the Painting Binge

So this is how I roll....even before taking a 9-5er.  I am a binge painter.  Crazy way to describe it but I am.  I go through LONG periods of not touching a brush.  I have to be, surprisingly enough, motivated.  HAHA...sound familiar?  So here's my routine, literally.  Before I can paint I scour my sketchbooks and sticky note my favorite sketches (I sketch ideas out all the time.  I am a thumbnail sketcher too, I'll share that sometime later).  I also sticky note favorite sayings or quotes because sometimes I like to take que from words.  I then gather canvases, which in my case are framed pieces of wood.  For the painting above I had a new canvas which is a craft store deep cradled un-primed wood canvas.  Whew.  And it may just be a favorite new canvas.  If I am texture painting I texture and carve about 10 at once.  If I am black gessoing I do the same, prime them all, draw them all.  Multi-tasking over-organizing runs deep in my veins.  After canvases are all drawn and ready, the painting binge begins.......and I work furiously on all the canvases. Literally I paint all the cool colors on one then grab another and start it.  It's crazy I tell you how fast I paint.  Once all the paintings are done I step back and decide on the non-textured paintings if they need collage work.  Which most of the time they do.  And Stabilo pencil.  Can not live without that pencil.  If they are textured then they all get the oil stick layer.  Yep.  This is how I roll peeps.  And just like that I have a body of work ready for a new show.  Literally I now have 10 paintings done and ready ranging from tiny to huge.  Now, had I not planned, prepared and thought myself to death on these paintings I'd not get as much done.  But I find that preparing myself mentally and physically for painting makes a body of work flow  seamlessly.  And I am LOVING this new work. 

The new work.....is all about going back to where I started.  Simple compositions, little birds, simple flowers and lots of color.  This round is not textured actually, but rather simply painted.  In fact the one above I didn't even black gesso.  Making it even more simple and soft.  It makes me very happy.  So I'll show you some more over the next few days.  I've got a big show to deliver to next week, a favorite actually.  See you back here real soon!