Lettie Jane’s Intuitive Drawing is a weekly newsletter about making art. This year I am trying to publish 52 newsletters that are each an art lesson of sorts. They are an invitation to draw, if you feel inclined, but also a description of why I do. I encourage you to take what you need and leave the rest.
Greetings folks,
Last week I finished a series of paintings I’ve titled MESSY BODIES.
I knew I wanted to create a body of work that began as abstract paintings and pull figures out of the abstraction. I started a couple of paintings this way last summer and felt like there was more to explore. This is one of the paintings from last summer.
And this is how I altered it for the show:
I had a bunch of canvases I got from another artist moving out of their studio, in a variety of sizes and some with tons of texture on them from previous paintings.
I fleshed out the larger figures with arms and legs and faces, the canvases were the shapes of humans, so it made sense. The smaller canvases were more abstract blobs.
I truly agonized over these compositions. I felt like they wanted plant life: I love drawing plants! They represent growth and change in so many ways! They make me think about tending my body like tending a garden! Etc. etc. But part of me also pushed back on how I use them as a visual crutch, to fill spaces in, or as a filigree. I was toying with the color palette too, adding purple and brown. Working abstractly, one of my favorite things to do is shift a piece completely by blocking out a color I don’t want there. It allows me to stay loose, I tried to maintain my ability to “kill the darling” keeping the structure but letting everything else change repeatedly.
I had a big day, dancing and painting I began to shift the pieces away from each other and toward themselves. I embraced the filigree of plant life, but made them vines that wrapped around the figure, they grounded them in a 2 dimensional flat plane and I didn’t need to worry about the rest of the room or a light source.
This person got weirder.
This person got darker, I blocked out most of the pink.
This eyeball in the leg was one of my favorite moments. You can see all the places I’m tightening, bringing things into control while trying to leave some visual chaos.
There is a checkerboard child in here, with multiple faces. It’s the way I feel both deeply connected with my kid and separate. It’s the agony and the joy and both of those states.
The moments I like best from this body of work are the textures and the details.
I don’t have nice to photos to share of this work with you and I thought of waiting to write about this work in another newsletter with nicer photos and when I would have more time to wax poetic on the making. But the work is messy and I told myself this newsletter could be messy, more done than perfect.
This is a metaphor for how I am trying to live, making beautiful things and making messy things, sometimes making the time to savor them, sometimes just doing what I can with what I have.
I hope you can find some beauty to savor in your own mess these days.
Until next week.
Much love,
Lettie Jane
And Then Some Tidbits
My art show, Messy Bodies, is up for 2 months, check it out at Albina Press, 5012 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
Tarot Reading!!! I will be reading tarot cards for Seagrape Apothecary’s 15th birthday. 2823 NE Sandy Blvd / Sunday, April 21, 3-6pm
You can sign up here: Seagrape’s Bday
Take a class at Ulna.
Friday Night Figure Drawing (Apr 19)
$50.00
Date: Friday, April 19th
Time: 5:30-8:30
Take a class with me AND YOUR KID at Mudland.
Ages 6-teen + adult
$24
APR 21
2 hours 30 minute
Take a class with me at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology
$230
September 21, 2024 - September 22, 2024
We dropped our second episode of LINE TIME! It’s a 15 minute(ish) art prompt or warm up. Click the link and check it out!
Bun Updates
Matt is going all bunny-eyed in this photo because he is holding the real, live, yes-m’am-situation herself, Jiji. If you look at Jiji’s eyes you can see what a terrified / pissed off bunny looks like, she does NOT like to be picked up, even though picking her up brings joy to all the humans in her life.
love the final paintings and a
the process was just as beautiful- to see the bodies emerge from the abstract layers was magic!
love this beautiful mess and your sharing your process and a sneak peak at the work! (I’m out of state ) you’re such an inspiration and i love how you live!