Category: Morning Pages

Just Butterflies

As I was writing the Morning Pages in my backyard garden, trying to figure out why inspiration has been fleeting this summer, I noticed a lot of things flying around. Hoping they weren’t some scary buzzing things, I sneaked a peek at the shadows.
What do you think? More than six butterflies were fluttering around my garden and on the butterfly bush. Yes, I guess the name of the flowering thing fits. They were all over it.
I grabbed my camera, and tried to get close not to disturb them, so I could take some shots. It was hard to show just how many of them there were between the foliage and the sunlight. 

It was early in the morning, my favorite time of day. Quiet, with the sun sending out it’s rays and warming the air, glistening the moisture on the flowers. 
No kids yelling, no lawn mowers, no construction guys, garbage men. Just butterflies. 
Perfect.

Time Just Flies

Do you see what happens when you’re having fun?  Time just flies right by!  Oh gee, when was the last time I posted here?  I have to take a look to remember what day it was.  One day just flows right into the next and before I know it the week is gone and another begins.  If you’re not watching, life turns into one long cup of coffee, my analogy anyway.

I was writing in my Morning Pages just this same thing yesterday.  I can remember adults saying that life goes by in the blink of an eye, and it is just so, so true.  I thought of it while writing at 7A.M. that every day I see my granddaughter she is different.  Literally different.  I am trying to slow down life so I can really see her changing.  Most times when she is delivered to my house she is asleep.  I stop whatever I am doing to look at her sleeping face until she opens those big, brown, beautiful eyes of hers.  I straighten up the house and myself, before she gets here so I can be comfortable in the present moment.

Being present has to be one of the hardest things to do.  To stop and smell the roses, as they used to say, is a difficult thing when life is so demanding.  There is so much to do, lists to cross off, errands, painting, beating myself up for not painting, cooking and cleaning, and on and on.  I have had a good talk with my brain and told it that it must shut up and stop bothering me for the time being.  I am going to sit here and look at this baby for now.  Granted, my off days will be hectic.  Even so, I will try to be present, aware, and awake.

When Son#1 got engaged I jumped up when I remembered I hadn’t put his 3 month baby photo in a frame yet!  What an idiot I am!  I can’t believe I let that much time go by without doing some of those things.  Don’t get my wrong, I do have pictures in albums.  But then again, there’s a slew of them in boxes and that’s just not right.

So I have made up my mind to slow down, breathe, remember what day it is, where I am, what I am doing, and keep my eyes open.  If I don’t, this baby will be 10 years old and I’ll be wondering what happened.

OK, gotta go, the baby just woke up!

The Rush of Something New

It feels so good to have the day all to myself today.  Yesterday is over and today is a new day.  Tuesday is usually an errand day and I hope to get those chores finished early. 

When I removed the garden painting from the block it felt great.  In the book Walking in This World, by Julia Cameron, I read in one of the chapters to ‘Finish something’!
How does it feel to finish something?  I felt relief.  The act of closing the book on a work is very satisfying.  So satisfying that I get a rush of inspiration.  Maybe I felt that way because I was happy to be done with a piece I wasn’t thrilled with?  Whatever the reason, I became excited about the possibilities.

No sooner had I freed the painting from the watercolor block, I looked over the latest photos I’ve taken and chose one to sketch onto the brand spanking new paper. 

I decided to use the butterfly photo I took a couple of weeks ago or when ever that was.  I’d like to work it kind of sloppy, sort of abstract.  I might use the watercolor paint thick and heavy, throwing it on the paper, just to experiment with the medium.  I seem to be daydreaming lately about oil painting again. 
While reading through some of my favorite artists’ blogs I noticed one was doing what I had been thinking to do, which is paint on a small square-shaped canvas.  I was writing some random thoughts in the Morning Pages yesterday, yes I’m still doing that, and in the blink of an eye I was looking up at my surroundings thinking I should paint on a 4×4 canvas!  Just like that!  I thought to myself, ‘You have some weird Artist A.D.D. girl!’  One second I’m writing, the next I’m in LaLaLand and I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing.  I had to squeeze my eye lids shut to block out the blur! 
So anyway, that might be my next thing, and I didn’t even start this work!  I think I have to go back to oils.  Something in my head keeps pointing me there.  I’m going to have to obey the muse.  First I will start and finish this painting.  Let’s see where I go with it.
I’ll get back to you on it.

