Moon Snail Project # 100: The Only Thing

“To live in the world of creation — to get into it and stay in it — to frequent it and haunt it — to think intensely and fruitfully — to woo combinations and inspirations into being by a depth and continuity of attention and meditation — this is the only thing.”
— Henry James

Moon Snail Shell # 100, ink sketch with watercolor

I’ve finished Moon Snail Shell # 100!

Some observations:

• No big breakthroughs.  I didn’t push my boundaries nearly enough.  I was always conscious of my promise to post every painting, and opening my work to public scrutiny was an impediment to creativity.  I think that I would have found the project much more freeing if I had required myself to destroy every one of my first 100 sketches and then gone from there.
• That said, I do like some of my sketches more than others.  Here are some of my favorites: Numbers 32 – 34, 39, 43 – 45, 67 – 68, and 72 – 79.
  

  A few of my favorites

• Looking back at the body of work, I do see that I have a rather consistent style or point of view.  I wish it had evolved more.
• The assignment kept my interest.  Art has its own set of challenges — how to depict edges, how to show volume, how to express my feelings, how to translate what I see to the blank page . . .  I find each new drawing and painting absorbing and worthy of my attention.
• I do like projects.  Unlike so many other things in life, projects have definite beginnings and endings.  I can bundle this experience and make it stand out in the long path to becoming an artist.  I will have to think up new projects in the future.

It takes so little in terms of material things to craft a meaningful life.  I want to live my life captivated by ordinary things, small moments.  And my moon snail shell embodies that principle.  I chose for my 100 Drawings Project a found object, something that cost nothing.  And yet, it provided hours and hours of focused absorption, contemplation, and joy.  I think I chose well.

“While we respond to the exacting demands of the environment, we must attempt to rediscover, during what leisure we can wrestle from the struggle, the value and the quality in little things.”
— Angel Pellegrini, The Unprejudiced Palate:  Classic Thoughts on Food and the Good Life

“Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can get for a half penny.  I make an exception, of course, of the sun, the moon, the earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles.  You can get them for nothing.”
— G. K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles

“Joys come from simple and natural things, mists over meadows, sunlight on leaves, the path of the moon over water.  Even rain and stormy clouds bring joy, just knowing animals and flowers and where they live.  Such things are where you find them, and belong to the aware and alive.”
— Sigurd Olson

And so I leave this project as my gift to you.  I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

“Thus, the artist’s gift is not necessarily the artistic expression he or she imparts to the object created but, rather, the expansion of our awareness and our appreciation of the wonder, diversity, and unlimited opportunities of the world.”
– Barry Behrstock, The Way of the Artist:  Reflections on Creativity and the Life, Home, Art and Collections of Richard Marquis

 

Moon Snail Project # 94 – 99: Indescribably Magnificent

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”
— Henry Miller

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”
— Aristotle

Moon Snail Shells # 94 – 97, watercolor sketches

Moon Snail Shells # 98 – 99, watercolor sketches

The model for my moon snail project

 

 

 

Moon Snail Project # 93: The Moon

“Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
— Les Brown

Moon Snail Shell # 93, watercolor painting

I don’t know the significance of my moon snail shell’s name.  The scientific name does include the Latin word Lunatia.  Its round form does resemble the moon, I think.  Another evocative association for my little art object!

 

Moon Snail Project # 89 – 92: Background Colors

“Color is a power which directly influences the soul.”
— Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art

Moon snail shell on red

“White Shell with Red” by Georgia O’Keeffe, 1938

“Color is the place where our brain and the universe meet.”
— Paul Klee

The paintings for this post were my attempts to play with color.  O’Keeffe’s “White Shell with Red” is an inspiration.  My amateur attempts fell far short of my aspirations for this challenge.

Moon Snail Shell # 89, watercolor sketch with red

Moon Snail Shell # 90, watercolor sketch

Moon Snail Shell # 91, watercolor sketch with blue — the best of this lot, I think

Moon Snail Shell # 92, watercolor sketch

Moon Snail Project # 86 – 88: Yin Yang

Yin-Yang symbol

My shell resembles the yin-yang symbol.

