Guest Artists - Reminders of Painting What You See

Visitors while painting is part of the pleasure and annoyances of painting in public. When you're in the zone and someone whispers, "what are yodoing?' just over your shoulder is an annoyance, and has caused my heart to stop and my brush to paint an extra long limb. For the most part, I appreciate the visitors. It allows a random moment to step away from my work and look at it from their eyes. I always see something I need to fix. 

Having children as visitors is my favorite. I usually carry a hard cover sketchbook and a marker, and offer them an opportunity to make their own artwork on a page. The deal is, their parent can take a photo of the art, (usually they want the artist and my painting too) and I keep the book.

Some arrive with their own coloring implements, on their way to somewhere their time needs to be occupied. I'm amazed at how much elementary-age kids know about art and color. I don't think I got any of that from Captain Kangaroo or Mr. Green Jeans. They know what the primary colors are, and even more impressive, how to make green, purple and orange - the secondary colors.  

Parents have asked me for my painting schedule, which I don't provide, mainly because I don't have one. I've had parents return with their kids to watch the progress of my painting or to bring me a painting the child has made in the meantime. 

I've worked with children since I had a robust babysitting business, starting as a mother's helper for a neighbor when I was around 10. In high school, I brought flowers with a note, "thanks for the new business", to my favorite families with newborns. Though my credential from college was as a health educator, my first job was as a health coordinator for a poverty agency in Jackson, MI, connected to a family-related Head Start Program. THe focus of my work was to knock away any challenges that prevented preschool children from attending and getting their Head Start. 

Cumpulsory staff training happened every Friday. Employees received GEDs or credits toward bachelor or masters degrees with professors from Michigan State University and the local Community College. My on the job trainging allowed me to observe and interact with the kids intentionally. When I left that position, I was well on my way to a graduate degree and forever respectful and awed by preschoolers. Later jobs took my out the realm of kids, but their visits are always a joy, a reconnection to a much younger me, and a reminder to paint the way I see things... 

Paintings and Synchronicity

Who loves synchronicity? Me too. 

So, there I was at the Chicago Flower and Garden Show looking for something to paint. Nothing spoke to me, till I found a large display that included farm implements, a bee keeping suit, bee hives and a farm stand with honey. Turns out the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences sponsored the booth. I painted the faux farmer’s market scene and bought honey at their trailer where they sold that and other products they produced. I was inspired after talking to the kids and teachers and learning about the cool programs they had, and wanted to connect again. Unfortunately, I didn’t get names. Ha… until synchronicity stepped in. Guess who the lead beekeeper/teacher is at the school? Greg Fischer, the beekeeper and owner of Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery, who will be offering mead tastings at the Buzz – Bees and Beekeepers, paintings by Mary Longe at Chimera Loft, 6/29 5:30-8.  

Oh, and who doesn’t love a good pun?  The Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences is outstanding in it’s field. 

The other odd thing that happened at the Garden show while I was painting  that picture… I had tucked myself in a corner so I’d be out of the way. Nearly done, I heard, Mary Longe? It was the daughter of dear friends who live in Asheville who’d moved from the south a couple weeks prior. I had a painting I’d done of her playhouse in TN a couple months before that, to give her as a house warming. Honestly, I don’t love the painting of the faux farmers market, but I love all the connections that day.

How to Edit a Landscape with Help from Twyla Tharp

How do you decide what elements to include in a landscape? I am regularly challenged by this. I typically want to paint it all... every damn leaf.  I watch other plein air painters include three people, not twenty, move a tree, change a tree shape, omit a building, or add clouds to a clear sky, without a hesitation. Exclusion for me is an inaccuracy, maybe a lie. I think plein air paintings are creating a moment of history. Cave walls tell us about the animals present, and sometimes the dress of the day… Not that I expect my paintings to last millennia.  Yet, I do see merit in editing for the composition especially.

