Tugging

Progress is a tricky thing. I find that no matter how well prepared I am to make it, it doesn't necessarily mean that I'll make any.  These past two weeks, I really thought I'd be getting on track with all sorts of things. Instead, life reared its head and I found myself thrown into an almost constant state of flux. This is a very unproductive thing for me.

Family issues meant that I was constantly where I didn't want to be, and constantly at odds with my art when I was there with it. My life was basically tug-o-war this week, and I was the rope. I found myself in situations where I didn't like myself very much. I failed at many things. Even the silver linings were tarnished.

This feels bad. Feeling badly and creating happy art... well, that just doesn't happen.

I managed to squeeze out some progress on what I've been working on. I started the time lapse of the two small watercolors:

I also got most of Alice painted in, but I'm still working on her hair. Still, the painting should be flowing more freely than it is right now. I'm in a sort of unhappy place, and that makes my art a thing of frustration rather than success. Maybe I need to switch my style, and vent a bit on canvas instead.

Today was interesting because when I got home from a morning appointment, there was a yellow butterfly fluttering weakly in my driveway. I stopped short of it, and went to check him out. He was alive, undamaged, but... off.

I gently put him on a flower, and later my children told me he had just died. I've seen lots of dead butterflies out here, but none that just... stopped.

Sad though it is, I couldn't help but think of my Alice painting. I have two butterflies in it. I'm already planning on the one in the sky to be orange, but I hadn't decided on the one on the tree closest to Alice.

I think I have now.

So, the pretty and sad butterfly will live on in this painting instead of out in the fields where he should. I'm going to save him, and keep him in my studio (unless he gets gross, but it's my understanding that this is about it for a butterfly which is why some people collect them.) I'm starting to collect lots of bits here and there for my studio. Things that make me happy, or snuggly, or sad. Precious bits of flotsom that will someday be looked upon likely as one gigantic mess of junk to be gone through. My grandfather did this, and I really didn't understand it before. I do now. Although, I don't plan on getting quite as bad as he did and to keep it confined to my studio where I can actually look upon it and enjoy it. I plan on being selective!