Mainly I've been absorbed in painting all week. I'm continuing to explore the idea of color contrasts from Studio Journeys this month. I've been thinking about all the ways of getting variety in two complementary colors, so here violet and yellow. I've been playing with different hues of paint, different values, intensities, temperatures, and transparencies.
And in this one, exploring blue and orange.
I decided to do another blue and orange to try leaning a little more towards the warmer blues. I also wanted to play with a central composition that does not extend to the edge of the paper.
I've made a strange discovery lately. I always liked to paint either in silence or with some wild dance music in the early stages to get everything flowing. While I'm stitching I enjoy listening to podcasts, lots of them artist interviews. I especially love The Savvy Painter and The Jealous Curator. In the interviews, many painters talked about liking to listen to podcasts or books on tape while they paint, but many said they found music distracting. That seemed so alien to me. I thought I'd be distracted by the spoken word.
I was way behind on listening to podcasts, so I thought I'd try some while painting. I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed that! They actually seemed to help me focus on painting and were still easy to follow. I was listening to an interview with Jill Bolte Taylor, the neuroscientist who had a stroke and observed what was happening in her brain. She described the left hemisphere shutting down and being unable to process language and reason, but the right hemisphere being free to see the bigger picture and have stronger intuition. It made me wonder if that's what spoken word does while painting. It keeps that language side of the brain busy enough that it quiets it down, and you are left working more intuitively. That's how it seems to work for me anyway. I felt like I was more absorbed in the painting process and that critic in my brain wasn't allowed to talk.
I also discovered a new-to-me highly addictive podcast out of the BBC called Desert Island Disks. Celebrities from all fields are interviewed and asked what 8 songs, 1 book, besides The Bible and Complete Works of Shakespeare which they are automatically given, and 1 luxury item they would take if stranded on a desert island. It's really fascinating to hear the stories that go along with the music they choose. Bill Gates interview was especially fun.
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4 comments:
Thanks for the podcast recommendations. I like your circular, enso painting. It has a very calm feeling about it.
Thanks Paula! I never thought of that as an enso painting, but I’ve always loved those. That inspires me to look at them again and have them in the back of my mind while painting.
I'm not up on many podcast resources and do enjoy listening to the ones that interest me. So, thanks for the tips. The Desert Island one sounds especially good. I usually enjoy music while making but think everyone processes that differently. Often, having the radio in the background turned down low is just the right thing for me.
Your paintings are fresh and vibrant, love seeing them. The stitching, too, of course.
I agree with you Suzanne that everyone processes music, spoken word, etc. differently. I even process it differently depending on my mood! The interviewer for Desert Island Disks is so good at weaving interview with music, and it's fascinating what people reveal about their lives through their song choices. The show has been going since the 1940s! That gives me plenty of archives to work through.
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