Over the last couple weeks I began savoring a Christmas gift, reading, not too fast, Twyla Tharp’s 2003, The Creative Habit. Her stories of musicians, writers, and artists of all kinds are entertaining in themselves, but the exercises she suggests have inspired me. They are different from many other creativity books I've read. The one I want to wax on about, is led into with a story about Neil Simon, which you'll have to read for yourself.

Back to the challenge of editing a painting. Twyla talks about the power of seeing, you know, like Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot by watching.” She recommends watching a couple and making a list of their actions and gestures until you have twenty. He puts his arm around her, she picks a piece of lint from his coat, she crosses her legs, he man splays, she pulls a Kleenex from her pocket, she blows her nose. It’s not hard, to list twenty items in a brief time, Twyla
comments. The second phase of the exercise is to watch another couple and list the actions that please you aesthetically or emotionally. A sign of tenderness in a touch on the arm, the slide of sunglasses onto the head, to see something more clearly, an elbow jab with a laugh, a slight step back at some news. Now judgement is added to powers of observation, and being selective becomes essential. 

Twyla’s point is that what catches your fancy is not as important as the difference between the two lists. What one includes or edits speaks to how you see the world. My thought is that what catches my fancy in a scene are the items I’m going to paint with more intention, might even be my focal point. And, if not my focal point, I will create a relationship to it… place it where it best tells the story I am painting. 

Once again, Twyla danced me into a new way of thinking.

As I wrap up this post, it reminds me of another one, I wrote a while back on making word lists to create a more accurate and interesting piece of writing. That process, coupled with asking yourself, what pleases you emotionally or aesthetically, offers another way to consider what to edit. This link will get you to it Lexicons and Writing. And, "That reminds me of..." is as always another powerful creativity prompt.

Photo: From Twyla Tharp Pinterest Page
Painting: Waiting for the Magic, Mary Longe, 2019, 16x20" Oil on Canvas

Unpacking The Evolution of Learning and Mastery of the Creative Act

It’s nearly ten weeks since I returned from Spain. That first night, with my essentials... contacts and glasses in my purse… I left my suitcase unopened, turned on the tv to missed episodes of The Good Wife and after twenty-five hours of being up, went to sleep in my own bed. Four hours of jet lag later, I woke and began to unpack the trip.

The bag exploded all over my living room with sock and underpant shrapnel everywhere. Laundry was folded and put away before the end of the day. I refilled my pallets with paint, my board with watercolor paper and repacked my easel, tripod, brushes, clips and other tools into my backpack ready for the next outing.

Between loads of wash and calls with family, an impromptu lunch for four of us on my patio that included a couple bottles of wine, a salad bar salad and a rotisserie chicken, I’d told the headlines of my trip four times. Each opened pockets with souvenirs of ideas still to uncover… traveling alone... with a group, the meaning of art and painting, unscheduled time and talent, my talent.   

I loved the trip. I learned so much from the leader, Timothy J. Clark. I'm aware now of how much I need to learn about the art world and how it works. His presence, knowledge, accomplishments are driving me to learn more. 

Since then, I’ve taken a figure drawing class, which Tim highly recommended for me to learn to draw accurately. Lucky me, I stumbled on the right teacher. Did you ever see a painter hold up a brush and seem to measure? That's about accuracy. The first thing Stuart Fullerton gave us in his class was a stick to measure and check to make sure the figure on the paper aligned with the figure we saw. 

For any trained artist reading this, it must sound, Duh. It is. But I now know I want to learn the fundamentals, not just paint because it feels good to paint. That's what I really learned in Spain. I don't want  a park district understanding of painting and art. Tim opened my eyes to the difference, though there is nothing like getting lost in painting. For me, when I'm lost it it, it's an expansion of that moment when I hit the water when diving or the minutes after an O. And, then, the thinking starts again and I wish the colors weren't as muddy or the lines a little straighter or whatever. 

