Mixed media drawing
48 x 95 inches

This week was a new beginning. Since moving my studio in April I have been trying to find the key to restarting my series of paintings, the “landscape” paintings in the “Passages” series. The “Dynamic Layers” series is easier to come by for some reason and I continued to work on that series as I figured things out and of course worked in any number of media to keep my voice alive as I wrote about in a previous post. I should mention here that I also spent a lot of time on the blogs I follow finding inspiration from working artists willing to share their work and their processes. I appreciate that avenue very much. Following poets, artists, musicians on Twitter takes me to so many lively discussions. Discovery is so close now.

Once I put paper on the wall and started drawing everything turned around. In some sense I claimed my space. Beginning by working on a series of drawings, I worked on three in a set and then realized I had a beautiful roll of paper that was waiting for marks. Once I had Lepo Sumera, “Musica Tenera”on my ipod at full volume I might add, the work started to flow. In a week, I  finished the drawings and prepared my boards for painting. Today I drew the compositions for the “passages” series on those boards. Drawing is so often the path to the next step for me. Shortly I will begin to melt encaustic medium and take the next step. Making art is still a mysterious process. I have been doing this a long, long time and I am still surprised, excited, and baffled. I will look at an image and say to myself “where did this come from and how did I do this?”. I would love to hear how you restart your process when it stalls.