End of detour, probably not...

When I finished teaching my last class in mid-December, I decided to take a short break or detour from my objective to paint series on crystal and silver.  I already have a half a dozen in that new series so why not have fun with something else during the holidays then paint another one before my classes resumed mid-January.

Well here we are now in the second week of January and I've not painted any crystal or silver.  Credit to me, last night I did start drawing one with crystal perfume bottles and a vintage chain link purse. Oh yeah, that purse will be a challenge.

reference photo

It's no surprise to those who know me that I'm not good at estimating how long some things may take to paint.  In addition to finishing my homework from my class with Angus McEwan, I decided to paint a scene from Paris that I've always wanted to paint.  Little did I know that this painting would take almost 50 hours to paint.  Luckily I am happy with the result and it has been adopted by a local artist.  Here it is:

Dreams of Paris - 17" X 21"

To get me in the spirit of my next class with the Kanata Art Club, I decided to paint a stack of quilts. Easy peasy, right.   Well maybe not the most challenging painting, but it also had a few details.... which means it also took quite a few hours to paint.  The reference photo wasn't clear which meant I had to modify much of the pattern fabrics.  I'm happy to say that I finished it yesterday.

On the topic of my class on "Colourful fabrics" with the Kanata Art Club that starts on Thursday, I prepared a whole module on colours and watercolour that participants will apply on their paintings.  I'm extremely fortunate that participants are very nice.

I'm also ready for my 2-day workshop to paint this adorable teacup filled with blueberries.

Then I scheduled a new 3-day workshop because I just love this photo of the drooping sunflower.  Together, we'll be painting a gorgeous colourful background and luminous leaves and petals.

Then that left me with figuring a workshop to teach for Art of Affect.  I naively thought that a pile of clothespins might be interesting for a 3-hour workshop. After 4 hours into this, I thought that maybe that we could do a 2-day workshop. Then after after 6 hours and still not finished, I realized that I had to bail on the idea of demoing this.  So now I'm back to square one in finding doable ideas.  There is no shortage of ideas, just realistic ones LOL.

So where do I stand now? Well I want want to paint from the second class that I purchased with Angus McEwan and I may have some time to start painting those gorgeous perfume bottles before my class on Thursday.

What would our lives look like if we didn't embraced, even looked forward to the challenge of the  detours which offer so many possibilities? I feel a sense of freedom with detours because they are my choices and aside from my classes, there are no deadlines to creativity. 

Creativity is not a step-by-step process. The muse has whims of her own, and while focus and discipline are important, so is a willingness to be messy and take detours down paths that may never go anywhere-and the freedom to take those detours just to see where they lead without the pressure to always see them to the very end.

Now off I go to paint

Creatively yours,

Danielle