Musing on Morning Pages

It’s been way over a year since I started writing Morning Pages as suggested in the course, The Artist’s Way.  Three full pages are expected, written longhand in the early morning hours before the day gets under way.  In all that time I may have missed only a couple of days of writing.  I never thought I would be so drawn to write in my black and white marble notebook every single day.  The writing has never been a chore and, in fact, as I come to the end of the third page I think of more things to write!

The author of The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron, writes that great ideas start to come forth by the middle of the second page of free thought writing, and this is true for me, too.  I could be out of sorts when I start writing and by the time I’m plugging on the second page my pen is flying with thoughts. 

The act of writing is art.  When I first started journaling I hadn’t yet read the course.  I was writing whatever came into my head, for a page if I was bored, for more if I had something to get off my chest.  The marble notebook I began writing in had no lines for some reason.  How I found that kind of notebook I have no idea.  I must have picked it up for my boys when they were still in school.  I decided I liked the idea of no lines and just wrote the words and marveled how they looked on the page.  Then I began to write without wearing reading glasses I use.  And that was interesting to me, how the words looked in the lines they made on the page.  It was cool to me that I couldn’t really see the words the pen made, making it seem more like drawing than writing. 

Then there’s the pen.  While I write I need the pen nib, the ink flow, and the way it meets the paper to be just right.  Many pages I wrote have three different types of pens until I got one that I enjoyed writing with.  My favorite is my old Mont Blanc pen that my father gave me many years ago.  Right now it needs an ink refill, but using it was like a ritual.  The pen and pencil set came in a zippered leather case.  I’d get out my notebook, open it to the fresh page, unzip the case and remove the pen from it’s elastic loop holding it in place, flip the lever to reveal the writing nib and go at it.  Besides the fact that it’s a lovely instrument to write with, I remember my father when I use it. 

While I write what pops into my head I get more ideas for this blog.  I could be huffing and puffing in the Pages and while I’m writing I think to myself, could this be a blog post? 

That’s what happened today and what I’m yapping about here now.  I was thinking about the usual things and goings-on when it dawned on me that someday, if I keep these notebooks, my family will stumbled on them and read about who I am, was, whatever.  Will they think, she’s nuts? Who knows. 

It seems my mother’s father kept notebooks about his life in this country, in the late 1890’s I guess.  He came from Greece as a youngster with his brothers and somehow ended up out west building the railroads.  Interesting stuff I’m sure, but shortly before he died of a brain aneurism he burned his books.  What was he thinking?  I would have loved to read his words.  I thought of the story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, who aged backwards.  After his death, as an infant, his wife had her daughter read to her from the diary he kept and the how and why of what it was.  That scene just made me think of my own writing in the Morning Pages.

Anyway, I don’t think my thoughts are as interesting as some, but they’re mine and that’s that.

Had it in the Fun House. Now Where’s the exit?

It’s Monday morning and my day has been well under way for hours.  I awake most days at around 6:00-6:30AM, no later.  My usual routine is to get myself together and go to the kitchen to get the coffee started.  Must have coffee.  In an old post I told you how I like to make coffee in my old fashioned Corning Ware stove-top percolator.  Old school style, I know, but drip just doesn’t offer the aroma of perked coffee.  Sorry, just doesn’t and what’s a morning without the coffee wafting through the house?

I get the coffee going and make lunches for the Mr. and Son #2.  Son #1 is married and out so I’m down to the three of us. I bring in the newspaper from the sidewalk and read it with my coffee.  It’s the perfect time of day.  If I’m lucky I write the Morning Pages while they’re still asleep.  Most days that doesn’t happen and I write after they leave for the day when my time is my own. I write every day.

