So yesterday, I woke up at 5 am. Tossed and turned but couldn’t fall back asleep. I lay there wondering if I should really get up at 5 am?? Nothing else to do – I could NOT sleep. So I got up, made my coffee and headed down to the studio. I looked around and decided to create a small abstract in a handmade journal. I figured I may as well turn on the camera and film as I went — then I would have a video for my YouTube channel. It was just a little piece to get me warmed up. I loved the way it turned out! Here’s that one – but there is more! It’s only 5am after all – lots of day left to play in the studio!

That felt good! So I decided to create a new cold wax oil painting. My last ones (a series of 4) are still waiting for additional layers, but I wanted something new. I grabbed a piece of Arches oil paper and mixed up a limited palette of orange, Prussian blue, green gold and some white. I love the cold wax process! I just work intuitively, knowing it will become an abstract, so I am not looking for any reality whatsoever. Just playing with color and texture. This one took a little over an hour, and I am keeping it just the way it is. I seldom like a cold wax painting in one session, but this one just spoke to me and said, “I’m done!” And so it is. I also filmed during this creating time, so here is the new cold wax painting video.

Since I was filming, I decided to get ahead on my Fast, Fun Friday videos and I filmed next week’s episode of that, as well. Here’s a sneak peek:

So it was a super productive morning – I got all this done by noon! So what did I do then? I played some more! I am taking a great, online class with Renee Mueller called Les Femmes. It’s available over at jeanneoliver.com. I have really been enjoying this class, working with charcoals and pastels, which are fairly new in my arsenal of art supplies. I decided to challenge myself and create a portrait on black card stock paper. I haven’t worked on black before, so I thought it would be fun to apply Renee’s techniques with it. Yes, another video — why not? I love to share my processes (and sometimes failures) with all of you! So here she is in all her majesty – not! It’s not terrible – I had issues along the way, but I learned a lot about working on black!

So, my arting for the day was done at that point. I had a blast in the studio, jumping from one medium to another. I don’t want to wake up at 5 am every day, but once in a while is okay with me. More hours to make art!

What would you do if you woke up at 5 am? Tell me!

In the Meantime . . . Go Make Some Art! Bye!