Ugh.
(not the most clever way to start a blog post or anything really, but UGH!)
This post is being written for the sole purpose of making me feel better about myself. Me me me me me. My lack of productivity is as a gloom upon ME. A GLOOM, I say.
It’s already June something or other, meaning that next up is Thanksgiving and then we’re pretty much drinking champagne into the morning of January 1st, twenty-fricking-eighteen.
Really, the fact that change is not happening is what’s bugging me. I’m anxious and restless without a direction, stuck in the pose of a sprinter on her marks, while the dude who’s supposed to pop the starter gun is busy playing candy crush on his phone. Forever.
I’m good at making things happen, but in this case I don’t really know what that “thing” is. So I guess I just Christopher Columbus it and strike out without a clear course and hopefully not nosedive off the edge of the earth. Wheee…
Why typing a few lousy words on a dumb blog would make me feel better, is a mystery, but it’s been proven to work before. Also, it is the beginnings of charting a course or a place to maybe stumble upon a direction whilst hen-pecking my fingers at letters on the keyboard.
Starry Night, Vincent Van Gogh, 1889
In other news, I have a new thing that I love. PAINT BY NUMBERS. Whaaaat? Yeah, there’s a whole coloring books for adults movement and I tried it, but it was too tedious to finish a whole picture and not enough room for self-expression. Don’t try to make me stay in the lines, man.
My first paint by number was done as a gag gift for a friend back in January, and I actually ended up loving it. There is room for self expression in the crappy water based paint applied to an even crappier surface. You have to mix some colors yourself, so there is actual SKILL needed. Hahaha. I’ve been working my way through the Masterpiece series. I started with Van Gogh’s Sunflowers (I didn’t get a finished photo of it).
Sticking with the Van Gogh theme, the next one I chose was Starry Night. Challenging! But lots of room for expression in that crazy sky. That was my favorite part to paint. The colors really suck; they dry fast, don’t blend and are so FLAT. I want to spray varnish the whole thing or at least strategically swipe at it with clear nail polish.
My finished bastardization of Starry Night
Starry Night technically turned out well, I guess??? But the colors are so off from the original, it’s like a different painting altogether.
La Tour Eiffel, Georges Suerat, 1890
There’s a magnet on my fridge that I got at a museum gift shop a million years ago of Seurat’s Eiffel Tower. Sure enough, it’s been hacked into a paint by numbers set, so I decided to try it.
Each of these paintings took me about two hours total, while it took Seurat two YEARS to paint his version, slacker that he was. Now, this pointillism thing is new to me, technically speaking. I’ve painted before (waaaaay back in my young adulthood), but not using tiny strokes or dots to create shapes and shadows. And I have to say, I really liked it!
As I moved across the “canvas”, I began to understand the juxtaposition of colors and how they complemented each other (or not) and how to manipulate the outcome. And that was kind of… ASTOUNDING. The whole experience was dare I say it, FUN and had me thinking that I should figure out how to start painting, maybe take a class, maybe just buy more paint by numbers and then exhibit my “work” in 2018 (I’m joking, artist friends). Although, I think a paint by number exhibition would be AWESOME, especially in conjunction with a black velvet painting exhibition. Ha!
I’m afraid that if I try to actually start PAINTING, I’ll get frustrated and come to hate it, and right now it is a happy place to go.
I’m sorry, Georges.
Even though I am being guided by the numbers, they are guiding me in a relaxing and non-conformist way. There’s room to express, there’s a way to use my brain (but not too much), there’s space to let my art flag fly. There’s a feeling of accomplishment at the end and maybe my mom will hang one on her refrigerator the way she did my paintings from kindergarten.
Maybe, I will stumble upon a paint by number canvas of my own life that will guide me bit by bit to eventually form a masterpiece of a Life.
In other (real) art news:
Modern day master, Kerry James Marshall
One of the most life-altering exhibitions I’ve seen since the Ed Kienholz solo exhibition at LA MoMA in the 90s. Read about it here:
Welcome to the Middle of Life's Blog 
Sounds like a satisfying learning experience–meditative–w/numbers. Who knew? Love your Seurat!
Thank you!
Keep painting! One day you will be wanting to make your own image. Keep moving those brushes, you’re good at it. LOVED KJM exhibit. What amazing paintings those are. xo