Journals

What's so special about these three books?

I first "finished" this painting four years ago.  Then I put it on a shelf and considered it a failure.  I loved the sunflower that I'd cut from my garden.  I loved the journals.  I hated the painting. I'd notice it every few months and think about painting over it.  I needed a 9x12 canvas the other day, and didn't have one.  

I looked at this one a long time... Should I paint over it?

It was like six separate items with no connection between them... a foreground, a background, a flower, and three books.  Was that what had been wrong all these years and months?

I didn't want to change anything about the books, so I'd just have to tie everything back to them.  

1st -I used a purple wash over the brown table to tie in with the top journal.  

2nd - I used the colors of the bottom journal to create a new background.  

3rd - I decided the leaves and the green journal were pretty good partners.  

4th - Then I just had to get to get rid of the yellow flower.  I made it a purple; t blended with the top journal and made no sense.  I added lots of reds and pinks; it was ugly.  I added the rosy red and orangy color of the bottom book and made extra middle petals to make it kind of mum-like.  

5th - Finally, I got brave and stuck a little but on the leaf that I accidentally put in a weird place.

AND...  Yea! 

So, What's so special about these three books?

The bottom one is my journal.

The green one is the journal I write to my son in.

The purple one is the journal I write to my daughter in.

I started keeping diaries when I was a little.  

These are my diaries from 1973-1983.

That little blue flowery one was the first.

Starting in 1977 I rarely missed a day.

These are my journals from 1985 through the one in the painting.  I don't write daily, but I'm fairly consistent.

(Yeah, I realize 1984 is missing... I was engaged... too in love and busy to bother... but I do have a box of love letters, so that year's not completely lost!)

I also keep a journal for each of my children.  Each has one that goes from birth through elementary school, another from middle school through high school, then the two in the painting.

These are for specific reasons, mostly from my years of participation in the National Writing Project.

Pretty cool, huh?

Original Oil Painting on 11"x 14" Wrapped Canvas
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