The Morning Pages, from the book The Artist’s Way, have become a lifeline, as I’ve said before.  I write the date and time at the top of the page and then all this stuff starts pouring out of my head, through my arm, the pen, and to the page. Then the fun begins.  Good thoughts and ideas, stupid stuff and dopey people wind up in the pages.  Lately the focus has been on my own resistance, and the dopey people.  Every day another block.  Every day another thing from these dopey people.  The pages are supposed to help one see where one needs the most attention.  Okay, my resistance I’m working on, but how about the dopey people?

I’m being mild here when I say “dopey people.”  I’d like to call them something else, but I’m just not that way.  How long can you excuse their actions by calling it jealousy?  This is no longer 4th grade no-clue stupid stuff, but real life adult dopey people. What are you supposed to do, hide in a cave?  In a previous post I was talking about reading Walking in This World, how other people try to fit you into how they’re used to seeing you, but they can’t now that you’ve become who you’re meant to be.  Okay, find a better mirror, but how long does it take? When will it be over and how do you get out of the fun house?

Here’s a scenario.  Let’s say there’s a young person who loves doing a thing, and someone a little older loves doing the same thing, that’s nice.  Over time they grow older, learn more, become more talented, more interested, more adept, more out there with this thing they love, and do it better than the older person.  Suddenly, the older person is annoyed, upset, surprised, and combative.  Just because the younger person grew up and became more of who they really are, and is better at the thing than the older person will ever be, why is that a problem?  Why can’t the older person say, “Good for you!  Look at how you’ve grown and what you’ve become!”  No, this previous mentor becomes the aggressor, the enemy.  We’re talking about an adult with responsibilities, children, in an adult world having a tantrum, pouting, screaming, ignoring, sulking, pounding their chest like a big ape because they’re surprised this younger person showed them up by doing the thing they love to do differently, better, new.  “Since you’re doing it like that, now I’m not going to be your friend. He has a swelled head.” Give me a break.  Who really has the swelled head?

What keeps coming up in my pages is the question, “Why?”  I know I said in the other post that people are jealous when you grow.  But, how does the word jealous cover all this dopey person’s stuff?  I can’t figure it out.  I’m hoping that in writing about the negativity it will dissipate and the morning pages will give me an answer.  I need to know how to react when I see said dopey person. Soon.

Balking and Bagpipe, I’ll Just Go With It

I’m writing this post after having a most unsatisfactory morning.  I’ll elaborate some.  Since it’s my job to take care of all the household chores, shopping, and meals, (I’m the artist who works at home) I consider it also my job to be concerned with the health of the people who live here.  Everyone in every family has certain needs that have to be met and it falls on the person doing the house stuff to handle it, right?  I think so.  If someone here catches a cold I make the chicken soup.  If someone needs more fiber in their diet, I work that out.  I do my best. 

Now, the hard part is when one family member balks at what I’m offering, and since I am the person with whom the responsibility lies, I am offended by said balking.  Catch my drift?  Look, we’re not talking babies here, we’re all adults. But from the reaction of one individual I could swear I saw a tantrum happening when I brought out the oatbran cereal rather than a bagel slathered with butter and jelly. Whatever.

As that person went on his way after getting his way, I vented in my morning pages and could have written a fourth page.  Thank goodness for morning pages!  After I was finished I came to start my day by reading emails and to write this post.  I brought a nice hot cup of coffee with me to enjoy, which I promptly knocked over and dumped on the desk and in my lap! Great day ahead, I’ll say.

 The bagpipe painting flat on the desk and wet

Having said all that and gotten it off my chest, let me share how the bagpipe painting is coming along.  I decided to go for 15 minutes again, ignoring the non-working overhead lamp, and working on the dark background.  I don’t like to use a tube of black paint because it’s too flat and has no depth. 

