This started out as a more botanically accurate portrait of the orchids I’m growing, which are creamy white, lavender, and pink. But the dreams I had on the nights after working on it were more about the forest habitats of orchids, and not realistic forests at that. I would say that the lack of color in this midwinter must be influencing my style, but all my botanical paintings tend to start out with an aim of realism and then explode into color and forms unbound by anything strictly realistic.
When I Dream of You by Joy Murray, 8×10
Not a bad way to dream, or to see the waking world, I don’t think.
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When I was a child and our family was still intact, we always got tangerines in our Christmas stockings. Tangerines and oranges are ingrained in my subconscious as the taste of winter. They are also my favorite fruit year around. I tend to go for mandarins these days, though navel oranges are my favorite. I get them in those red mesh bags and I eat one or two everyday with breakfast.
I have a photographer friend who has made some wonderful photographs of that red mesh, abstracting and adding mystery to it. I decided to try to do that with a painting, embedding it in different colors, painting over it, snipping it up into collage pieces, but all I ever made was a mess. Finally, I decided just to paint some mandarins and apply the mesh on top. Closer to realism and fun to create. This the result:
The Sweetness of Winter by Joy Murray, 8×10″, mixed media
It was fun to create a painting that made me smile, after so many that didn’t. And delicious image to start the new year.
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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.
This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways.
If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal
Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.
You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.
If you find a typo, let me know at joyzmailbox@gmail.com, and I’ll send you a postcard.
I didn’t get as many paintings done as I would have liked this year, but since I was sick in September and most of October, I still feel like I did enough. I like putting together end of the year lists and collections, because I can look back and see that I actually added to the creative spirit of the world, even if some days and weeks I didn’t get anything done.
We live in a culture that is very production oriented, and I like to make goals and schedules, but often as not, life interferes. The arts and creativity don’t work that way anyway. As I look back over the year and the problems and strife we’ve all had to deal with, it’s amazing anything was created at all. But creatives keep creating, opening our eyes, inspiring us, and reminding us of beauty, individuality, and hope. Creative work is always hopeful, it’s an investment in the future, even it’s only in our own small life. A schedule, a practice, is a good thing, but we have to be flexible when life doesn’t allow us to stay rigidly in our schedule. And part of the creative process is just thinking about things, looking at things, and processing things.
This year, I started out by making gift paintings for the people who support me on Patreon. I was enchanted by moonflowers, so I did a small series of paintings of them.
Moonflowers in Nandina Bush
I did two portraits this year, both of Memphis creatives who have passed away:
Etheridge Knight, Memphis Poet, Teacher and inspiration to generations
Lou Bond, one of the few acoustic musicians recorded by Stax records, 1945-2013
My biggest painting this year, 30×40″, was on our obsession with new devices, our ignorance about cyber-trash, and about conflict metals:
Mandusa
I also painted 3 more pieces for my Look Closer: Disability and Sensuality series:
The Color of Air
Ever After
She Unlocked her Door
So, a good collection for 2021, I think. What do you think?
I feel like I’m growing with each painting. And I so appreciate your support and thank you for following my blog. I have added some of these paintings to my Redbubble print shop (see link below) if you’d like to get cards or copies of them.
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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.
This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways.
If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal
Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.
You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.
If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.
I started this painting when the ginkgo trees turned gold. I wanted a simple celebration of yellow leaves and I painted the whole canvas different shades of yellow, then squirted the paint with water to get a kind of feathered textured. I planned to paint in the leaves on top of that, just a rain of ginkgoes and a few maple leaves. I planned a relatively precise representation of the leaves, but the feathery texture I imagined didn’t happen, all the yellows leveled out into each other.
Then I started sketching a woman in the right corner. Precision flew away and everything went intuitive. I followed no particular plan, but I worked with the colors and autumn and ideas about aging.
Leaves have the colors that we see in the fall all summer long, but green is dominant, because the leaves are making chlorophyll. When the days begin to get shorter, they stop making chlorophyll and the green recedes, and the colors of other elements are revealed.
This thought kept me company as I worked on this painting – and all the color and pain and history we carry with us as we age.
Her Secret Colors, by Joy Murray, 20×24″, acrylic on stretched canvas
Her Secret Colors detail
Her Secret Colors, detail
What do you think?
~~~
Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.
This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways.
If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal
Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.
You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.
If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.
joy murray art~stories~life 