Dollar Store Paint Painting Part 3

I was inspired to recreate this woman from a birthday card I received earlier this year. Wish I still had the card, to give credit to the artist who originated this woman--and to thank her/him for inspiring me to start painting. I love those bold splashes of yellow, red and turquoise she/he used and the dark outlines. Seems that I do so much better when recreating faces from an image or photo than from my imagination, although I've created some interesting original profile drawings. The painting from last week (part 2) was also an original profile. Maybe it's a matter of just practice, practice, practice.

The one side of my collage door is almost covered with paintings. I'm looking forward to seeing what the opposite side will reveal.

 

Dollar Store Paint Painting Part 2

So now I'm wondering what to do with these paintings. One of my sons absolutely abhors them. They are, to his way of seeing, so amateur and crude and--for God's sake--created with dollar store paints!!! Unfortunately for him, I'm not quite ready to graduate to REAL paint (oils, acrylics), and fortunately for me he doesn't live at home anymore so I can continue hanging the paintings wherever I please--most recently on our guest bedroom/office door. Feels like a collage.

Which reminds me of an assignment one of my mentors gave me a while ago, to draw/paint/collage something on one side of a door and then do the complete opposite on the other side, i.e., change the scale, color, themes, etc. This is going to be interesting. I think the following painting should go in one of the four corners.

 

My first attempt at dollar store paint painting

After years of avoiding a serious study of painting techniques, I got this unexpected urge to paint. The art supply stores are a distance from my home, so I rushed to the dollar store down the street before the urge disappeared, bought some poster paints and got busy. Talk about feeling vulnerable--I'm totally out of my league with painting, but my Muse came a-calling. I must be obedient. 

Doing Creator's Creative Will

I once heard the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. say, "I just want to do God's will." That's what I'm feeling today--I just want to do the Creator's will using the creative talents I've been given. I want to create art that satisfies my soul, that is a contribution to the hearts/minds/souls of everybody, for posterity. I want to move beyond everything that has blocked and stopped me from expressing the wellspring of creativity within, beyond the inner critic and the perfectionist. "I just want to do God's will" and get all this art out of me and into the world.

My adapted prayer today--and everyday I abide here by the grace of Pachamama--is:

Deliver me to my passion.

Deliver me to my brilliance.

Deliver me to my intelligence.

Deliver me to my depth.

Deliver me to my nobility.

Deliver me to my beauty.

Deliver me to my power to heal.

Deliver me to You.

(Adapted from Illuminata by Marianne Williamson) 

This cover for the first full-color edition of Passager is a page from one of my pillow books. I was truly honored that the publishers wanted to use this page. Writing in the round is magically disorienting.