I'm committed to getting in my 10,000 hours, so I'm using up ink, paper, paints and panels daily. In the past week, I did a pen and ink at Wrigley Field and painted at the Emily Oaks Nature Center in Skokie. I've sketched at the Historical Society Gardenin Glencoe, along the Lake in Highwood, on the train, as well as a scene of a pine tree and ball field lights that I see from the platform every time I take the train. I've taken that same picture more than 60 times, in my own OCD Monet way to watch the shadows and position of the sun throughout the year. 

After lunch that first Sunday, after my company left,  I threw my backpack in the car and did a quick painting by The Lake. I was up again the next morning when I heard about dense thick fog and went back to the same spot. In the ten weeks since, I made a switch from watercolor to oils. I've taken two, two-day plein air workshops, one from Stuart another from Errol Jacobson and a one day program from Don Yang during an Urban Sketchers of Chicago Workshop.  I join the weekly Plein Air Painters of Chicago through the Palette and Chisel most Saturdays and try to sketch daily. 

At some point, I will find my voice in my art.  I have a pile of watercolor paintings seven inches thick that I've done over the last couple years. There is not one in that pile that I would show anyone... or, that i like. Something's happened though with using oils. In my own estimation, I've ascribed to the Cub's Coach mantra, "Try not to suck today." I'm making progress. I figure I am about a quarter of the way to the 10,000 hours. My oils don't suck and my vacation is still with me. 

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This is another in what is becoming a series on creative practice. The earlier ones were written over the last fifteen months and speak specifically to what I've encountered and learned, but, I suspect that nearly all my posts are about my own creative process. 

Self Confidence and the Uphill Climb of Learning a New Craft

Dabbling is my Creative Process

Art, Porn and Grandma, I Can Zip Up My Own Damn Dress and Find a Relationship Too

“You can pretty much figure, that a man who likes a women to have Brazilians watches porn.“ That’s what my hairdresser told me recently, as she cut my hair, in a bit of a side track to her telling me all the things she was doing to prepare for her vacation in Thailand. After our appointment she scheduled a bikini wax for herself. Her explanation responded to a question I’d wondered about since an encounter a few weeks before.

Until then, in my experience, no one had requested or hardly commented on “down there”.  Though, I admit,  I wouldn't want to go full Brazilian, as I use the curlies as a way to affirm my continuing practice of coloring my hair. The man that made the request is a decade younger, so I wondered if it was generational or maybe cultural, he is not caucasion. A couple weeks before, I’d asked a friend closer to his age about her experience with men’s preferences. I knew her response would be biased by her feminist philosophy, but she commented that a bikini wax was for her own sense of “upkeep” and her husband nor any other man before him made a request for a full sweep. Ashley's explanation rang true.  

…Reminding that I connect dots… this led me to think about art of women. That same man asked about the shelf in my bathroom with three pieces on it, a vase I bought in a gallery in Chicago with a nude woman painted around it, a vignette of a brass sculpture of a bathing nude woman, given to me years ago by a guest, amidst stones and shells I’ve found on vacations since, and a bawdy, grey-scale, 1920s French postcard picturing the backs of two women in short rompers with their derrieres hanging out and their hands on each other’s cheeks. He inquired why I, a woman, would have other women displayed.  I told him to look around, there are several pieces of art though out my place that depict women – one reading a book that I bought in a gallery in Quebec in the nineties, one of a Hispanic opera singer I bought in a gallery in El Paso in the eighties and Changing woman… a gift from a dear friend, as I went navigated the earlier years of my divorce and grew my business, and, a body-image collage, I made myself from a size 14, bathing suit form I brought home from Costco one year.

The art I display, reflects who I am. My artist friend Nancy wore a t-shirt that impressed a point in my brain, Real Art Doesn’t Match Your Sofa. I don’t display art that matches anything for that matter, but my tastes and interests. I am aware that I have spent many years of my life hating my body. Media or maybe men’s view of women’s bodies have dictated how I am supposed to look and, frankly, I’ve never felt like I measured up. And, if anyone knows me, I am competitive and want to exceed expectations, but in this case, I don’t even come close when someone else sets the sites,, the objectives and the metrics.

