Art

 

 

I miss painting.  What drove me to switch to primarily pen-and-ink is a desire to be able to work with less mess and set-up, since I don't have studio space.  Unlike with oils, or even the less messy acrylics, all I have to do is pull out my paper and my pens and get to work.

 

It's been a good trade-off, and I value my explorations of pen-and-ink.  Sometime over the next week I'll have to use the gift card that Julie gave me to get some new pens.  The ones I have are good, but I think I'll get some Rapidoliners, which I haven't used in 15 or 20 years.  The pens I'm using now wear out very quickly on rough-surface paper, but I've heard that the Rapidoliners last a lot longer.  I'm eager to give them a try.

 

Anyway, I still miss painting.  I feel like I can apply some of what I've learned in the pen-and-ink process and apply it to acrylics and oils.

 

I'm just not sure what I'll paint.  Last night I dreamed that I was in a painting class at U of L again; it was a busy art room, lots of painting going on.  I have had similar dreams every once in a while for years, maybe since I graduated.  I think that when I first started having the dreams they were typical anxiety dreams:  remembering an assignment the night before it was due, that sort of thing.  Lately, though, they have been more fun.  In last night's dream I had so many ideas, and the means to work on them, in a group of like-minded people.

 

I think I might try working on some small paintings in the near future in a way that occupies a middle-ground between the pen-and-ink work and larger oil paintings.  Perhaps I'll do some subjects similar to my pen and ink subjects, working in acrylics or acrylics with oils on top.  It's been years since used acrylics for anything other than underpainting or tinting, with just a few exceptions.

 

I also want to try another linocut soon.  It might be fun to do a linocut print of the horses I drew recently.  I wonder which would be better, an 8 x 10 inch size or a greeting card size?