"When dawn spreads its paintbrush on the plain, spilling purple... ," Sons of the Pioneers theme for TV show "Wagon Train." Dawn on the mythic Santa Fe Trail, New Mexico, looking toward Raton from Cimarron. -- Clarkphoto. A curmudgeon artist's musings melding metaphors and journalism, for readers in more than 150 countries.

Thursday, July 23, 2020

Alone, with art

"Alone," 5 x 7 140 lb Fabriano Artistico extra white cold press paper
"Alone."
Feeling alone and being alone are not the same.
"I feel so alone," I said recently. I'm sure others are, quarantined, or worse, having health or financial or more ruined. 
In these pandemic virus days of plague, racism and political chaos, it's easy to feel alone, cooped up, estranged. 
But there is another alone, being alone, which you can also treasure, actually an escape from feeling alone, or overwhelmed, or suffocated.
Today's #WorldWatercolorMonth prompt "Alone" started these thoughts.
And as I thought about painting, I remembered how solitude, being alone,  is essential for creativity...no matter what kind. 
Being alone is essential just for thinking within, for imagining. And then when you begin work on some form of art, I find, and others agree, that the world and its problems goes away...I am alone with what's before me.
Today's image game gradually, while I had some alone time. Then it was influenced by recent reading of n astounding watercolor artist's work and book, which was also alone time. Branching out alone,  I decided to take some risks with the way I paint. (There is very little color here--complementaries contrasting and emphasis on light.) And yes, some of the risks worked, others did not, so there are more risks to take to improve.
This afternoon, as I began work, and continued, I was alone. Thus the painting of "Alone."

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