Do you ever have little gut voices whispering to you? Mine has kept whispering to me: “You know the source of your best work happens when you’re outside, on the scene.” Or “You need to get outside to do your painting, not stuck inside behind a desk all morning!”
And the rest of all of me except a Mr. Rigid guy inside groans in acquiescence, “Yes, we know! You’re right!”
But that little Mr. Rigid growls at the other thought processes inside me – I can just see him glowering with bushy eyebrows over large horn-rimmed glasses, trying to look very respectable in his short-sleeved 80’s off-white dress shirt and bulky tie. Everyone -the other thought processes- get back to work [meaning I sit at my desk to do other artwork while looking wistfully out the window]. But they all know the truth; the other parts of me know where the fuel of the creativity is, and even though they comply with him like good little minions, the truth is out, making Mr. Rigid look awfully foolish, attempting to hoard his little rice-bowl of nice neat controlling office hours.
I did begin to break away from Mr. Rigid.
If you keep skimming my words to see the remaining pictures, you’ll see two ‘harvests’ of two outdoor ‘jail-break’ expeditions.
The steps in breaking away have been baby steps.
Last month, I tried to do at least one en plein air a week, if not more. I just wanted to see what would happen.
Below are the fruits!
I focused on an old cathedral barn silo in Belvue Kansas, with the lovely sky and hay bales. The same silo was captured along the Kansas River…something about water is so restful and restorative.
The next week, the following poured out.
These paintings show the fruits of a morning down at our local park.
Looking at this last photo, I felt that my work is reflects my blend of interests: nature study (the acorn), love of maps (the large vertical has a background map of where I was when I was painting these scenes), and just appreciating the local beauty around me (the garden scene).
A month later, I have more work to do with Mr. Rigid – really, it feels like he just needs to be given something else to manage, like helping me figure out how to do my art budgeting, so that he waves a condoning hand to whatever I need to do to capture beauty everywhere.
That’s all for this week!
I hope you really enjoyed the photos here! Could you relate to the struggle between your gut voice and an almost irrational rigidity? Let me know!
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This lovely little book has ushered in interior freedom and an awareness for how God uses our desires and feelings.
Bridget Bryan 