Turn Me Loose

Buttercream that's starting to look like buttercream.





Loosening up starts to bring life to the canvas.




The flat, cartoon colored forms that scared me blocked.



After doing the laundry, making dinner, talking to my son for a couple of hours, attending to my e-mail, having lunch--everything I could think of to procrastinate the event, I walked into the studio, smocked up and firmly put Mice on the easel.

The space looked pretty good. I thought it would be messier than it was and I'd have some cleaning to do that would put off reckoning with my block a while longer. But everything was in order and surprisingly neat.

Mice was looking neat too. Too neat for me. I laid out the palette, selected my favorite brush, mixed up some chocolate and started in on the most difficult section, the mice. I played around with the varmits a little, but I still felt a bit intimidated. So I turned my attention to the cupcakes. I like cupcakes. Working on the easier forms, my energy surged, my mind went blank, my intuition took over.

I spent the rest of the session automatically painting all over the canvas, shaking up the forms, the colors, redrawing all the time. The paint grew thicker, more impasto, suitable for pastry. The strokes got looser, more robust. I started feeling like it was my painting and not some stranger's flat cartoon that scared me away October 14th. When I had gone as far as I could go, I was totally in charge and very excited. The icing was starting to look like I might be able to lick it off my fingers in a couple more days.