bird by bird

It was my coach's idea to get a blog. I only knew it was vaguely about the internet. The word blog was in the news and I would have deduced it was about politics. But my coach said it's a free way to try putting words out there where people can see them, I went and got one.

Why "Annie"? There are on line predators... I'd just rather not openly invite cyber-prowlers over: If I give lots of specific details about who I am, especially since my posts have a lot of personal stuff in them, I may as well say: bring your perverted self over and attack me and my girls. Thus, "Annie" and vague geographical info.

My published author friend suggested I read Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamont. I am enjoying it immensely, mostly because she is a very funny little smart alec! Her ideas are much more useful to me in the area of painting right now than writing.

I have added up the number of hours it will take to complete 25 illustrations for a book of poetry. I have looked at the hours I have in the week which are available to work on it between now and Christmas. If I give in to the temptation to go at it every waking moment, I will set myself up for a 'crash and burn' experience (one of flylady's terms to describe what perfectionists do to themselves. You get all psyched up about a project and go great guns until you burn out and then you don't have any energy to come back to it for a long long time. This not to say one should not work long and hard on something.

Anne tells a story of her little brother sitting at the kitchen table with a report on birds due next day. He had had 3 months to work on the report. Piled on the table were paper, pencils and unopened books on birds. "Immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead" Anne writes. "Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"

The perfectionist in me is easily overwhelmed and therefore frozen with fear and discouragement. The growing me says bird by bird. Painting by painting. Drawing by drawing. smile.

I don't think I have the problem Anne Lamont is talking about in her book so far. Anne Lamont is coaxing her readers to just start, just pick a topic and write something down about it. I have been writing since I started with my coach and he said "freewrite". I am not lacking for ideas or energy to write. I am pretty sure I need to learn editing and reducing the pieces so that people won't be put off by all the words on the page.

Anyway, I was up late putting another layer on my lightning painting and the last layer helped it a lot. I was feeling discouraged in that it had started to look too overworked like the first sketch, and it had taken so much time and I didn't want to start over a third time. Now decide whether to paint the ground on the bottom of the page or just let the whole painting be sky. The perfectionist in me is not satisfied, but I am deciding it's done and going on to the next piece.

So much rust in my fingers! Not to mention the injured thumb caused by my untrained dog at the lake yesterday. (see post called "Untrained Animal".)

Anne Lamont also mentioned Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones. Now then my art teacher had mentioned that book. [I had also asked him to talk to me about writing since he too had published a book.] He is not a writer like that. He is a painter. He needed a kick-start because he paints and writing a book was new to him.

Which am I? Both? Neither? I am not sure but I am having a blast finding out.

Yesterday was very unusual. I tried to paint all day. I spent time cutting pieces of paper and trying to stretch them so they won't rumple when I paint on them. Standard procedure. I stuck them to various surfaces with tape and/or staples and set them out to dry. Some rumpled when they were supposed to stretch. I got out the Watercolor Book and read "how to stretch paper". It was not clear how long to soak the paper, but I tried various lengths of time.

More time was spent looking for images on line to work from. Now you know how easy it is to be distracted that way! Google will find you way more photos of rainbows than you will need! I chose the simplest photograph, knowing that a rainbow was going to be difficult enough to paint without other things in the composition.

What else yesterday? It snowed! The trees aren't even bereft of their leaves yet; that was weird.

Oh yes, the other odd thing: I fell in love on the way home from my jog. See post called "Love at First Sight".

I made myself paint and work. I printed the poems in about the size I will need to hand print them once I've done the pictures. I taped them onto the paper to see how much room they'd take up so as to paint the picture in the remaining space. That takes time, too. I am learning what is involved in doing a commissioned piece of art and that is very valuable. I have NEVER done this before.

My brother in law said today something about painting being relaxing. No, this is not about relaxation. It's about making a living and it's about sharing something good with others and it gets me excited to work on it, but no, it does not relax me.