Over the last year, I’ve been doing a lot of drawing and doodling with no agenda in mind. I’m just letting my brush or pen take me where it wants to go. If I see a line I like, I follow it. If a color jumps out, I swoosh it on my brush and onto the paper.
I’ll admit, my first art class was a landscape watercolor class at a small local gallery when I was in high school. I was surrounded by very serious people with way more talent and expertise than me. But, I hung in there. I watched. I mixed colors. And my favorite thing was using the wet into wet watercolor technique.
I’ve taken many art classes since then, which might make its own blog, but here’s the thing: I don’t call myself a painter. Ever.
Relaxing and recovering.
When I had my surgery, I needed something to do. A way to create. A way to get back into my playful spirit. Watercolors and gel pens were just what I needed.
I filled a sketch book with landscapes, flowers, trees, blue skies and sunsets. That’s all. Simple. Easy. Not art with a capitol A. They started to pile up, so I had to find a shelf in my studio to keep them out of the way.
But I think they had other plans.
The mystery of art.
When I threw clay on my wheel, I knew what I was going to make: cups, bowls, and vases. But that’s not always the case when I roll out a clay slab. Over the last year or so, things began to slowly change. My slabs sprouted petals and leaves and stems. Some were landscapes.
What I didn’t see then is that I’d already made them, I just didn’t know it.
Down on a bottom shelf in my studio was a pile of papers from my drawing pad. In the pile were flowers and landscapes and sunsets that I’d drawn or painted when I couldn’t do clay. I did them and stacked them on a shelf and moved on. Or so I thought.
The painted flower
The tulips
The orchid
All went from doodles on paper to reliefs on clay.
So I’ve decided to call them Clay Paintings.
What do you think?
