Letting Go

Who is letting go these days? How about everyone and everything, don’t you think? Even the oak tree across from our house is letting go leaves and branches and acorns in the middle of summer time. But before I continue, dear reader, I’ll remind you of a few things.

Favorite Things

This blog offers weekly posts about a series of paintings called “Favorite Things.” I love to draw and paint and, each week, I share a painting or a painting in progress with you. So, if you aren’t signed up but think you might enjoy seeing a weekly post and painting, please sign up here. This week I also will share the latest experiment with painting two paintings; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Are you ready? OK! Here goes!

Release Strategy

So I decided to name this week’s painting “Letting Go” for several reasons. First, here we are in the middle of summer and in the middle of a pandemic and in the midst of significant, justifiable social unrest. It’s hot as heck and bonus in North Carolina? Hurricane Season. Good grief can we get set free from all of this madness? Well no, not really. Hmmm…what is my go to ‘letting go’ strategy?

One of my strategies is a daily morning walk with the best dog ever (BDE)! Earlier this month, BDE and I were returning from a long walk. As we came down our street, I noticed tree branches on the ground everywhere. Most of these fallen branches were covered in healthy green leaves and acorns. So I picked one up and put it outside of the studio.

Anticipation

A few days after I collected the fallen branches, we took steps to prepare for Hurricane Isaias. Deck chairs and table? Indoors! Gutters? Cleaned! Emergency plans and lights? In order! Guess what else? I decided even the huge oak trees in the park across the street from our house prepared, too. How? They ‘let go’ of a few iffy branches to protect the larger branches. Right?

And so the preparation, anticipation and passage of the hurricane came and went. We were lucky and unscathed. Next? I knew I had to paint one of the branches. And, so this blog post shares that painting.

I am pretty sure you are looking at a painting of an Overcup Oak branch. It’s leaves are so unique and irregular. And the acorns are covered by it’s ‘cup.’ The leaf shapes started off being a challenge to paint. And, then, I remembered my school’s mantras: step back and squint and simple biggest shapes first. Whew! Then, one night I forgot to wrap the leaves in a moist towel so they wouldn’t dry out. Ooops! Solution? I painted the more healthy, green version of the leaves (from memory) even though they curled up a bit. You can see them in the photo that follows.

Morning or Afternoon Painting

You may recall that last week, I came up with a strategy to manage the changing light in my studio? If not, you can see the entire post here. However, one of the solutions to managing the light is I paint one painting in the morning and then switch to another still life set up in the afternoon. Which is this week’s painting? It’s the morning painting. So far I am pretty excited with this new process for managing the studio light. Stay tuned for more updates and blog posts on this lighting adventure.

For Sale

This sweet little 5×5 inch painting is for sale for $195. You can visit the page with more details including a larger image of the painting, here.

How are you letting go

Thank you so much for reading this post. How are you? What are you doing to help yourself adjust and let go in these unpredictable and trying times? Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.