This weeks blog prompt is “What have you been working on?” and it’s really the only one I’ve found relevant to my life. So it’s the first one i’m going to use for an entry.

For the past few weeks or so I’ve been working on more bonsai watercolors. There you have it, the shortest answer possible. Probably. These have been larger in scale that most of my previous watercolors. I’ve graduated to an 11″x15″ pad. Overall I’m enjoying the freedom of a lager surface to work on, it feels good to have a little more room to breathe around the drawing. Actually it’s quite a bit more than my usual 8″x5″ books. I’ve gotten very used to the smaller size for convenience and travel purposes.

Don’t get my wrong, it’s a perfectly decent size for travel. But how often do I go how far? The answer is not very often and not very far. I really miss plein air painting and drawing. the Mount Gretna experience was amazing, enlightening, and just overall wonderful. I really wish I could go again. However, my life would prevent that from happening for a number of reasons. Between the realities of work, finances, family life, etc. it’s just very unlikely. So it goes.

I remember a time in high school, at the PAFA after-school program for high schoolers to get a little experience with oil painting for free, i was talking to some people in the lounge area and for the first time i saw an 18″x24″ pad of paper. I knew they existed, i ahd seen them in the art supply store before. But i had never seen anyone actually use one. It was just one of those eye-openers I had as a teenager. I was amazed. I had never used such a large paper before, i bought one shortly after seeing someone with it.

It was one of the Strathmere recycled drawing paper pads. The large surface was so freeing and so unbelievably intimidating. What if I made a mistake? What if it was total crap and I had to get rid of so much paper? What a waste. Apparently, size does matter.

I don’t remember if I used all of that paper up or not. Probably not in that case. For all I know I could still have a few sheets from that pad floating around the pile somewhere. Anyway, as i progressed through my art education there were still more size-based moments to experience. 22″x30″ seemed huge and then there were the massive 30″x40″ sheets I started to use at CCP. A whole world opened up. And none of this is even going to touch on the different kinds and qualities of paper. Rives BFK printmaking paper is just amazing for so many things.

The thread that ran through all of these discoveries is that with each increase in the surface area I experienced a new level of page fright. I would stare at the vastness of the paper in front of me and be filled with self-doubt, fear, terror, wonder, amazement, bewilderment, and about a million other feelings that all added up to anxiety. I still do that staring at a blank page and freezing thing. Wether it’s in my little A5 sketchbook, a giant sheet, or a page in my journal I get the same feeling of page fright. Even typing on the computer like this gives it to me. Like, it’s an infinite space that’s endlessly editable and correctable. Why care one iota what happens here, it can always be changed. Not like paper can’t be erased or a canvas can’t be painted over. However, still, it’s there.

The other funny thing is that it doesn’t really matter how big the page is, it’s always the same fear. Same kind, same intensity. I would like to think that it wouldn’t be that way or that I could get past it with regular, consistent work on the page. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. It’s a weird thing that I just can’t explain satisfactorily.

Rather than completely confirm that theory or work towards an explanation I’ve been avoiding creating and making by reading and doomscrolling. I’ve gotten a few books in during the past couple of months and a lot less art than I was aiming for. Lots of reading. Even more doomscrolling the internet and social media. I have a Screentime limit setup but I always bypass it. There’s even a Bloom card in my wallet too, but I just take it out and defeat the whole purpose of the thing and so it hasn’t been used much lately. Great idea if I could only keep the card somewhere less accessible. It’s like keeping my phone away from me at night, across the room charging so I have to physically get up and out of bed to turn the alarm off. The thought only works with consistent action.

I’ve even done the doomscroll several times while writing this entry. There was also a break to go shopping and make dinner but that cant be helped. As far as I can see, there is nothing that will actually keep me off my damn phone and doing what I intended to do. Nothing.

I was supposed to write a short little thing on what I’ve been working on lately, but have ended up way off course and somewhere else entirely. Your reward for reading the last nine hundred words or so is going to be a couple of pictures of my recent 11″x15″ watercolors. Maybe not much of a reward. But it’s something. Of course you could have skipped through all of it and gone right to the pictures anyway. Possibly, but hopefully not. And here we are, almost a thousand words later and still without a solution or a conclusion. Just a bunch of conjecture and nonsense. Thanks for reading all of this utter bullshit. You are awesome.