art joy

art joy! i wish i could finish a piece of art every day....is there any better feeling? i have a deadline painting group....deadline today! ......assignment: a landscape....and i'd been working on it very hard.....i've had two false starts, and then a grand effort with allison, first at my house...and then at hers.....i was all set to keep working hard on it...and then life happened.....and when life is a little hard, it is tough to find the time to do art...and then when life is really hard.....what art? landscapes just fall by the wayside......so......yesterday, as i regrouped, i was in my studio, staring at this mammoth painting that was meant to be my landscape and just couldn't do it! i needed happy, fun, easy, joyful, whimsical.....i did not need hard work! so.......ditch the difficult, brain-taxing landscape.....this doodley landscape is what i did instead.......it was happy and fun and joyful to do it.....i loved the process, start to finish..... i NEED to do some more pieces like this just for the JOY factor...but also to figure out some bits that aren't quite right yet.......so...tra la la...happy art....finsihed art....joyful, doodle-filled art.....yippee

so.....months ago, in a fit of painting exuberance, i did loads and loads of backgrounds.....have to capture that exuberance when you have it! ....... one of the backgrounds was dictionary papers with a turquoise wash and a light blue letter printing across the whole thing........i chose that.......put on a three inch border of interesting papers: bingo cards, letters with stamps, maps, dictionary pages, novel pages, play money.......and glazed them all different colors.....i then did a transparent landscape green grass, too tall trees, cattywhompus house out of dictionary papers........it was bold and bright and maybe missing some continuity....i wasn't sure that just doodling over it would give me the oneness felt it needed...so i doused the whole thing in liberal quantities of ivory glaze.......toned it all down (dana, dearest pal, wonders if i over did the glaze and made it too pale and UN-me...oh no, she might be right!) .....i then, impatiently, blow dried the whole thing ......i whipped out my black markers (confession: i have a new black marker addiction) and doodled that canvas all up.......i had my doodle journal at my side looking for little favorite snibblets of doodlisms......and there you have it.....doodle joy......

from this, i have a new, deeper appreciation for black markers, doodles, and pen on acrylics and canvas....i am anxious to do another piece with this wide, full, fun, busy, doodled border......i won't be putting a landscape in there....but i think i have a plan......tra la la......gotta love an art plan......

so? what do you think? doodle good? doodle bad? too light? perfect colors? cool border? too much border? nice notion? gives you a headache? compositionally speaking, it is weak....but i know that.....which is why i have a plan for the next one! .......

art joy....what a concept.....