Beating the Blues!

When you are in the flow,
living your passion life works. Right?

How do you know when you are
in sync?  I wake up energized,
excited and enthused.

Recently, we bought a condo
in Sarasota, FL. Everyday I felt
all three adjectives, even on a rainy day.
After spending time furnishing
our place in preparation for renters, I still
had the energy to paint.  As a matter of fact,
I painted one large, one medium and two small
works in a short period of time.

Today I am back in the Northeast.
It is raining, cloudy and gray.
It is not where I belong. When I lived
in South Florida it felt like paradise.
Even when working at something that
was not my passion, I still felt like I was
in heaven on most days. Until I can live there
full time, how shall I cope?

After a decade of experimenting with art to
raise the vibration, mood, state of being for
the viewer and myself coupled with years
of training from a shaman,
Eileen O'Hare in Beacon, NY, I learned
how to deal with thoughts, emotions, moods
that want to get the best of us.  Today
it is a real challenge to even want to push
the bad feeling away. I am mourning,
missing my new southern home.
I am a southern girl at heart.

So I am setting an intention to make the best
of being up north in the winter.
I'll be putting that training to the test.
Would you care to see the results of my efforts in
the studio when it is the last place I want to go?

Here goes.....

Just as there are colors when painting that help
create a high energy piece of work, there are tools to elevate the
state of being. Today I'll work with color in my studio
to help me conquer "the blues". Funny we should call our
low feelings "the blues".
For me being around the some blue makes me feel blue and
yet that is the most popular color in America. Blue is a calming
color. Certain shades of blue effect us differently.
What color blue is your favorite?

On a day as gray as today, a grayed blue would only
bring me down further. I need a little light yellow
or bright orange perhaps. Yet, my body says that is untrue.
I feel blue!  I could just go with the blues and stay in a funk for
awhile longer and see what
the other side of that looks like.  Feel it and find the root cause
of this blue.. but I already know the root.

I want to be warm, free to go barefoot and drink up the sun, go
for a walk without a coat and stop outside to paint! Outside in
the open air where the light is present, the energy of nature
if felt deep within and this can be translated to the canvas.

Ok..... I'll have to do the best with the window however, it is
not the rainy gray day that I like capturing... I need to capture the
light breaking through at least. If I didn't have an exhibit
coming up in Martha's Vineyard I'd say ... tomorrow, when the sun
is shining. No, today I will battle this down mood and
defeat it because it will not get the best of me. So off to the studio,
I've procrastinated enough. I'll post what colors I choose to
work in.  I "accidentally" left all my paints in Florida so
on the way home we stopped in Washington, DC to buy more oils.
I choose a new set by Gamblin so now I am actually getting excited to
play with colors that I don't usually use. Radiant Blue- a premixed light
blue- how fitting the title is.

This summer I played with just the primary colors: red, yellow and
blue (plus white and payne's gray). Today I'll paint with a variety
of grays. I will look outside and see how many grays I can find.
See that... already my mood is lifted by the challenge. Find something
that is a challenge and focus on that. One way to shift from blah
to aha!

                                           The gray day sky and water
                                           with a touch of sun shining painted
                                           from a plein air study.