Procrastination + Fear

procrastination |prəˌkrastəˈnāSHən, prō-|

noun

the action of delaying or postponing something: your first tip is to avoid procrastination.

 I love dictionaries, I start looking up a word to spell and end up spending more time just reading definitions. This word has been important lately and I realized that what was happening was fear. That was at the bottom of all the procrastination. With that realization I could move . A few months ago Tamar sent me her domino for me to complete and start another to send to Martin [see link here and here] I had a zillion sketches but I never finished them until a few days ago when I could finally move beyond the fear of having to work on the same surface, actually beside Tamar's work and not mess it up. Plus, I wanted a conversation with her work, a dance where she takes the first step and I respond, then I take the next step and Martin responds. This is where I have ended up. And I can mail it off to Martin today. Yea!

Tamar Zinn to Liz Davidson, mixed media on paper, 6 x 12 in, 2014

Liz Davidson to Martin Scholte, mixed media on paper, 6 x 6 [12] in 2014

More Dominos

I wondered if I could combine the stroke of my beautiful brush [link here] with Tamar's work [link here] and soon realized there was a problem with the texture of the paper. Tamar had used cold press and for some reason [my concentration being that of a nit right now] these trials were all on hot press, which gave a very clean stoke but sharper colour.  So I went back to the cold press to see what would happen; the broad stroke broke up on the textured paper but the oil pastel lines I liked, so I gessoed and sanded 1/2 the paper, and repeated the whole thing to see which I preferred. The jury is still out.

1st half  NO gesso, 2nd half gesso, 2014

Tamar Zinn, my half is on Hot press, 2014

Tamar Zinn and another variation, my half is on Hot press, 2014

Dominios

A few weeks ago I received a small work in the mail from a friend Tamar Zinn [see her work here]. It's a work 6 x 6 in on a paper support 6 x 12 in and is the first half of a domino that I now get to work on. It's been exciting and intimidating; firstly because I admire Tamar's work which I find elegant and subtle, and secondly because 6 x 6 is seriously small and I need to work right up to the edge of her work.

1st half of Dominio, oil and oil pastel on paper ©Tamar Zinn, 2014

I pulled out a couple of sheets of 300 lb Arches and started to draw some ideas and work out some of the technical problems of how I will do the final drawing next to hers. Bleed was a big problem, so are the size of my hands, but the biggest problem was the truthfulness of my response. I want a relationship between the works but sometimes it felt like I had lost me [often a state I have longed for] and couldn't figure out the transitions between tiles. Below are some of the early ideas.

one of the early responses to Tamar's work

another one of the early responses to Tamar's work, better but what if I flipped the shape…..

better but still not there