I can get wound up on Fridays because I know it’s the weekend and I can play in my yard and I can play at my easel and do various other fun things. I get excited. Yesterday, I also had a pretty unusual Friday at work with projects, visitors, conversations and work challenges that left me in hyper think. I bring this up because when my mind is that stimulated I can guarantee I’ll awaken in the middle of the night with insomnia. When I do, sometimes I’ll paint to wind back down.
As an artist I may talk about painting short studies in the field or doing sketches live or looking at a photo but I don’t often admit how much I reference memory. I do, of course, even if it’s subliminally referencing known anatomy long after I’ve taken the photo or seen the animal or recall land similar to what I’m painting. I am actually mushing together what I have seen and what I know from memory.
So, at about 2:30 this morning I woke up thinking about a crow that I saw as I pulled into my parking space at work yesterday morning. He burst up out of the long weeds at the edge of the parking lot with a mouthful of nesting material, side-lit in morning sun and a blur of motion. I spent a bit more than an hour at the easel during the night trying to jot down what my dream image was and referencing my memory of that fleeting mental snapshot.
It all sounds more complex than it is, but sometimes studies are just about experimenting with pushing paint around and I happened to pick that crow, at that moment, as he fades into my memory.
I hope you enjoy an insight to my dream bridge as I share this 11″ x 14″ oil on canvas called “Collecting”.
Kelly E. James 