What Art Leaves Behind…

Credit Rebecca Holden

Last year fellow Substacker Rebecca Holden in her post on Dec. 7th, ‘24, # 189. Entitled “The Craftermath” gave me a jolt of inspiration. “Craftermath”, she explained is the mess left behind from a creative project that may have merits of it’s own.

Ever since ‘you know what’ happened here in the US on Nov. 5th—Remember, remember the fifth of November… But I digress, yet not too far back.

I had been in the middle of a project—many actually—something to take my mind off all the politics and incessant yawing, yapping and yammering from a certain orange skinned figure that features prominent in the news daily—all day—every day for almost 9 years and won’t quit for more than likely another few. 🤦🏻‍♀️

(If you voted for him, then please do drop me like a hot baked potato. Unfollow, unsubscribe, I don’t care to have your eyeballs reading anything I put to post. Thank you very much!)

Moving on…

But this post is not about that or ‘him’. It’s about how Sitting At My Own Feet can turn on a dime even though I may be laying on my yoga mat or seated in a chair at my desk.

I know I haven’t been posting as of late, there have been certain other reasons also, physical ones, which I won’t go into as I am doing my best to change my narrative from victim mentality to one of warrior. Breaking up with a teen-hood friend; then there was the loss of my beloved grand-pup, and doing my best to support my daughter emotionally thru losing him and almost losing her home. All that has taken up my creative and emotional time, and now it’s me time, getting back into a self-care regimen. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do to turn yourself around, and right yourself back up.

Sorry for that little segue. Now getting back to my version of Rebecca’s “Craftermath”…

I had been working on something with acrylics. I prefer watercolors, but I was watching tutorials of late with YouTuber Cate Field and following her style somewhat, and teaching myself how not to be such a perfectionist. Intuitively I know that perfectionism is the worst form of self abuse, however even though I know that, I still struggle with being neat and not going out of the box. They didn’t teach me to color outside of the lines in grade school. Any kid of that era that did, I hope they are famous artists today. I applaud you! 👏🏻👏🏻

This messy project was putting squirts of acrylic colors on paper plates and then laying down the paint into four roughly drawn squares on heavy paper. They had been previously demarcated with tape and black marker with three lines drawn into the squares—overlapping—before transitioning off the page.

The color palette was limited to black, white and orange and whatever we could mix from those to come up with whatever those colors turn into when mixed one into the other—with the same brush, no rinsing 😱 and then painted into the areas designated by the black lines. Being neat was not a prerequisite.😳 After the paintings dried, we were instructed to use the same black marker to redefine the lines we’d sloshed paint over and then doodle to our hearts content within the lines we’d drawn. White marker was allowed with the black at this point and encouraged.

This part of the process I found very meditative, and rewarding after the stress of being somewhat messy.

3 lines in a square using 3 colors

The next project was similar in that we had to use the same three colors on the paper plate palette but find things to make marks into the 4 outlined squares on the page. Marks consisted of using circular shapes from the ends of an empty paper towel roll, or toilet tissue roll. We could also use other mark makers into the squares and circles also.

By this time I was getting into the messiness and now had paint half up the handle of my paint brush and even on my hands!

Well, I nevah!!

My first trade was as an interior and exterior house painter for many years. Then meeting my fourth husband, we formed a Carpentry and Painting Biz together in year 2000. Holy Moley, has it been that long ago!

I almost never got paint up past the bristles into the ferrule of my 2 1/2” to 3’’ brushes! I have those brushes to this day and they still look almost new. Like I said, I was a perfectionist but the clients loved me for it!

The rectangles were cordoned off by painters tape.

The final project of the tutorial was two black outlined squares on the sheet of heavy watercolor paper. Now it gets fancy with throwing in a different color with the black and white—a blue. Which is now mixing with the orange and white and making shades of green. Funny how that happens! By now my large grease proof paper plate palettes are taking on quite a creative colorful mess of their own. I’ve filled up three of them by now. It was also about this time I had read Rebecca Holden’s post about Craftermath and got an idea!💡

After the fun tutorial was over and everything dry, the very next day I cut up the inner parts of the paper plates and now had 3 large flat colorful, messy and textured circles. I also cut the last picture I made with the blue, that was mixed with white and black and orange, into various sized circles. I had commented on Rebecca’s post that she had given me a genius inspiration and so I present my craftermath project. Thank you Rebecca!

Circles Ensquared

“Circles Ensquared” closeup of a portion I almost like so much better.

Always a work in progress.

Aren’t we all?

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I won’t ever do you a lead on where you get into the story, it’s getting to the juicy part, and then you see; “If you want to read more, please subscribe to…” It’s not that I’m cheap, but if I were to subscribe to all the substackers I like that have a pay wall, I’d be using up all my social security, and sitting and reading and not getting a thing done around here.