Day 12. Rough Translation

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“Paths Crossed” 24×24, oil on canvas [creativ_button url=”https://denisehopkinsfineart.com/product/paths-crossed-24×24-oil-canvas/” icon=”” label=”Purchase Details” colour=”blue” colour_custom=”” size=”medium” edge=”straight” target=”_self”]

Rob, another artist in this 31 day challenge, reminded me yesterday of something I said when he first asked what he should paint for these 31 days:

What you always want to do but never get around to doing.

Years ago a Spanish-speaking friend used to repeat a saying I’m not sure translates exactly in English but always struck me: The preacher’s ears are the ones closest to his mouth. In other words, hear/practice what you preach.

For at least a year now I’ve been doing the following two things. First, when I get on instagram and don’t have the best wifi, the pictures take a while to load. While they do so, they are blurry forms that I screen shot in hopes that that blur of an image will inform an abstract painting later on. Second, when you click on a painting in the “shop” section of my site and then on a specific painting, you can run your cursor along the image to see a zoomed in/ detail views of it. Sometimes when I do this on a representational painting, I see a composition that I really want to try for an abstract painting so I screen shot it.

When you look through my iphoto library, you see a million pictures of my kid, art, prettily plated food, and the strange images I’ve described above. I’ve never gotten around to making real paintings of any of them. That is, until today when I realized how close my own ears were to my mouth. This one is based on a little piece of my day 10 painting. Of course, once I got going I altered it a little here and there, but having the basic framework for an abstract in place at the start made all the difference.

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