Fish Out of Water

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Fish Out of Water
    “I decided not to have any goals this week.  I could work if I wanted to, but no “assignments.”  I had tried to get stories drafted and revised.  One story, my magic fish story, got 3 criticisms from 3 different people about the same issue, so I knew I’d have to do another revision.  So I just put everything aside.
     Without my “assignments,” I felt like a fish out of water. I got depressed.  Then, I had an art session with one my Bridge Meadows kids.  We got out our notebooks, the watercolors, the gold paint and the colored pencils.  
     Then, the magic happened.  The week went heavenly after that.”
My 5 year old friend drew blobs in brown metallic watercolor.  
“What animal can we make out of this?”  I asked.
“Make it a porcupine.”
I had no idea what a porcupine really looked like, so I just started adding spikes and a smile.

That was so much fun, I decided to work on my “commission.”  My husband wanted me to redesign the logo for the organization of which he’s a founding member, The Aging Artfully Initiative.  The original looks like this:

This is my  more detailed and colorful rendition.  It’s going to go through some changes yet, but I like this first draft:

I had nice sized puddles of paint left, so I splashed them on a piece of watercolor paper.  The next day, I took my gold gouache and loosely painted the shape of reeds and a heron.  Then I started layering colored pencil, watercolor pencil and watercolor.  The gold sort of seeped up through the layers and for awhile, I thought I’d just made another of my famous messes, but I kept layering and adding detail and was surprised to find something I quite liked.

Golden Heron —  7 x 10″ mixed media

So, it was nice to let go and just enjoy playing around.  How was your week?

If you missed the Monday book review, you can find it here.  If you have a book you’d like to see reviewed on my blog, please contact me a joyzmailbox at gmail dot com.  I review everything from children’s picture books, art books to dense novels.  I love children’s literature. I particularly like independent and small presses. 

If you’re looking for painting inspiration stop by Paint Party Friday.

And if you’re at a loss and feeling forlorn, hang out with a kid for while.  You’ll be surprised how contagious a childlike spirit can be.

27 thoughts on “Fish Out of Water”

  6. so much to enjoy here today; kid art and art with a kid; wonderful logo, love the name of the organization, something I am attempting to do…and your tree is fabulous; and the heron is too.
    Love it all. HPPF.

    Reply

  8. Love the heron! How wonderful that you and your child can do art together! There's nothing like encouraging the youngsters to create.

    Reply

  18. Great post Joy! The heron and all its layers of media reminds me of cooking a gumbo or something. Little of this, a bit of that until, voila! Your senses tell you what it needs until it's right. Love it – great logo too.

    Reply

  20. Wow! The porcupine's smile looks so cute, no wonder it removed all heavy thoughts!
    The tree looks wise and timeless.
    I love your birds! They are superb!

    Reply

  22. beautiful work to show this week, I love all your pieces! The fish out of water reminds me of my piece for Sunday Sketches today.
    cmlk79.blogspot.ca/2013/03/sunday-sketches-easter-dreams.html

    Reply

  25. Hi Joy!

    Thank you for visiting my blog and leaving such nice words! And for following 🙂

    I like your blog, the atmosphere is very friendly I think.
    And your golden heron is very beautiful!

    Ilona

    Reply

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