Saturday, December 26, 2009

I'm going to have to get myself a nice little stepladder.


I've pretty much painted on all the walls in the house, some rooms more than others and some walls in greater detail, and some portions of some walls in layers of brushstrokes and colors.

For the most part I just transfer paint to the wall with the brush, using whatever sorts of strokes appeal to me in that moment, and usually without stopping much except to reload the brush. My brushes get ground down, because I work the paint into the texture of the wall, and fuss with it as it dries, and then scrub it off sometimes, either by painting over it and making a layer lift up or using the brush like a scraper.

And then things that look sort of like landscapes show up on the wall. I'm surprised, but not really, I mean I don't find it odd that my mind, left to its own devices would paint things that look like the world outside the house. I'm always staring off at the trees or the clouds or the birds strung on the lines waiting for someone to be brave enough to be the first one to swoop down for the breadcrumbs scattered on the still-frosted lawn.

One wall, though, I painted with more deliberate effort to create a scene. It's causing me the most trouble, because I keep wanting to abandon it, paint it all white and start over, and paint the way I usually do, like dreaming rather than telling a sensible story. But now that I've made the trees on that wall I feel responsible to them somehow, and so I keep fussing with them, and they're beginning to look more like trees, or at least more like the kind of trees you'd see as the backdrop in a puppet show, a retelling of some old fable.

5 comments:

Pauline said...

thinking of painting my walls so I come here for inspiration! Hope your new year is a happy and productive one!

shara said...

Thank you Pauline, and I hope the same for you. Painting the walls? I hope you'll post pictures.

Pauline said...

oh lordy! this place needs so much work. years ago when I moved in (10!), my daughter and I painted all the walls Navaho white. One wall of the bedroom area is pale green to match a bit of the quilt, and the bathroom is yellow with blue accents. I am tired of it all now and want new colors, a new look. I am stuck (financially) with the curtains (expensive and lovely things left by my former landlady) and so much work around them a bit but your ease with color and form are so inspiring that I may just have to break free from convention and PAINT! (all this is just a very long way of saying that if I do paint, I will post some photos :)

Life Artist ~ said...

Oh God!

like you're having a vision about the scene was captured in that paint!

great mental exercise!

thank you for sharing =) and you're welcomed to have a cup of coffee
http://wowcoffeebreaker.blogspot.com/

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Anonymous said...

A very belated thank you for the kind comments.