Trying something different
Hi Folks
It’s been a while. Some of you may know, that I had a pretty significant accident this June, and I spent about 8 weeks with casts on both of my arms. So… painting has been off the list of activities for me for some time. I have my casts off now, but the arms are not completely healed.
I learned some things during these 8 weeks. First of all. I learned that I need to stay off of ladders. All of my children on separate occasions yelled out “ Mom! You are not 40 anymore!” Ok. Got it. Somehow it was shocking to have 40 be the age that seemed so much younger to them. Why not “mom you are not 20 anymore”? Well, because I’m 63. Time to correct my perspective I guess.
I also learned that it is OK to ask for help. I wish I could say that it was easy for me to let people help me, but I found it extremely frustrating to be totally helpless. No Arms! Very difficult. I could not open doors, or hold a coffee cup, or cut my own food, or even use a fork. I found myself hitting my eyebrow with my fork and my mascara wand. Ok… sense of humor save me now. Ha Ha!
I also learned to sit and be a bit more quiet. Holding a book was impossible. So I listened to a lot of pod casts and audible books. I think I want to try to keep some of this serenity now that my arms are back. Turns out that I like pod casts. Audible books are an acquired taste. It totally depends on the person reading. There was one book, where the narrator was a man. Whenever he would talk for a female character, he would change his voice to this screechy version of a woman’s voice. Very distracting. And since I’m female, vaguely insulting.
I learned that I don’t have to be accomplishing something all of the time. And I decided to change the focus of my art a bit. Instead of worrying about making my art profitable, I have decided to paint what I love, and show it to folks. And then where ever it leads is where it leads. It takes away the pressure to produce that was clogging up my creativity. Sitting for weeks on end on my couch and not being able to do anything gave me time to find my inspiration again. I started having ideas again for the first time in a long while.
So, since my creative juices were about to boil over after so long in dry dock, I was looking for things to do that would be somewhat easier on my poor arms. In the past, when I didn’t have my oils with me, I did a few watercolor paintings. So I thought, maybe I could try that again.
I took a class and tried my hand at it again. And folks, it is not easy. But I am getting to the point where I like some of what I am seeing. So I thought I would share it with all of you.
Also, just FYI, I have upgraded my website, so that you can make purchases right from my site. I accept Paypal and Venmo on my site. If you see something you like, and you want to use another method, reach out to me on Facebook at Lori Gilmore Art.
Happy to be communicating with you all again.
Lori
