Flying Girl Growing in the Shade or Under Glass

Flying Girl Growing in the Shade or Under Glass
008/100 in 100 days Challenge 06/08/09
Golden Acrylics on paper, 5x8"

This is not what she looked like in my sketch. In the sketch, I imagined FG inside of a terrarium. But when it came time to paint, I did not want anything that complicated or elaborate. So I just painted her with the fern background and thought maybe a mushroom pattern on the dress... but when I got ready to paint, the green brown of the background put me in mind of moss, and I wanted moss in there. And then I thought, why no! Flying Girl IS the terrarium, the enclosed ecosystem that lets the mushrooms and moss grow.

So here's what ended up being. I like it.

I didn't like it to start. It just seemed ugly and clunky with the dingy brown/green and the not quite light blue.

But what I am finding as I continue on in this 100 in 100 challenge, is that I don't need to consider each painting to be precious and fragile. There is not so much weight to each painting if I am painting every day. If I mess up a painting, so what? I just move on to the next one and see what happens.

This is the way breakthroughs occur, I think. For me at least... when I've screwed something up and don't have anything to lose, when I trust that something good will come, if not this time, then next, when I try something risky no matter how I am afraid of failure.

Maybe also Wreck This Journal might help me continue this risk taking. I'm doing it with the Next Chapter book club


I've been futzing around with the book here and there, and this is the first page where I've gone bacack and tried to "do" something with the futzing. My coffee spilled... always a danger when you have toddlers/preschoolers jumping around you and your tv table "desk." So when the kids jostled the table, I set the cup down into the spill, and then made coffee rings on the page. Then when it happened again the next day, I used my paintbrush... which was out from a painting session... and painted the words into the coffee rings.

Yesterday, I outlined it all. Don't know why I did. I guess I liked the patterns that came out in the rings and wanted to hi-light it.
I like the way it looks here. And I like how the coffee spills almost remind me of a big old live oak tree, rich with shadows and light and hanging spanish moss and vines.

I wonder if I can work that idea into my 100 days paintings? Hmmm. I also like the neutral colors of tan and cream and the black pen. Hmmm. Or what about the shape of shadowy leaves against the bright sky? Hmmm.

Stay tuned.

Oh, and I finally got the side bar of 100 in 100 participants up. If you don't want your name up there, tell me. I thought I'd removed someone already, but I see it's still there. I must not have saved it. Or if you're not up there and want to be, tell me. I had a hard time with knowing whether or not people really wanted to jump in, or which blog they wanted.

Or if you're afraid to start, or want to but are worried that you can't join because you haven't been there from the beginning... please, join anyway. There is no one who is going to harangue you for not creating. There is no way to "fail" this challenge. Jump in. Adapt it to your needs.
Be brave.

Let me tell you... it gets easier the more you do it.