night painting | Jennifer Tan

Posts tagged ‘night painting’

Oh June, you nutty month

Well hi. This is the closest I’ve gotten to painting recently and it’s been sitting on my easel like this for about three weeks. Humph.

And you know what’s weird? It’s all blue. I’m sure I didn’t paint it that way. It was my nice creamy dress in my nice creamy room and the lighting was all warm and yellowy. And I was sure I was painting it that way.

But when I stood back and took a look…. blue! And it’s been mocking me from the easel ever since. Cheeky monkey. I’ll get back to you!

I bought that nice creamy dress for at least one or two of a few events we’ve had and have coming up. Weddings, showers, graduations. Nice. This is my crew all cleaned up. Aren’t they awesome?

So time not spent at weddings and graduations and that sort of thing has been full of driving and kid logistics and lots and lots of painting of the needlepoint persuasion. I’ve fallen behind on both blogging and following what you’re all doing. Now that school’s out I think I’ll have a bit more time to catch up on that. Miss it. It was a long challenging school year and I’m giddy that it’s done. Hope to begin catching up on a lot of things.

Tonight I came up to my office to perhaps do just a bit more work but there were two things working against me. First of all my office gets sooooooo hot in the late afternoon and it is still steaming now, at ten at night. Or I am anyways. Sitting here steaming.

The second thing that nixed the work-a-bit-more plan was this guy sitting outside my window. An owl. So much closer than he looks here, wretched iPhone. Just sitting in the tree staring in at me. I love owls so much. Old souls right? I hear them at night sometimes and know they’re around but I hardly ever get to see one. Such a thrill. He sat and looked at me and at my cats out on my window ledge and they looked at him, and I watched them all.

His wise words before he flew off were these: “Go to bed, silly woman. You’re tired.”

Not like I’m not going to listen to an owl.

Painting of a different sort

My easel and I are ships that pass in the night just now. We stare longingly and lustfully at each other and mutter about getting a chance to hang out together soon. It will happen. I think it’s a ways away but I’m going to surprise it with three — maybe even four — weekdays of painting in a row! A second honeymoon!

But for now I thought I’d post the other type of painting that has been filling my days.

In my other life — one of the thousand or so — I design needlepoint canvases under the name of Pippin. I think up a design and figure out the details and then it gets painted onto canvas which someone buys and stitches on top of. It’s such a different type of work than I do with the painting you usually see here, and I like that contrast. Bright solid colours and areas, tight designs, more whimsical subjects. For the one above I’m trying to decide whether that expression is still nice or has taken on an ominous tone.

I also get chances to do other creative things. These are some little watercolour-y paintings I did to put on bookmarks I put in with the canvases.

Lately I’ve been a bit scundered with some orders, which is actually good news right? I’m gradually getting it organized so that I don’t do much of the painting of actual orders and can concentrate on designing and other stuff, but it’s not quite there yet so I’ve been busy painting!

Years ago when the kids were little I used to do all of the needlepoint painting after they had gone to bed for the night. I’d start at about 8 and paint late into the night, later and later as I gradually became semi-nocturnal. I’d have the TV on to listen to and David Letterman would turn into Conan, and then that would turn into the show which came after that which I’ve blessedly forgotten. It used to be a very sobering moment when that show ended and the channel either went off the air or to commercials. When the Nagano Olympics were taking place there was about an hour when the North American programming had finished but the next day’s events hadn’t started yet in Japan. A live shot of the Olympic flame would be up for that hour, and it was strangely compelling, possibly mostly because it was 3 in the morning and I was a little slaphappy. I live in sort of a slaphappy reality at the best of times! I was tempted to stay up and watch the new events as they happened live, which would spell trouble for my next day. There were already only a couple of hours between me slipping into bed, freezing and wanting so badly to slide my cold feet over towards my husband’s warm ones (akin to a declaration of war), and the time he’d get up to go to work. And then another hour or so after that it would be time to get kids up and start the day. Those were sleepy, sleepy days. I perfected the knack of napping standing in my kitchen with my eyes open. But I liked having this little creative world that was just mine.

Eventually I got burnt out, and then sick, and if I thought I might still end up back at nocturnal painting this was packed away for good when I had another baby, and one who slept badly to boot.

But now the kids are all in school or out the other end and I can be a daytime painter. David Letterman has been replaced with Canadian public radio, and I can talk to you a little bit about a lot of things because of that!

And yay for daytime painting because now I’m old. Well, middle aged I guess. I don’t feel old but, other than the odd magical night when it all comes together for the other type of painting, I don’t have the stamina or willpower to get through a busy day and then sit and paint at night, and there’s also a chance… just a chance… that I need glasses. Feels very squinty concentrating on little things after dark.

So that’s what’s filling my painting time these days. Back to a balance of both soon.

Too pretty a morning

The moon doesn’t want to go to bed.

Even though it stayed up very late painting.

Morning reminder

I’ve tried staying up late at night painting and when it’s right it’s RIGHT. Peaceful and rewarding and just a little rebellious. (Not a big rebel here.)

The other morning I tried early morning painting. And it was ….weird. But sort of good weird.

I was trying to get a few little paintings done for Lalli Loves It but was on the run with other things all day. Went to a school Christmas concert in the evening –wow, was it good, in high school you don’t see the little ones dressed like snowflakes anymore but you do hear some amazing music being made — and by the time I straggled in from that my painting energy was gone, gone, gone. I convinced myself that if I got up early, really early, I’d be raring to go and it would be fabulous! So fabulous!! I woke up early, really, really early, so early that there was no way I was going to get out of that warm bed and down into a cool house. Humph. So I rolled over and tried again a few hours later, still dark and still cool but a teensy bit saner. And it was wonderful painting then. I’m still shocked that I liked it.

These were fun. Just a nice time moving paint around, not trying to think too hard, just enjoying. And like always happens it of course got me thinking hard. Or not too hard because it’s actually pretty simple: It’s all about love, isn’t it?

I’m having a confounding time lately, trying to figure out a bunch of things, some not too pressing and that I have the luxury of time to think around and tease apart and philosophize over. Some a bit overwhelming but ultimately all good, just an exercise in deciding what needs to be done when. Other stuff closer to home and more pressing and a bit upsetting. Sometimes a lot upsetting. But sitting there in my light cocoon, slapping and smearing around the lighter background colours, looking for textures and patterns, and then diving in and rolling around in those goopy shiny crimsons and scarlets and quinacrodones, the voice in my head told me to not get distracted with the little stuff. It’s all about love. Sounds sucky but it’s true. Find the right place for the daily frustrations and challenges and confusions and of course try to figure them out in some form, but don’t lose track of the main thing, because that main thing is what will see you through. Take a breath, feel yourself settle, and then just let yourself feel that love. I’m very grateful to these funny simple hearts.