A framework to build on

My mom had a number of sayings with which she peppered her admonitions to me over the years. Today the one I'm remembering is, "There's many a slip 'twixt the cup to the lip," which she generally uttered whenever I declared my intentions to do something or other she thought was unlikely to happen.

I bring this up because I came into the studio today with good intentions: I was going to create a gray background, and then do something cool and large and bold and smudgy on top of it. The problem was, though, that the gray I used had too much blue in it, and something in me was desperate to tone that down.

So then I thought -- orange is the opposite; why not just spill some quinacridone nickel azo gold over the whole thing -- just a light layer?

The smart thing to do at this point would have been to put a little on a sponge and just lightly sponge down the whole canvas. But no, I'd been having so much fun with the splatter painting (that blue one was looking better and better to me) I thought I'd try pouring on a little paint, and then pouring water over it to see how it would spread.

Oy. That color is SO STRONG that I decided to add some white to tone it down. And then for some reason I cut a piece of string and started dragging it all over the canvas to create some movement, and, well, here's what happened. Probably another do-over, although maybe I can incorporate some of the cool textures into whatever layers come next...

I suspect most of us came into the quarantine with good intentions -- to write the great American novel, to become a better guitarist, to learn to bake bread or whatever. But now -- what, 10 weeks in? -- we realize maybe our job may just be to survive. And in good spirits. Some growth is inevitable, but we needn't beat ourselves up with great expectations; best to just keep moving forward and be patient. It's hard, when you are mostly a do-er, to allow yourself to be a be-er, to listen to your body's inclinations rather than your brain's admonitions.  But in the end, I think we're giving ourselves a more substantial framework to build on; it's all good.