The blue canvas with the interesting patina and abstract clouds has been drying since December and is now ready to be worked on. I think my paintings need time between sessions to assimilate themselves and decide where they want to go. I have to be patient with them. I added a red shape inspired by a smaller canvas, and things were going well until I got caught in a painting pothole and couldn't remember how I made the original pink. I am an intuitive painter, and colours often come about by accident. I might have had some blue left on the brush when I start mixing that pink. So it is impossible to recreate the exact colour, even if I could remember the amounts of paint I took from each tube.
I distracted myself with a blue wash of oil paint that travelled alongside an abstract Jacob's ladder for a while before making an impact on the smaller canvases, laid out underneath the easel to capture any runaway drips. I often place canvases under wet paintings. It's a way to capture the energy of those tiny impact marks, although I don't always keep them. This practice came from the early days in my career when I had to save on paint and was often painting in spaces where I wasn't meant to destroy the floor too much. In the end, the paintings in the studio restored my faith in the Goddess of Creativity and the God of Chance. I feel inspired to keep going.
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