Thursday, April 11, 2013

From Life....


Still working away on the "October" tapestry. You can see I'm past the mid-point. I've put a color maquette behind the upper portion, because it is all about color. Fiddley little tiny bits of color to bounce off each other. So the upper half will weave even slower than the bottom half did!

Seriously.


My world is all about color right now. Our apricots, which I posted had bloomed early, have now frozen in a late freeze. So I'm glad I still have some jam and pie fillings from last year put by. I thought I had lost my tulips, too, just as they were about to open, but this morning, there they were, and I am happy to see that they survived our past two nights of freeze.

 

The bees are happy, as well. There is a bee in the lower left tulip; you can just barely see his tail end sticking out.


I'm still painting once a week from life at the local art center. This is this week's attempt. The model showed up in a lovely bright and colorful outfit, so I went with COLOR this week! Again, don't be too severe on these paintings. They are done in just a couple of hours, in a room of other artists who are painting or drawing, too. I don't mess with the painting when I get home. This one is pretty large, like the one last week. It is 15" x 20". I have learned some things about myself as an artist, doing these life paintings. Mainly, I've learned that I do much better when I get out of my own way, and just let the brush do the painting. Those 20-minute blocks of time don't leave room for rumination. If I want to cover the canvas, I just have to jump in there and put some paint on it. I need to weave more like that, too. Maybe I could get more warp covered, if I wove 'from life.'

4 comments:

Jan said...

I love the idea of "life weaving!" I can just picture it, haha.

ringadal said...

I think the paintings are beautiful and amazing. I can't believe you did them in that amount of time. I left painting because I got frustrated with my ability to move forward with them. I finished one hanging over our mantel and have not finished another since. Keep painting, they look great!

Unknown said...

The October tapestry is luscious ! All that color on the top half is going to be exciting. Your paintings are wonderful too.

Love the idea of weaving from life! I am trying to think of what kind of subject could lend itself to that. If you started with a fresh bowl of fruit you would end up weaving the stages of life as you moved up the warp. At my pace of weaving it could be pretty awful by the end!

K Spoering said...

Actually, Jan and Janette, I think your tapestry diaries are pretty close to weaving from life! As close as one could get, anyway. I can imaging the response if I told a model to hold a pose until I could weave a tapestry of her, though. Might be fun to try! I'd have to get a very tired model.....

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