Exercise Four: Painting without a Plan

No matter how uninspired we might feel, ideas are right under our fingertips. We simply have to find them. This is the moment when Guiding Principle Three kicks in: Look to a source of beauty.

Memories: I have this memory of looking at the full moon and noticing what I’m calling a Moon bow – This is a ring of light a hand’s distance from the moon itself. The glow was magical. I was puzzled that my husband couldn’t see the ring, nor did it show up in a photograph of the moon. I tried to paint what I remembered.

Art work: I am a fiber artist who works with many quilt designs. There is a quilt block known as a log cabin. It is an old design, going back, really, a few hundred years. Traditionally, there is a red square placed in the center. It is said to represent the hearth. “Logs” in the form of fabric rectangles are stacked on all sides of the center. Here is my painted version of the log cabin block.

Poetry and nature: I follow a photographer named Catherine Arcolio who posts under the name Leaf and Twig. The very moment I was working on this exercise, her post arrived in my in-box: a river surrounded by low hills and a three line poem. I had to paint it.

Catherine Arcolio’s post is here:

Gentle Mountains ‹ leaf and twig ‹ Reader — WordPress.com

You can read about Kateri Ewing here:

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