Good morning, Readers!
By now, the Can*Con report ought to have gone up on Black Gate Magazine, if the editor accepted it, so I won’t rehash it here. If the editor did not accept it, that’s fine. I’ll repost what I wrote there here at a later date.
I would like to talk about the time just before Can*Con, where I was able to take time off work and travel into the woods of la belle province to a lake and there work quietly for three days on a painting (the first day was spent settling into the new surrounds). I haven’t had the chance to work on a painting seriously like that for such a long time.
I cannot begin to express how it filled my well. There are no words to explain how deeply my soul needed this… and then how hard it is for me to return to reality.
Honestly, I would fall asleep in a chill room, listening to the wind move the water on the shores of the lake, hearing the loons call across the lake. I’d wake up in the morning to clear skies, autumnal colours and the loons calling again. I could sit in stillness with a coffee or tea and just let myself relax, watching the lake steam.
By mid morning, it was generally warm enough to head outside and spend a couple of hours painting. I wanted to paint outside because I was working in oils for this painting, and that requires turpentine… which should only ever be used with plenty of ventilation.
While I was painting, chickadees and bluejays would vie for access to the bird feeder. It was calm, and beautiful, and I was painting.
There was a sort of magic in those three days.
Mum worked on a small-ish acrylic piece which she gifted to my uncle, who very kindly let us use his cottage for those three days. It’s a gorgeous piece of two squirrels in autumnal trees. Very bright and cute and I really like it. When she’s ready to share, I’ll post it on my socials, but I can’t share it without her permission.
I worked on the painting I intended to donate to Can*Con. It’s already been posted to some socials, but here it is again for those who’ve missed it:
At first I wasn’t sure about it. I didn’t think it was good enough. Mum’s assurances were not helping… because she’s my mother and they’re supposed to say nice things to you.
My goal with these paintings is always to help Can*Con get a little extra money to help with whatever their awesome SFF Convention needs. I don’t really have much time to volunteer, and I’m not especially good or comfortable with people I don’t know. So this is my way of contributing.
Anyway, it had been such a long time since I picked up a paintbrush, I wasn’t really sure I could do it. I had attempted to do a watercolour for another gift for a friend, but I ended up throwing down my paintbrushes and walking away in disgust. It was not good at all.
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull off the vision I had for this painting. I’m not sure I did, to be honest, but it wasn’t a terrible attempt… not so terrible I wanted to throw away my brushes and storm off in a huff.
Figuring I wasn’t the best judge of my work, I contacted someone at Can*Con and asked if they actually wanted it, and they did. So I took it along.
As it was oil paint, and I had finished it the day we left, it was still quite tacky when I delivered it. And it was still quite tacky at the end of the weekend. Oops.
I really, really loved those three days spent painting (it helped that the afternoons were spent visiting my wonderful extended family, all of whom have properties around the same lake. They’re such lovely people). I haven’t been able to create like that in such a long time.
Whether or not the painting is any good is not the point of this post. The point is that I got some time to create, without the ever present mental and emotional exhaustion that keeps me from being able to spend my evenings working on the other side of my creativity; the painting and drawing and creation that I always put on the back-burner working two jobs and trying to make a living of this writing thing.
It was so nice.
I’m going to try and hold on to that feeling and create more time for me to paint and draw and play in that fine art space. I missed it. I want more of it in my life.
I shall try to make it happen.
For now, I have to go. It’s late in the evening as I write this, and I need to go to bed. So if this blog post is a little rambly and nonsensical, that’s why.
Slàn go foill.
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