Having art depicting women who look normal and pleasing and by the way, may look a bit like me is life giving. It eliminates the contradiction that plays on my self confidence. The postcard of the two women speaks to something else in me, maybe a sense of my whole person who loves other whole persons. I can’t look at my women friends  (or men friends for that matter) and just see their hearts and brains, the parts that particularly attract me. I see their whole person, the vessels, as we used to say, of what contains their whole body-mind-spirit and attracts me to them too. 

Over the last year or two same sex marriage has pervaded the zeitgeist. Early on it was about the other, that self defined group of gay and lesbians who saw a possibility of love with a larger world view. It’s helped me see a larger world view for myself. It’s helped me realize that I can explore a greater sense of the breadth and depth of me.

Since I was eleven, I’ve known that I have a strong masculine aspect to my personality. In wanting to zip up a turquoise sheath with six buttons aligned like tufts on a couch, down the front without help from my grandma, I learned from her that no man would ever have me, if I didn’t accept help. Last week on a date, a man asked me to stay in the car, while he came around to open the door, fuck that, I pulled the handle. Running a business for seventeen years took balls… in opening it, managing it and closing it. I was grateful my feminine side allowed me to cry, through out. For the greater part of my adult life, I’ve intentionally kept my hair short, make up to a minimum and nails trimmed so I had time to do other stuff. I never bought into the girly persona, though I know seduction. It comes in handy across the continuum… women, men, business (what else is sales?) love and religion. I feel more whole, more engaged when I respond from my whole masculine to feminine continuum.

The moment she said it, I knew I didn't buy into Grandma's sense of being had by a man. The last couple years, have helped me be more open to differences, to take the effort to be curious and interact rather than judge. Having art of nude women in my bathroom says nothing more than I like the art.

Dabbling Is My Creative Process

Dabble. Onomatopoeia? I think so. I like that… a term that blends writing and the sound of painting. Not having thought about this for more than it takes to brew a Moka pot of espresso, I declare I am a serial dabbler. And, I am good with that.

To dabble for me follows in a vein like the stages of grief... only different. I try something like, non work-related writing at a class at Taos Summer Writers Conference.  I deny talent. I write more stuff, get workshopped and then get frustrated… I am not as good,

as creative, nor as grammatically correct. I take a class, try a different style, a different length, a different genre. I chafe (more onomatopoeia?). I cycle back to frustration and take another class, join another group. A couple people respond to an odd piece that resembles a poem but, in my mind needs an illustration. I try something – plein air watercolor painting at Madeline Island School of Art in Lake Superior. I deny talent. I paint more stuff, get workshopped and frustrated… I am not as good, as creative, nor realistically correct. I take a class at the Palette and Chisel and on line at Sketch Book Skool. I try a different style, a different medium, a different process and chafe some more. I stop and blog about my process. I put words to my painting. I paint scenes to my words.  I'm blogging... while the paint dries.

I declare acceptance of my process - Dabbling. 

Handsome Global Jetsetters

Watercolors have become an important part of my creative life. I continue to learn by doing, by taking classes and by emulating other artists. Today on a Sketchbook Skool posting I saw another student's watercolor that I admired. I decided to try her technique which included layers of color. Today, she posted www.MargaretMcCarthyHunt.com her 301st daily painting. I admire that too.

Here is my first painting which I like, and I used her technique. The male subject told me what to call the sketch, Hansome Global Jetsetters. 

Here is the sketch I did yesterday of the flowering cherry blossom tree across the driveway. I spent about ten minutes on it, had it shaped and the background sketched, when my neighbor pulled up in his truck and blocked my view. I stopped at that point, waved at him and said, f*it.

Though not in a obsessive compulsive way, I too have been painting and sketching daily. I have great faith and conviction that one day I will be able to see growth in my work. Right now, not so much.  I do feel more confident however, as I approach paper, pull out a brush and take my first strokes.


