 I've been messing around with oil paints lately.
One day last week I got fed up with the turpentine. I set terrible goals and challenges for myself to bring an older acrylic monster back to life. I didn't have the skills to finish this one when I started it. Now? I'm making the final marks I didn't know how to make months ago. There's a part of me drawing off the work I've done that is all around me in my studio. Some things even straight off my floor, others tucked into sketch books that have been kicking around for 20 some odd years, and I’ll look at these and think . ‘ah, that looks like the contents of my brain strewn before me’ I often revisit subjects many many times, circling around themes that bleed into all my work, both directly and indirectly. These days, I rarely hold a reference image in my hand while I work as I used to, now I just have many references scattered on the floor, posted on the walls and let them just kind of seep into my current work in a very peripheral way. I paint, but I also draw a lot. It’s a way of getting more information and understanding imagery - I’ll draw and copy something many times and may hardly ever look at them again, but they’re in the room at the same time. I think one reason I paint is I want to respond to what I see, particularly the things that break my heart or spark me up in such a way that I can't help but also tell my own story in the paint. Thank you for continuing to follow along. You don't know how much it means to see people enjoy what I create.    WORK IN PROGRESS⚠︎
Photo 1: Today Photo 2: Day 1 Photo 3: portrait of me somewhere in the middle stages by @somerrunner . .🦊. . An interesting question - how does my work show how I see the world? I see it like this: it’s fragmented. Shattered. I’ve lived in Seattle for 13 years and I think the experience of living in a very busy city environment inevitably feeds into the way I perceive and understand things. It interests me that this painting reflects our world at the moment. How disjointed it is. I didn’t set out to do that but I’m very conscientious of our time and how isolated people are and how this influences my decisions at the easel. I used to get so bummed out about everyone walking around ignoring each other wearing their headphones all the time. So distracted, hardly aware of anyone else. Now that has shifted, people are now almost hyper vigilant and they move away from you, getting out of the way of each other. The way we move down the street has changed. Now even if they’re not bumping into you because they’re on their phone, they’re acknowledging your humanness as though you were toxic and taking up space. In some ways, I think this transition into a pandemic was made too easy but the disconnect that our devices started. The phone was the real death of society, not a virus. Even me, I’m just as guilty of this. I definitely think there’s something to be seen here, the subjects in the piece seem to be almost unaware of each other. The butterflies are going in different directions, the fox is gazing away from them flying all around him. They are in the same physical space but they are not connected. This painting has so many stories. And I don’t think I’m ready to write the final chapter just yet. You can find the first narrative about this on earlier posts. Acrylic on canvas on hope 3’x4’. 4/21/2020 On Looking The most important thing I’ve learned from artists I obsess over is the importance of looking. When your work is 7 feet high you have to step back regularly to assess what you’re doing and that’s a practice I follow regularly.
. I think my tendency for self doubt and criticism comes from this obsession with looking.Or perhaps it’s the other way around. . Regardless, I also think it is the thing that lights the fire to create work I’m proud of. . Every mark I add to a painting I scrutinize. Constantly evaluating what needs to be added or re-painted or even removed. I know this quality doesn’t make me easy to date and probably isn’t even good for my mental health. But, it’s satisfying to know that every piece I put my name to has everything I can give. Revisiting the foxes. I have work to do. PSA: for all concerned, I am, in fact, wearing shorts. Now, carry on... 4/17/2020 The VocabularyBear season.
Let go or be dragged. I think in this quarantine I’m really developing my vocabulary for painting,of what it is I do. I live in the subject I paint - by seeing it constantly I am always informed by it. I can look at something but I don’t feel I know that subject, not until I’ve painted it a hundred times, I don’t feel like I know it. The same way I can’t paint portraits of people I don’t know, I have to understand them -just looking at a photograph I don’t understand it and certainly don’t have a handle on it. 🐻🌊. Trying to get a grasp on bears right now? Yeah, I think we’re all trying for the bears these days. Quick oil painting sketch between work shifts today. Oil on canvas on hope 6x8”. 4/16/2020 Bears Have Taken Over The StudioI followed the bears
and they led me to the sea. Pt VI 🐻🌊. Breathe, paint, breathe, keep painting. I am lucky to do what I do and every mark that hits a canvas is a little victory in keeping joy in my life. It’s the only tool I’ve got for organization in a world too chaotic to hold still. I followed the bears and they led me to the sea. . But, in sea water, stillness is drowning . So, lately I’ve had to paint like I mean it . Push myself further Concentrate more deeply Onward. Upward. Forward. . . . ✌🏻. . It’s bear season Just keep painting. . Oil on canvas on hope 36x48”. 4/13/2020 Sketching Bear Season It’s bear season. 🐻🌊.
. Seattle winters seem to last forever. If you’ve spent more than a year in or around my life, you know winters are the hardest. . I’ve come to understand that there are far worse things that came with Spring, even with all her generous sunlight. For me, in so many ways, it is still winter. . For bears, winter is one night. . What I Would Give. 4/12/2020 The Litmus Test Portrait of me with all my sketchbooks by @somerrunner . Your first job is to find out what you’re supposed to be doing. . Your second job is do that. Sing your songs, write your stories, paint like you mean it. A good litmus rest for figuring out what you should be doing is to ask yourself: Is it working and do you love it. Choose the struggles you enjoy having. 4/10/2020 Succeed or Survive ⚠️WORK IN PROGRESS⚠️.
