Lauren Can't Dance

🎶I’m gonna free myself from your opinion I’m gonna heal myself from your religion🎶 -Tori Amos Instagram.com/laurennicolemarkham

[quietrebelsofgenesis]

[quietrebelsofgenesis]

[quietrebelsofgenesis]

Artists may have goals, themes, ideas of what specifically they want to make. I just want to put pretty colors together. 😆 I just want to put colors together and see what happens. I don’t have the money to just drop everything and explore the world, much to my dismay. So I take some of the money I make and buy products which I use to explore art. This is my way of being an explorer. But instead of exploring something that already exists, I get to create something and explore what happens as I progress. I have a bit of a perfectionistic streak, and adding layers to something I already like can cause a bit of anxiety. 😆 But it’s part of the process.

[quietrebelsofgenesis]

This is my latest painting. I didn’t intend for this to happen, but at one point I noticed that the blue areas reminded me of water. So I painted the blue areas to stand out and added more blue bits in other areas. So it looks like whatever is going on, is going on in the water.

I occasionally go on these benders and watch YouTube travel videos about different places around the world. And lately I’ve been very interested in visiting areas with stunning coastlines. Coastlines with mountains and big, rocky cliffs and sometimes wildflowers, and wildlife like seals and dolphins and otters and other marine animals.

At one point when I was growing up, I was interested in marine biology and wanted to become a marine biologist. Apparently it was a pipe dream. I’ve never even learned how to swim. How would I be able to explore the underwater environments that these creatures live in, let alone afford to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees in biology? I didn’t come from a financially well-off family, let alone one that believed that I could do something like that.

Anyway, the specific areas I’ve been drawn to are the California coast, specifically Monterrey/Carmel/Big Sur as well as San Diego/La Jolla. I went to California after I graduated high school and briefly traveled through San Diego. We didn’t walk around San Diego. We just drove around. I would love to go back someday and actually walk around it.

But the most recent area I’ve become interested in is the north coast of the county of Devon in England. Towns like Lynton, Lynmouth, Ilfracombe, Woolacombe. Morte Point, Lundy Island, Hartland Quay. Exmoor National Park, where you can stargaze and view the Milky Way on a clear night. All connected by the South West Coast Path. Absolutely stunning. I’d give almost anything to spend at least a week there. Hell, I’m jealous of the people that actually get to live there and experience breathtaking nature day after day, year after year. They’re living what should be my life! 😭

But also, I wish I could just live by the beach in my home state of North Carolina. I have family in Wilmington, so I’ve been there many times throughout my life. What I wouldn’t give to just live by Wrightsville Beach and explore it whenever I want. Carolina Beach as well. But I can’t even visit my family down there because of us all having our own life situations…and also having a car with serious issues preventing me from driving long distances, especially in hot weather, without the car basically shutting down. Don’t ask.

And the thing that bugs me the most? I’m tired of working. Not just working at my job. But also working on a life plan to afford and accomplish the life I want. I’ve been working my ass off and trying to figure it out for the past 20 years….all of my adulthood! I can’t even afford an apartment in Wilmington. How the hell would I be able to afford to move to England?

And trying to figure out how to work for myself, coming up with a business plan or a side hustle, just isn’t what I want. I don’t even have the attention span nor the patience to make art everyday! I only want to do things when I want to do them. I don’t want to force myself to do them consistently just to earn money and a roof over my head. So yeah, to the people who will say I’m lazy and just don’t wanna work….you’re absolutely right. Happy now? I’ve worked hard enough. I’ve worked long enough. I just want to explore and experience the world. I deserve better. I’m just tired of figuring out how to get it…and I’m tired of not getting it. And some of that frustration came out in my painting.

I’ve tried saving myself. Will the powers that be/spirits/universe send me ANYONE to lend a helping hand? Or am I just talking to the wind, as I usually feel like I’m doing in my posts?

[quietrebelsofgenesis]

[quietrebelsofgenesis]

[quietrebelsofgenesis]

I decided to challenge myself and find a way to incorporate more neutrals into my paintings. After all, a bunch of people love neutrals and muted colors. I’ve developed a little more appreciation for neutrals over the last few years. But I’m still not all that crazy about them. Nevertheless, I wanted to see if I could make a painting where neutrals are the dominant colors.

I started off recently by making some mixes with my acrylic paints, so I would have a palette to work with. I came up with some browns, beiges, and grays. But I also came up with some muted versions of greens, blues, and other colors to add to the palette because I just couldn’t help myself.

I worked on these paintings over the past couple of days. I started off by making marks on the paper with different colored Neocolor II water-soluble crayons diluted with acrylic matte medium. I used some acrylic paint mixes that incorporated various amounts of burnt sienna, raw umber, titanium white, and a light tan color called Savana. I was feeling pretty discouraged at certain points. I had to add some muted blue to the paintings. Okay, a lot.

I know a lot of people love warmer color palettes. I like warmer colors too. But I usually prefer cooler color palettes. Greens, blues, purples. Pinks are about the warmest I’m willing to go, with small amounts of red, orange, and yellow. And I’m not a big fan of grays. I prefer browns, but I like them warmer, reminding me of dark or milk chocolate.

I’m glad I challenged myself. But I think this challenge showed me why I gravitated toward certain colors in my previous works. I would love to make my work more palatable for other people to like. Heck, I wish I could develop the skills to make great paintings to maybe sell someday. (Right now, I’m just practicing.) But if I don’t get much satisfaction out of the painting myself, then there’s no point in making it. I’m not going to sell you something that I wouldn’t want to have hanging on my wall.

[quietrebelsofgenesis]

[quietrebelsofgenesis]

[quietrebelsofgenesis]

It's my 15 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

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Here’s a painting I made that doesn’t have as many layers as the previous two. The aqua and lime green paints are part of the first layer. I wanted to keep them as visible as possible because I wanted to go for an ocean vibe. I added coral and yellow orange as well as some dabs of blue and purple. I think some of the squiggly lines can kind of represent waves. But yeah, I was going for a bright, colorful, under-the-sea theme.

[quietrebelsofgenesis]

[quietrebelsofgenesis]

[quietrebelsofgenesis]

[quietrebelsofgenesis]

Here’s the second painting following the previous post of the first one I made. Again, the first layer looked NOTHING like the finished result. But as I kept adding layers, the magentas, pinks, purples, and bits of yellow made me think of a specific color palette that would have been popular back in the 1980s and early 1990s. I think it’s missing teal, which I like, but I didn’t want to add it. I chose green instead.

I was born in 1988, and I have little memory of those first few years of my life. But being a 90s kid who truly loves the 90s, I wish I could time travel back to re-experience the early 90s (as my adult self), particularly 1990-92. 1993 at the latest, which was the year I started kindergarten. Again I had no plans for what I would make. But this painting ended up evoking a feeling of nostalgia for me.

[quietrebelsofgenesis]

I watched some videos on YouTube about abstract painting, and one in particular motivated me to pick up my brushes and paints and try making art again. I worked on two paintings these last few days, and I have a third I started working on. Here’s the first one. The first layer looked nothing like the finished result. It definitely disappeared under the other layers. 😆 I had no plan for this and just wanted to see where the layers would take me. Lo and behold, this looks like something from outer space. Quite on brand for me.

[quietrebelsofgenesis]