I am going to post a few I've done at Fort Sheridan over the last year. It's not really the most interesting scene, but I've gotten to know it in a way that allows me appreciate it and pay attention to how I render it. 

I would like to get to a more impressionistic style, but, I find myself wanting to realistically observe it. I am working to include other media and bought a couple pens. It's funny, when I start in pen, my watercolors feel sullied, like all I'm doing is coloring in a sketch.

I painted the next two on winter days. The top one was done on a snowy day in January. The temp must have been close to 32 degrees, so not blistery, just wet. The problem wasn't that the paints froze, it was that the snow fell so fast and furious,  that it melted as it hit the pigment, pooled and diluted the paints. I couldn't keep a consistent color.

I liked painting in the winter and though, I don't want it to hurry back, it gave me a new view and appreciation of my scene. There are few things that I have so deliberately looked at so many times. This is a zen sort of exercise. 

The sky is so blue and the lake is bluer in the next one. Fall 2014 turned the grasses brown and swept away most of the leaves. 

Everytime I go out, part of the pleasure is seeing what color the Lake and sky will be. During the summer when there are leaves, I can't see the Lake as I turn the corner into the parking lot but once the trees are bare, I come around the corner and it's like seeing an old friend and I am refreshed immediately. 

You Calling My Art a Hobby?

Last Saturday was the first day of a figure drawing class at that Palette and Chisel. I loved every second of it. Each two-minute and five-minute sketch felt like a second, the hour-long pose felt like a minute. If we weren't offered a break, I wouldn't take one. It didn't matter whether my depictions sucked. It was three hours of peace, of breathing in and out and feeling whole and flowing.

The teacher is in his 40s tall and serious, there's a guy in the class in his 30s and there's two people in art school likely still in their teens and me. One of youngest asked me if "this"... art was a hobby? I took immediate offense at the question.  If I was in a sit com, I would've jumped back, ala Chandler, and said, "whahaha?" I had a reaction but it wasn't to her. My response filtered through years of other experiences. I know, because I recently took a mandated course at work called, Crucial Conversations and they said so.

Future - she didn't picture a future for me. She didn't see that I could be like her, in or considering a career. Old came next. She just met me and I presented as an old person. Okay, I'll give her older... 40 years or so. I could be two generations ahead of her. In my self-aware state I recognize that I don't say, even to myself, grandmother. I am definitely filtering. Then again, her choice of a word felt like a paper cut.

When I heard the word hobby,  it reminded me of an argument with my former husband about my business, when early in its life it wasn't making money. He called it a hobby. I took umbrage then too. He wanted me to close it. He wanted to take vacations. He wanted me to get a real job and not invest any more of our money into it. We discussed and argued. I realized he meant the future value of my earning power. The business gained momentum, but still, as new businesses go, required financial reinvestment. I stood my ground. A battle won... at all cost. He left and I dug in. I would
prove it was worth it. I completely retooled. I let go staff and refocused the business model. What business I was in was decided and the business took off and went on for another fifteen years. I may have proved him wrong, but I didn't prove me right. Damn.

Still mulling about the meaning of hobby, I asked my wise friend Lynn for her definition. She said, it's what brings us peak moments... when time stands still, where your mind finds rest. It's not work. Peace.

In an NPR's Morning Edition story recently, they asked rock-star scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson to fact check the time (relativity) effects of gravity in the new movie Interstellar. The stronger the gravity, the more time slows. The time on our phones that go through the far out GPS satellites has to be calculated and slowed to account for the difference in the speed of time in space. My time is slowed when I'm drawn to drawing.

Now that I think about it, that young woman may have done me a big service. The word hobby for me obviously triggers a reaction. It's clearly time to rethink and retool, to find a response that speaks of my experience of flow, joy and peace.

Thanks for the provocative words, Kurt Vonnegut.

"If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something." Kurt Vonnegut