It’s easy enough to mix a black with undertones of other colors.  I’m still using the MaimieriBlu watercolors, but they don’t offer an Alizarin Crimson which I tend to rely on for some reason.  They have some other color that’s similar, but not as deep, so I went for that and mixed with Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber.  Nice and deep black.  I used a large brush full of paint and applied it behind the figure. 

After it dried a little bit I went back in with straight color mixing somewhat with the paint already down.  As I’ve said before, my training in watercolor is minimal so I’m making it up as I go along.  maybe it’s not how the medium is supposed to be used, but that’s the beauty of art and the process.  You do what works and make it new and interesting.

The dry bagpipe painting upright on the easel
Later on I’m going to address that white area on the left hand side.  When I printed this frame I thought it was an all black background.  But looking closely I found that area was where the photo frame ended so I drew it in to break up the space.  It’s part of the composition mirroring the large area on the right and I’ll answer that question with color.  I naturally break up spaces this way in my work.  Something inherent in my brain makes me think in shapes.  I’ll go with it as usual.
Yeah, I’ll just go with it.  Not like some other people who balk.

Sunday and the Morning Pages

Still working at the Morning Pages from The Artist’s Way thing, except the book is Walking in This World, like I said before.  Same idea, same theory, mix in some walking, stir, bake.  Guess what?  I’m not walking yet. The walking is going to take time to start and become a habit. Surprised?  Ahem.

I’ve got the journaling down really well.  I can’t get on with my day unless I’ve written  three pages worth.  Writing has become a habit I’m unwilling to break.  I get all comfortable after my morning routine and everyone’s gone, and write whatever comes into my head. 

Then Sunday rolls around.  Now there’s a problem.  Sunday everyone’s off, meaning the people in my house are home at the same time.  Ok, fine, Son #2 is in dreamland and doesn’t show up until later.  That leaves the Mr.  Since both of us are early rising morning people, we’re usually awake at the same time, about 6AM-ish.  Try as I might, I can’t wake myself up much earlier than the Mr. so I’m unable to be alone weekdays until after he leaves for work.  On Sunday I’d like to sleep a little later, but 7AM is as late as it gets.  The Mr. is awake and looking for coffee, breakfast, TV, all action. 

When that’s all done I’m ready to write.  The Mr. comes in the kitchen for more coffee and eyeballs me.  I eyeball back.  Yes?  Well, he’s a nosey sneak, all in my business!  And yes, it’s my business!  So the question is: how to hide the morning pages writing from the snoop.  I took a sip of my coffee and thought about it.

The answer was to get up, take my stuff, and very non-chalantly walk out of the kitchen, past the living room where the Mr. has taken up space, and go to the studio!  Brilliant, right?  Good idea until I went to the studio.  The fickle light would not go on, my desk was cluttered with painting stuff, and the table and chairs was too dark from no light in the room.  Lovely. 

I made some room at the desk for my notebook and coffee cup to write.  I was all alone, the coffee was still hot and I was surrounded by stuff I like.  Great!  The downside was that I became distracted by my painting in progress.  Instead of writing the morning pages I wanted to paint.  Rather than writing down my brain junk I was thinking where to go with the work.  Had the light worked I would’ve sat in a different area without the distractions.  It felt like I was doing the 15 minutes of art at my desk. 

I persevered and the pages were written.  Since I had ideas in my head about the painting while there, I went ahead and followed through on them.  So what’s the problem with painting a little more shadow where I thought it should go right at that moment?  My brain answered, Nothing.

