Finding Calm In The Midst Of Chaos
Living In A Construction Zone
Second Cup Minis
There’s a reason people move out during a renovation project on those HGTV shows. Now we get it! Unfortunately we don’t have that luxury so here we are… living in a mess. A virtual dust bowl. And yer still mighty grateful. We know some day this will all be a bad memory and we’ll have a beautiful kitchen!
In the meantime, life goes on and I am finding some relief from the madness now that I’m back in the studio creating again. I’m not gunna lie… it was slow go. It had been months since I picked up a tool of any kind and the more that time dragged on the less confident I felt that I could ever be an artist again.
Taking my own advice from the previous blog post, I set out to find a way to jump back in. I grabbed the easiest medium and the smallest substrate knowing that keeping it small and fun would be the only way for me to sustain. Pastels make me feel like a kid with a box of crayons again. While I love soft pastels, I was reluctant to drag out yet another dust-maker so I went for my oil pastels. The use of bold colors just lit me up immediately and I had no problem scribbling mindlessly on a small 8 X 8 canvas.
Lost in the joy of immediate, glorious color, I was eager to find a way to create some smaller sketches in order to try out compositions and color combinations quickly. So I grabbed a stack of bar coasters, slapped some clear gesso on them and before you know it the “Second Cup Minis” had become a daily practice. I can knock just one of these babies out with my second cup in a few minutes or several if I have the time.
Aside from the oil pastels, I’ve tried acrylics, oils and colored pencils on these little coasters and found that as long as you coat them with some kind of gesso, you can use any medium you like on them. As far as using them as coasters, well… I guess you could as long as you coat them with some sort of acrylic sealer. Otherwise they are just fun little “one and dones” - No need to cut or tear paper, nothing precious - a good way to try out color combinations and compositions. Most importantly a good way to keep moving and stay committed to a daily art practice. Believe me, one thing leads to another. Before playing around with these I had lost complete confidence in my ability to drag out paints and mix colors. Happy to say I’m back in the saddle and painting large again!
I bought this pack of 100 coasters on Amazon and there are plenty to choose from. Just find the best deal. My gesso of choice is Liquitex Clear Gesso. I love the grittiness of this particular brand. You can also buy it at Michael’s with a coupon. As a side note, if you are painting with Oil Pastels, while they are tons of fun and rich in color, unlike oil sticks, they never dry. So they must be fixed and the only fixative worth using on them is this one made by Sennelier. It’s not cheap but well worth the price. After a few coats your work is safe forever and the colors remain true.
There you have it! Go off and find a way to initiate a daily practice that works for you.