. “The greatest skill I ever had, though, was the one I started with: being able to suffer for long periods of time and not die." .🐻🌊. I followed the bears and they led me to the sea. Pt VI You're underwater. And yet, you know. You will succeed or you will survive. . How do you get that confidence in your bones? It's the decision to try. It's those moments where the emotions rise up and yet you feel yourself drowning, you know you have a choice. Confidence comes to people who decide to try in that moment. You will succeed, or you will survive. You tread water and hold your breath: you don't give up. . . . ✌🏻. . Oil on canvas on hope, 3’x4’. We did work today. . 4/8/2020 The Letters, in progress⚠️WORK IN PROGRESS⚠️
. I followed the bears, and they led me to the sea. Pt V 🐻🌊. . You are a witness to what’s happening right now. Write the stories. Paint the paintings. Follow those bears. Your personal life has crashed and burned. You are lost at sea and you don’t think you’ll ever find your way back to the shore. Right now you may be drowning But don’t forget There’s always been a fire in you. And you, You could boil an ocean. I think the me five years from now would look back and tell me in this moment: You’re an overwhelmed nurse practitioner working mercilessly during a pandemic that is both tragically ending and disrupting life as we know it. . I’m telling you, in five years You’re going to need all these stories you are a witness to right now. Write about what’s happening, write down those heartbreaking things. Paint the things you can’t help but paint, paint all the heartbreak you can’t find the words for. . These stories and these paintings may just become your most prized treasures. You will leave your story behind you when it’s your time to go. . And you can be proud of that You had the courage to remember all of it and you were brave enough to share it. Keep doing your work. Happy passover. - Oil on canvas on hope (3 little bears 18x24” and the start of a new big project 3’x4’ blocked in) 4/6/2020 The Letters Series, II base layers ⚠️WORK IN PROGRESS ⚠️ I followed the bears and they led me to the sea. Pt IV 🐻🌊 This is a really tough one to share I dont know where my work is going to end up but I know if I don’t share it it’s going nowhere. Personally, exploring difficult feelings is the equivalent of being vulnerable to the creative process. Surrender and allow that content to guide the paintbrush. That’s how I understand what’s going on in my internal world: giving those pulverized raw garbage feelings form- not just in the lengths and widths of the canvas but the depth of value, color and found,or, in this series, mostly lost edges. All the colors on my palette come out of the tube almost black; Shadow green, Prussian blue, burnt umber. I scoured them all with zinc white and a stitch of cad yellow. I’m fighting off my own darkness mixing oil paint. You know that strategy? Maybe if I can lighten the values, they will light the rest of my world. Maybe. Probably not. I followed the bears knowing very little other than I wanted a lightness, a softness, a tenderness. I want what I have never been able to hold and you should know by now everything I ever let go of has claw marks If I can paint them, I can see them and I can know them, in a sense. And no, they might not be mine forever but for a moment I forget about everything that ever took them away from me. I’ve got more work to do here and even more to say. Thank you for listening. It really means the world. Oil on canvas on hope 18x24”. 4/5/2020 Letters III, Base layers ⚠️WORK IN PROGRESS⚠️
I followed the bears and they led me to the sea. Pt III Did you know? Did anyone ever tell you that drowning people sound exactly like people who aren’t. Right now, my bears might only ever know drowning But I hope by the end of this the troubled waters are a means to an end And not an end itself. Hope begins in the dark. Oil on canvas on hope 18x24”. See my last post for more back story. 🐻🌊 4/4/2020 The Letters Series, first layers⚠️Works in progress⚠️
. I followed the bears and they led me to the sea. part II Yeah, I need to talk about bears. Hear me out. I think collectively we all carry the same feeling these days - and it feels like when you’re swimming and you put your feet down to touch the bottom and catch your breath for a minute but the seafloor is deeper than you thought and in its place is nothing. You didn’t realize you swam into the deep-end you’re treading water and getting so tired and starting to forget how much comfort you used to get standing on the shore Even when you were at the edge Staring down a rip tide. It’s like that, y’know? Only now the closest person is six feet away and they can’t get any closer. For now, and perhaps I am only speaking for myself, we’re all treading water and holding fast to the hope that negotiations for where the bottom is will begin soon. To be continued, as I paint my way through it. Bear 2: 18x24” oil on canvas on hope. 4/3/2020 This Song, Sketch draft quick little oil paint study between shifts today. 8x10"
“You’ve got to remember, you’re allowed to feel it and you’re allowed to lose it,” she reminded herself. ... whatever you’re feeling, you gotta know, is an appropriate response to this world. I’m working on trying not to be apologetic for posting work I’m not particularly proud of. Learning to separate my work from who I am has been the steepest learning curve of my entire life. It really hasn’t gotten easier. 4/2/2020 Post script, Base layer ⚠️WORK IN PROGRESS⚠️
This painting would later go on to be completely reworked in the Letters series of 3 polar bears. Creative impulse is a funny thing. For months I’ve been fighting the pull of bears while I’ve focused intently on foxes and more recently the quarantine collection of portraits. . I’m getting really tired of fighting for so much these days; fighting for people to do their part, fighting to keep patients safe and fighting to keep trying every day when it feels like what I’m doing matters so very little. And today, I really couldn’t fight this one any more. . I followed the bears And they led me to the sea. I promise there’s a narrative here that will be told as I paint my way through what I’ve been dreaming. ⚠️Work in progress, very early block in oil on canvas on dreams 16x20” |
AuthorAliza and Her Monsters Archives
October 2022
CategoriesAll 2020 2021 Art Journey Art Marketing Business Oil Painting Series Studio Life Thoughts |
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