RELAXING IS RELATIVE…

STEWED TOMATOES

Not a joiner. Never liked to stand out. Always stood at the rear of the crowd. Invites to parties, celebratory showers…even my own bridal shower…were angst ridden. The Mother said, “You have to go to this one…and maybe one more.” There you have it. Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat. Probably a control thing.

My Reader wants to know what this has to do with anything. It has to do with that control thing. You think?

Tara Leaver, Cornwall, England artist, counselor, art instructor, my wanna-be best friend, issued a free drawing workshop via Email and Instagram titled #freeupyourart . A weeks worth of drawing lessons boiled down to basic Beginning 101 Drawing lessons to….free up your art. Simple. Exercises that should alleviate the absolute, carved in stone, no questions asked need to control every movement of the pen or brush. The creative part of…well, free-flowing, spontaneous creative-ness. Shuffs from My Reader.

Process is everything. Relax first. Then relax again and relax some more.

Project: this watercolour drawing of tomatoes on the board was going no where. It had gone about as far as it was ever going to go. Rubbish bin bound in other words. However, in that relaxed mood of compliance (insert grain of salt here) to Tara’s instructions I began to cut the going-no-where tomatoes apart. Carefully. Very carefully. My plan was set: I’d carefully, very carefully glue them down on another piece of paper and pen-draw more tomatoes over the going-no-where-watercoloured-tomatoes. Perfect plan. What should have taken a carefree hour to execute, as per lesson instructions, took me just a wee bit longer. Five to six hours…mind you…attributed to the laborious yet careful scissor cutting.

The very best part? There’s a whole stack of rubbish bin bound watercolour starts and stops that need attention as opposed to keeping them in the dark recesses of my cupboard. I can foresee many, many more possible projects. I can foresee more relaxing. I can really see losing control. Maybe after more lack of control…tearing the paper instead of cutting with scissors…..

My Reader can’t believe I said that.

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