On to Walking in This World

Since I finished reading The Artist’s Way I decided to take the next steps in the series.  In the first book the author Julia Cameron, suggests taking a mind clearing walk every day.  I didn’t get there.  I was able to take a walk a couple of times in the fall and really enjoyed being outside in that kind of weather, taking in the autumn flowers, leaves and fresh air.  But after that the weather turned colder and I didn’t have the urge to go outside.
As a push to continue the creativity quest, I ordered and received two more books, Walking in This World and The Vein of Gold.  I read the first chapter of the first, I’m leaving the latter for afterwards.  The ideas are the same:  Morning Pages every day for 3 pages in long hand, a weekly Artist Date and daily mini date, and a weekly long walk.  Ok, well, we’ll see how that goes. 
I’ve been very consistent with Morning Pages. I write very early in a marble notebook with a MontBlanc pen/pencil set my father gave me so many years ago I can’t remember.  Using that pen elevates the writing time to an event.  I eat, read my news, have more coffee, zip open the pen set and get to writing.
The pages have become my conversation with the Universe, the emptying out of stupid stuff in my head. Sometimes I’ve said it all in the Morning Pages and I have nothing left for this blog!  It’s good because I can get to the art quickly rather than ruminate on it.  The Artist Date has become small pockets of fun time instead of all day, full blown dates.  I went to the art supply store, the yarn shop, poked around a thrift shop, doodled in my sketch pad, just little fun things. 
Walking outside and walking on a treadmill are two totally different experiences.  When I walked my treadmill I had a large travel calendar in front of me for a distraction.  I  imagined myself in another country on vacation, but then I would be sad I wasn’t really on vacation.  And the idea of gerbils running on a wheel came into my head one day and I was turned off.  When you walk outdoors you can see other people, different houses and gardens, stores, alive stuff. 
Now it’s time to do the walking part of this course, but it’s still freezing outside! I’m going to have to figure this one out. 

It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Day

The best part of my day is in the early morning.  And a Sunday morning is best of all. Sunday morning is the quietest time of any day of the week. I wake up early every day by habit anyway, even on Sundays.  First things first-coffee making. The smell alone is inviting.

Next, get the newspaper from the porch.  After breakfast, with the kitchen made neat and whoever is out doing their thing, I get to have another coffee, read, do the crossword puzzle, and write the Morning Pages.  Outside no cars are passing by, no people yapping, no kids running around screaming, no gardener idiots, no television on, just peace and quiet.  Heaven.

If I could put this time in a bottle and open it whenever I wanted this feeling I’d do it in a minute.  The only thing that would make this time better would be if I was near the beach.  That’d be perfection.  But I’ll take it this way any time. 

Since I’m writing these three Morning Pages, my brain is quiet, too.  Beautiful.  No brain chatter.  And I’m all alone.  Great.  I love being by myself.  Is that normal?  The Artist Way says it’s normal for creatives to like and need alone time.  I’ve always felt like that, but I thought maybe it’s just weird me.  So I guess it’s fine. 

Not many people want or need to be alone.  In fact some people crave company constantly.  There’s no way I could do that.  I enjoy company, just not all the time. Later in my day I like some activity going on.  Mostly, though, I don’t need all that extra noisy stuff. My brain can’t take it. No thanks. 

With the approaching Christmas holidays come the activities and people and inviting and shopping and doing and coming and going.  I’m already tired thinking about it.  Just give me a little quiet time in a cozy, colorful kitchen with a newspaper and coffee in a pretty cup and I’m good.

The Artist’s Way or No Way

I’m well into the 12 week course of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.  Some artists I’ve discussed this book with swear by it and others don’t, suggesting other avenues to rehabilitate the “inner artist”.  All I can say is that I think it’s working for me.

Cameron instructs the artist to journal each and every morning for three pages in long hand.  Remember using a pen and paper, anyone?  Now that every thing is on computer, going back to writing long hand in a book is like a new discovery.  She insists these “Morning Pages”, as she calls them, be written without fail and is crucial to the artist’s recovery.  I’ve been journaling for a few months before I found this course, so to continue for three pages, well I can do that! 

Cameron asks to pay attention to a slight shift in attitude by one and a half pages and I think she’s right.  By then I’ve rehashed all the stuff of my day floating around in my brain and really get to the heart of creative thought.  As another favorite book, The Science of Getting Rich, by Wallace Wattles suggests, thought becomes the thing thought of.  The tasks for each week eventually lead the artist to their art.

At least it’s working for me.  Today is going to be a day of art, after the errands, farmer’s market, laundry, bed making, vacuuming….