Current equipment set-up

On the left is the progress I made today on my new painting, Journey to Self.  On the right is the equipment I used to create the painting timelapse video below. Yes, I have upgraded from the selfie stick on duct taped to the filing cabinet.

Facebook friend and Burlington photographer/painter, Janet Jardine was kind enough to bring her setup to an event to show me a better solution.

All I had to do was unscrew the part that holds my iphone, off of the selfie stick, and then screw it on to the top of the tripod I use for my slr camera.

This combination is so much steadier, and more flexible than the selfie stick alone, and now I’m not tied to my previous Macgyvered scenario. 

Placement

However, this painting is larger than the last, and I spent more than an hour (and several wardrobe changes) trying out different positions to place the tripod to give the best view of the canvas, while cutting myself out as much as possible.

The studio ended up in a state of disarray, as I moved stuff out of the way. I did record a video as I spun slowly in a circle, documenting the chaos. I do weird things like that.

The video  may never be seen by anyone else. Ten years from now I could come across it and feel nostalgic for,  “that time when I was painting that painting that was the turning point in my artistic development/career etc.”.  Who knows?

There are sure to be more variations in equipment, and positions as I continue on this journey. My house is in constant flux depending on my activities, and every year, to my husband’s bewilderment, more personal space gets lost to business space.

The Art Life

Art is my life, my life is art … and apparently that extends to my family. 

As an aside, I told my elder son a story today of the first day I brought him home from the hospital.

At some point when we were alone I placed the swaddled  baby on the carpet, in our bedroom of our first house, right in front of my large, professional easel. 

That easel – seen  in the photo above – was bought with the money earned from my first painting commission. I was a new art grad, and had no idea how I was going to earn a living with my painting.

Instinctively I knew that this heavy duty easel would be a physical reminder of my commitment to myself as an artist, regardless of what was happening in my life.

The baby was placed symbolically in front of that alter, at which I’ve sacrificed my own life, and his at times.

Then I took a photograph, to commemorate my commitment to my greatest masterpiece.

Yes, it was the beginning of an epic struggle.

I’m so happy to be getting positive feedback on these blog posts, it’s always amazing to find out that people are reading, watching, relating to and enjoying what I’m putting out there into the world.

Fun Fact: Tomorrow’s post will mean I’ve written three times as many posts this year, as last year!

It just shows, you shouldn’t wait for time, or inspiration to create, just create and then you will be inspired to make more time to create.

Hummingbird

One of the comments that caught my eye, was on yesterday’s blog post, from an artist in Quebec who subscribed when we did the 30 in 30  painting challenge in 2014!

Martine Paquet wrote

Donna, your timelapses are jewel ! Such a great idea for the challenge…So fun to look over your shoulder while you are painting!

 So sweet. Thank you Martine.

However, it did occur to me when I watched today’s timelapse, that I must be crazy to be posting it before the painting is resolved.

I often jump headlong into paintings in a frenzy of colour, run into difficulties with drawing in the middle stage, and eventually abandoning the whole fiasco. At the end of 2017, I painted over 8 such “starts”.  That felt cathartic. It might be my new end-of-year ritual. 

Now there’s going to be video evidence of my “unusual” way of working. I have different ways of starting paintings – I can think of 4 or 5 right now. By the time I’m done with them though, you can tell it’s the same artist’s work.

Each painting is a reaction to the one that came before, so if the last one was small, tight and realistic, the next could be large, loose and abstract.

This is just my intuitive way of working, but I have to admit to a nervous chuckle when I watched the timelapse.

My painting hand is like a hummingbird with ADHD, dancing to the beat of its own drum.

I read that line out to my husband. It seems like the kind of thing someone might put on my gravestone.

Anyway, hopefully you’ll return tomorrow to see what happens next on this journey!