Moving on...back to acrylic territory

I've been without a paintbrush in my hand since my last post. I'm starting to feel like a non-entity. What is an artist when she is not painting, I ask myself ?

Now I've cleared away my watercolor paints and still life table that I use for set ups. The path to my easel has been opened up (sounds like I had to cut down trees with an ax or something) and my mind is entrusting itself  to formulate the shape of my next idea that will emerge on the large canvas. That canvas has been laying in wait for months now, and even  seems to have become a permanent part of the living room.

I remember when I bought it, I was excited to have it in my midst. In the last few months I have "played in the fields", immersing myself contentedly in watercolor still life paintings, feeling reassured that Matisse and Renoir were intent on simply creating "beauty".

And so I feel I have been doing so in those tranquil watercolors, where each just seemed to lead to the next...and so on.  Now it's time to grapple with more profound topics that challenge me to find a way to express them. I hope I will emerge victorious. These paintings seem to call upon a different part of my thinking and emotional connections. They always involve people in a scenario (see my page of "southwest images") that engage me in deeper thought, gnawing away at me till I get it out on canvas! Even my earliest serious art in highschool and college leaned toward expression of the substance of human lives.  I can't write about the ideas themselves, as  talking about them weakens the immediacy of  my emotional connection to the themes with which I am struggling.

 I plan to "warm-up" with acrylics on a couple of incomplete portraits of mine, sitting and staring at me for several months past. I'm anxious to  paint with this material again. The feeling of painting with acrylics is so joyous, the colors so entertaining, the brushstrokes so expressive! Although I don't eat the tube colors, don't get me wrong, I do have an appetite for spreading them on canvas.

Next I will be developing my subject in sketches, searching for a workable pictorial scenario for the next theme. Check back with me to see how I'm progressing! Onward!