Inbetweenium

September 23, 2024

I’m planning on skittering up the coast again, thinking time is running out, how many trips do I have in me, how many times can I do this? My health has been a little sketchy lately. I had a very bad reaction to a polenta overdose shortly after the last trip, and it took me almost a week to recover. I am removing grains from my diet for now, to see if that is the trigger.

In between trips to Oregon I have been copying art, grabbing screenshots from Youtube videos. I’m currently fond of a so-generous artist named Helen Wells, who does vivid, stylized trees and vses of flowers on large paper and on panels. Copying these is transfixing, fills pages in my very large 11×14″ sketchbook, two at a time, often in the space of a day. I’m using watercolors, caran d’ache water soluble crayons, inks, whatever. The brushwork and color mixing are so satisfying. I have released my sense of dismay that I am not doing anything original–it’s an atelier, it’s a salon, I am copying art I enjoy, oh well. It’s hella fun.