minimum effort.  

Maximum results.  Minimum effort.  

Five apricots.  Reference photo.

I'm at that stage in my creative process where I'm painting a lot of stuff that ends up in the dud pile, to be cut up and used for journaling pages later.  It's discouraging.  I'm trying to be focused so that I can use this time to learn, practice, and refine new skills.   But the duds keep coming.   

Piles of them.  

And in my mind the constant refrain:  Why is this so hard?   What am I doing wrong? What can I do to make it easier? 

I started examining my stories around ease.  I have familiar ones:

• Work is good. Good people work. If I work, then I am a good person.
• In order to be a good person, I have to work.
• The harder I work, the better person I am.
• I have achieved some awesome stuff by working hard. Therefore, great achievements only come after hard work.
• I am really good at making things harder. 
• I don't know how to make things easier.   

And I discovered some new ones:

• I feel like I have to MAKE things easier.  
• The more I control things, the easier they are.
• Control = ease.  Ease = control.

What if I changed things up a bit? 

Make it easier.

Make Let it be easier.

Let it be easier. 

Let it be.

What if ease is about letting things be instead of controlling them?

Honestly, I actually have no idea, at all, if that's true or not.

Five apricots.  Drawing.

I am all about the plan.  Getting a specific outcome.  

That requires control.   If I let go of control, I let go of the specific outcome.

New Question:  Is the point of ease to learn to let go of a specific outcome?  

I'm not so sure.

Is that the kind of doctor you want?   The kind of auto mechanic?  The kind of builder?  I don't think so.  Specific outcomes can be very important.

Maybe the point is to understand where it's important to have a plan and keep your eye on a specific outcome and where it's important to let it go and to work with the flow instead.

That feels much more a yin/yang thing, requiring judgment, intuition and balance. [That doesn't sound easy, but perhaps it does fit the requirement of maximum results for minimum effort.]

This begs new questions:  

• What am I doing that requires a specific outcome?  
• What requires flow?  
• What can I learn to just let be?
• What am I doing that needs to change categories? 
• To what extent does 'habit' contribute to ease?
• Is ease a function of one's ability to make something a habit?

Which brings me to art.  It's a perfect place to learn to go with the flow, especially since I'm a watercolorist and trying to literally 'go with the flow'. 

I can't seem to do it. 

There is So. Much. Pressure. to produce photorealistic art, regardless of your medium.  [Look at the gorgeous piece that took Best of Show at the Hoosier Salon:  https://hoosiersalon.org/portfolio/96th-annual-exhibition-2/] 

Photorealism is a specific outcome that requires a lot of planning and work.   Not a lot of flow.  

Even if I decided to shoot for impressionism or tonalism or some other -ism, that, too, is a specific outcome, which by extension, requires planning and work.

So again, I return to the questions:  How can I get maximum results for minimum effort?  How can I make this easier? --> How can I let this be easier? --> Should I just let this be? 

And that in turn begs another question:  What is it exactly that I am trying to make easier?  What is it exactly that I could possibly just let be? 

Am I trying to make each piece easier?

Am I trying to make the whole process easier? 

That last one especially resonated.  If I am trying to make the process easier, and the way to 'ease' is by letting it be, then the trick is to recognize what my process actually is and just flow with it.  Accept it; embrace it; go with it.  Even the hard parts.

Part of my process is the exploration phase.  It's the hardest part for me.  

And then this question shows up:  Why is it so hard - What makes it so hard?

Is it because exploration needs an element of play and I'm just not good at playing?

Is it because I am I trying to make myself/my art/my process something that I'm not/it's not? 

There are some big things that resonate for me here.  For the next while I'm going to be thinking about what makes a piece easier and what makes the process easier.   

What does 'ease' mean for you?