Backing up to go forward

(in which I take you back to my road trip in order to get myself home so I can start writing about the things I am currently doing.)   Leaving Ogden, Utah  A Utah Dustbowl

You know how it is when you are headed home from a good time and in a way you can’t wait to be back at all the comforts of home, but on the other hand you are really are dragging your feet about leaving the fun?  That’s how it was leaving Denver for me.  The next stop of any significance to me was Portland where my sweetheart was enduring the care and feeding of 2 high school boys.  I was eager to see him but not the kitchen or the housework or the stacks of mail.  Or the phone messages.

I just wanted to keep on going in the car, on and on seeing things, watching the world out my window.  Staying in motel rooms that I didn’t have to clean or make up the beds, eating nightly in restaurants:  What’s not to love?

But besides getting home to my soul mate I had a burning desire to get home and paint, to express some of what I had taken in visually.  I was so full of images!  Colors!  Textures!  The beauty and drama of our good land.  My photos don’t begin to express what my eyes saw; the lighting in a camera can’t do justice in a split second what the eye has seen and absorbed.  So I am bummed about my photos, to say nothing of the fact that the car was moving when I took a lot of them.  Through the bug-splotched, rain-dropped windshield.  You see my problem.

I am not at all sure that painting will be any improvement over the photos.  I don’t know if I can really express what my heart was filled with, passing by.  But perhaps the expression is what I really seek, not the outcome. 

So I went to get some new paints and brushes.  I have painted in the past but I’m sure the tubes are all dried up by now.  In the past few years I have dealt more with fabric textiles in banner making.  I want to start out fresh with this.

Knowing I want to use acrylics was just the start.  Do you know how many kinds of acrylics there are?  There are professional grade and student grade and all levels of density, opacity, and translucency.  In different brands.  They have numbers leveling them from 1 to 9.  Who knew?  And the higher the level number the more the tube cost.

Then there are the colors.  Back in ‘my day’ you just had primary colors, secondary and tertiary colors plus black and white.  Now if you want a “Red” you have to choose between 6 or 8 tints, shades, tones, what have you.  I just wanted red Red.  And if I want it to go bluish I’ll add blue.  Simple.  The same with all the colors, the endless variety.  Artists aren’t supposed to need such a business sense before they can express their creativity.  Fortunately I had a non-artist friend along with me to help make these financial decisions.

So I have about $86.00 invested in the hope of self-expression.  I have 10 small canvases which I hope will be filled enthusiastically, sending me back over and over to get more canvas.  Then it would be nice if I could find a market for them so I can go out and buy more paint.

I hope it works, I hope it works, I hope I will do it.

Shoshone Falls, Idaho

But who would believe it in a painting?