No more tulips

Dear Nikki/Dear Sarah Day 426 of our daily drawing exchange

Hi Nikki,

When I saw your post from yesterday, it struck me that you often use orange in your art and that it’s interesting that you associated the word “air” with a warm colour, when I would go with a cool colour like blue. Orange and blue are complementary colours. Make of that what you will. I’m tired and itchy and may possibly have lost my mind.

I remember making collages when I was a teenager. I used teen fashion magazines for images, and I do recall cutting out a lot of lips and eyes. I follow a Scandanavian artist who uses some collage and some cool rubber stamps in her small paintings. I’ve been fooling around with small scale (3” square) paintings inspired by her work. Perhaps one of these days I’ll glue something on.

Here’s the first one I did. I’m liking the small scale right now.

Hi Sarah -

oooh… I like this one! Great subtle colour and loose, lovely lines.

Fascinating observation about the colour of air. I hadn’t realized I use so much orange until you pointed it out. I was recently reading somewhere about choosing a preferred palette - perhaps this has happened by accident?

Though, today’s effort is blue and red, so…

We were speaking in class (during our discussion of One Hundred Years of Solitude) about what we consider to be magical in life - and I immediately thought of a moment in childhood when I walked up to a small bird and picked it up. When I opened my cupped hands, the bird flew off. I might have thought I’d made that up, but decades later, on my 40th birthday, I repeated the experience with another small bird who caught my attention while I was cleaning out the horse paddock. Both incidents transcend what I understand to be rational or possible. Is that not the definition of magic?

Anyway, the child-hand emerged from the page, holding the bird. Art was the other thing I considered magical - you stare at a blank page and from who knows where, music, poetry, a drawing, an assemblage appears.

And, off I go to bed. Today has been long and exhausting, and my energy meter is still not quite up to 100%, so I will slip off to the land of dreams and whatever magic they may hold for me tonight.
Nikki