Warming Up : How the Artist Creates

Getting ready to paint that large canvas can be a bit overwhelming. I am ready to start painting even before I begin to draw out the plan. Well, that is so like me, isn't it.. Jump right in, figure it out later. I wanted to try out a different way to do a painting also, so I am thinking about putting narrative in with the visual work. Last summer I saw a painting style that I feel could work well for my narrative painting of the River Migrations I am embarking to deliberate on. I want to jump right in, and live the migration by painting the canvas experiencing the colorations and the finite experiences along the River Towns.

There are times when I have the visuals of what my great aunts who had a houseboat on the River where they lived during retirement, was so vivid in my mind. It has to do with how would it feel to sleep on the river boat, with the engine purring along up and down the river. Seeing the masses of bird migrations along the River corridors, and the dance of the birds skydiving in great masses down to the surfaces of the water. The bluffs with their names, and coulee's with theirs. Glancing by the eagles nests, and seeing the great barges groping their way North during dusk on the great River. Well, the river does change from time to time. Spring takes away, and fall lays the sand bars back where they were before, or a little farther down stream. Sometimes whole chains of currents change course over land and make a new river bed due to high water that cannot stay back. That is exactly how I feel about the River when I am there witnessing its specific grandeur.. we just need to come back and spend more time there.