Upside-Down Ice Cream Cones and Lollipops

Yesterday I talked about my revelation about the roundness of the canopies of deciduous trees versus the pointiness of evergreens. It wasn’t anything new to me, of course, just that it hit me in a new way giving me a moment of little-girl-joy. Seeing it in a different light helped me through a “stuck” part in one of my latest paintings.

Later, when I was telling my friend, Clare, she said, “Evergreens are upside-down ice cream cones.” Once again, the light bulb came on. Yes! I can see that. And if evergreens are upside-down ice cream cones, then deciduous trees are lollipops!

Finessing the trees before moving on to grasses and water

It’s funny, I can read how-tos and art-related articles, and logically understand a process or someone else’s way of doing something, but it’s not until I am at the easel working and finessing my own style and technique that those tips or directions set in. Sometimes it’s a couple months later that something will click in my brain and I’ll remember what I read or heard. Then I’ll work it into my painting style. It’s like I can’t just take someone else’s way of doing it. I have to discover it for myself, in my own way and time. (That reading, or comment probably stews in my brain and at the right time, will come out.)

Since getting into pastels, I’ve been blocking in more when doing the preliminary work, but with natural landscapes, I wasn’t thinking about actual hard shapes, just a roughing in. And, too, maybe it’s the writer in me that just seeing a picture of how someone blocks in didn’t mean much, but now having descriptive words helps me see better.

I believe, too, that the universe (angels, spirit, muse, God) sends messages. It comes through to me sending me into what I call little-girl-joy of new discovery. Yet, often it’s not new, just that my brain processes it in a new way. I get that vision of my little-girl-self running home crying out with joy, “Mama, mama, look what I found!” I’m dancing inside myself with discovery.

This type of joy makes me want to jump up and get right back in the studio. It makes me want to paint or write. It fires my soul. I love that I get the messages this way instead of the old critical, negative way that came across making me feel stupid that I didn’t get it before this.

The work is a continuous journey with each piece giving me a variety of challenges. I am constantly learning, and maybe, as a writer and an artist, somehow the two have to crossover. Sometimes I can’t find the words to describe a scene I’m writing about, and sometimes I can’t really see what I’m painting without words to describe it. I am determined to find my way. 

It can be frustrating, but there’s excitement, too. I love it!