Loneliness seeped in this evening. The surge of energy leading up to tax day dropped with the envelope in the Post Office mail slot. It has been a year since I left my previous life behind with the sale of the big house. I miss my nuclear family. Many friends I could have called but this wasn’t a chatting loneliness. It was a heart sore. Filled days working 7 a.m. – 6 p.m. at school means I am never alone having 1,000 youngsters surrounding me. It’s the soundlessness of home that got my heart low on my self connection.
April brings in the longer days. Radio, TV or computer browsing wasn’t satisfying nor was the static energy of reading. I needed to go out and paint.
Since I increased my job hours at work, I have not put much energy into personal painting. The excuse I used previous to this one is that I had a house to sell. Then I had a condo to unpack. After that were the unending chores that only I do. Excuses from painting come easy.
Painting is harder than doing taxes. Taxes are numbers and solve. Painting is a laying game with waiting for drying time and settling. Watercolors have always been the most zen challenging medium for me. But I pushed a fundraiser at school forward this week and found the earth in my heart to try again. Solving legal issues is easier than painting in watercolors.
The loneliness needed feeding.
Five by 3 1/2 inch excellent watercolor paper, Arches Rough, 140 lb. was my appetizer. I pulled together my personally created set of Winsor Newton artist grade watercolor pans and headed out to the canal bench. Evening was resetting the sky colors. My first piece frustrated me. The loneliness was not happy yet because I didn’t catch something meaningful to me.
Then the west light, what was left of it, hit the condo windows on the third floor across from me. A single bird, a variety of wading bird, perched on the roof. That bird has been posted there for months. I’ll have to take binoculars out to identify which long, thin necked bird it is. I always see it in silhouette.
The shocking light reflecting off those windows felt like cheese cake to my heart. How to balance their bright color against the muddy grays of the shadows took a while. As swift a painting medium as watercolors is, time still is a tool.
Yeah….it hit the spot for me. The loneliness felt reflected. The time in quiet thinking and arguing with myself over what color and how much to use was very effective feeling I was not alone anymore.
Great thinkers like Goethe and Rudolf Steiner consider Color one of the most important spiritual avenues.
That’s where I took my loneliness tonight. I was comforted by color.
Your feelings are felt in your beautiful work.