Fascination & Play

PalmatCienr

I am fascinated by many things. Nature, faces, shapes of objects, fibers, color, line, stitches, light…on and on to where I’m fairly dizzy with delight. This fascination is surely the heart of an artist’s life. Being an artist has less to do with raw talent and more with being fascinated by something and granting oneself the freedom to explore it, try it, dive into it some more, express it. Lately I’ve been fascinated with pastels.

Water&SkyOakIsland2016

I enjoy both oil pastels as well as soft pastels. I love adding oil pastels to line drawings and also drawing with the pastels, then adding watercolor over top for the resist effects. I did a lot of this at the beach a couple of weeks ago and am still playing around with it in my sketchbook.

CienerBirdhouse

But now I’m all jazzed about soft pastels. I tend to rotate through art mediums on a fairly regular basis, but lately I’ve been swiping the buttery, powdery sticks across pages of watercolor washes and having so much fun seeing the effects of layered color! When I fall in fascination love with a different medium all over again, it feels like I could spend whole days strung on end doing nothing but working with that medium. Life rarely allows that.

CienerLot

Yesterday, however, I had the delight to draw and paint for an entire morning, a whole four hours, with a friend at our Ciener Botanical Gardens. Easel, pastels, numerous sketchbooks previously prepped with watercolor, sunscreen, water bottle, a snack and friendship…I could not ask for any thing better.

FavLilyCiener

Whenever I do get chunks of time to draw like this, the delight, sense of play and lightheartedness is transformative. Maintaining this lighthearted sense of play is a bit more difficult as I can easily get drawn in to the woes of life or even just the pull to “be serious” about my art and really DO something with it. The minute I head down this road, art making becomes heavier and my fascination wanes.

TopotheHillClouds

I love keeping it light and free and fun! There will be time for the more serious end of art production later. Not now…I’ve gotta go draw the clouds up at the top of the hill!:)

I hope your weekend has room for fascination and wonder and play!

 

4 thoughts on “Fascination & Play

  1. Heather says:

    Stunning work! I love your writing as well. I understand that heaviness. These pieces have a beautiful, raw energy.

    • Jennifer Edwards says:

      Thank you so much Heather! I appreciate your kind words here! It is an ongoing (and exciting) challenge to strive for excellence in drawing/painting while maintaining a childlike, free and easy approach. Have a beautiful day!

  2. Cheryl Wright says:

    These pieces are so playful and the colours are a delicate mix of subtlety and delicacy. Under your post/link at Everyday Matters, I left a comment along with a photo of a sketch I did using an oil pastel stick.

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