Keeping Up

so...Nothing like writing a blog post to put the kabosh on a whole "do it every day" project.  Or is that just me?  Anyway, I found my way through my malaise and did some fairly crap painting (see Instagram, above).  AND IT WAS STILL FUN.

You know how you go to these art exhibits (particularly some of the more abstract stuff) and you think, "I could do that." And, "Why the heck is this $5000??"   Or, again, is that just me?  Because I am cheap.  And apparently, artistically arrogant.

Then you go home and pull out your cheapie craft store paints and discover: IT IS NOT AS EASY AS IT LOOKS!   Whyyy gaaahhd whyyy?????

Anyway, I have learned a few things:

1. Nice paints are expensive.  Like, the tinest little tube of ONE color of watercolors is $7 minimum.  And that is not even the fancy stuff.   Luckily for me, this little tube should last me forever, as I work on a very small scale and use about 3 milligrams of paint per image.      Don't even get me started on oil paints.  Now when I am at a museum all I can see are the dollar signs.  "Wow, he really went for it with the Alizarin Crimson.  Lordy, there must be $300 of paint in that one corner alone."   It makes for a really inspiring viewing. 
2. Paining abstracts is ridiculously hard.  I mean, yes, any fool can slap some paint on a canvas, but to make it look good is quite another thing.     Michelle Armas is a person who does this incredibly well.  Here is her work site and here is her blog.   I am proud to say I have been following her forever (she lives in Georgia, y'all!) and her career seems to have really exploded.  Yay.

Sigh.  So pretty. All of her paintings feel like a new world that I could just fall into and explore forever.  I dream of excellence like this.   One baby step at a time....