My moon snail shell reminds me of the yin-yang symbol and its associations with the paradoxes of opposites and inter-dependencies.  I do find that few things are strictly black and white.  So often a good thing contains the seed of decay.  For example, one of my husband’s best virtues is his generosity, but that means he finds it hard to save money.  He gives so much of himself to others that his family sometimes gets short shrift. Or think of someone who is loyal.  She might stay too long in failed relationships.  Or someone who is good at planning who might be too rigid and closed to the joys of spontaneity.  Turn the virtue you most love about a person on its side, and what is revealed is the thing you hate and drives you to the edge.

The Identity of Relative and Absolute
by Shih-tou

Within light there is darkness,
but do not try to understand that darkness.
Within darkness there is light,
but do not look for that light.
Light and darkness are a pair,
like the foot before and the foot behind in walking.
Each thing has its own intrinsic value
and is related to everything else in function and position.
Ordinary life fits the absolute as a box and its lid.
The absolute works together with the relative,
like two arrows meeting in mid-air.

Moon Snail Shell # 86, watercolor sketch

Moon Snail Shell # 87, ink and watercolor sketch

Moon Snail Shell # 88, ink and watercolor sketch

Moon Snail Project # 85: A Miracle of Design

Moon Snail Shell # 85, watercolor painting

 

“See what a lovely shell
Small and pure as pearl
Lying close to my foot,
Frail, but a work divine,
Made so fairly well
With delicate spire and whorl,
How exquisitely minute,
A miracle of design.”
— Alfred Lord Tennyson, from “Maud”

Moon Snail Project # 82 – 84: Drawing Light

“When we draw the objects, surfaces, and spaces of our world, we are to a very large degree, drawing an experience of light.  The strange and wonderful paradox is that light is invisible, but makes things visible. . . . Light reveals form.”
— Mick Maslen and Jack Southern, Drawing Projects:  An Exploration of the Language of Drawing

“A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.”
— Leonardo da Vinci

Moon Snail Shell # 82, watercolor sketch

Moon Snail Shell # 83, watercolor sketch

Moon Snail Shell # 84, ink sketch with watercolor wash

I find it very challenging to get the proper tones, shades of light and dark, in my sketches.  My first attempt looks like an ice cream sundae.  My second and third attempts look like grubs or potatoes.  (Sigh)

Moon Snail Project # 72 – 81: Variations II

“Our perception of things can be altered simply by the angle we choose to look at something.”
— Keri Smith, How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum

Moon Snail Shells # 72 – 79, watercolor sketches using Payne’s Gray

“Creativity arises from our ability to see things from many different angles.”
— Keri Smith, How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum

“The same subject seen from a different angle gives a subject for study of the highest interest and so varied that I think I could be occupied for months without changing my place, simply bending more to the right or left.”
— Paul Cezanne

Surprisingly, I am not yet tired of painting my moon snail shell.  In fact, I am growing quite fond of it!

Moon Snail Shell # 80, pencil and watercolor sketch (reprise of shell # 59)

Moon Snail Shell # 81, colored pencil sketch

 

 

Moon Snail Project # 67 – 71: Less is More

“To build a simple hut is as much an art as to drink a cup of tea.”
Heinrich Engel, The Japanese House:  A Tradition for Contemporary Architecture

My moon snail carried its house on its back.  I suppose the closest I’ve come to doing the same is living out of a suitcase or backpack when I travel.  Invariably I learn that no matter how lightly I pack, I still carry with me things that I do not wear even once.  There are some important lessons here.

“How little do I need to have everything?”
— Ellen Meloy, The Anthropology of Turquoise

“Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens.  If you have them, you have to take care of them.”
— Peace Pilgrim

Less is more.

Moon Snail Shells # 67 & 68, ink sketches with watercolor washes

Moon Snail Shells # 69, 70 & 71, watercolor sketches

 

 

 

Moon Snail Project # 61 – 66: Emptiness

“Emptiness which is conceptually liable to be mistaken for sheer nothingness is in fact the reservoir of infinite possibilities.”
— Daisetsu T. Suzuki

Moon Snail Shells # 61 – 64, ink and watercolor sketches

“Become totally empty.
Quiet the restlessness of the mind.
Only then will you witness everything unfolding from emptiness.”
— Lao Tzu

My empty moon snail shell calls to me.  I have been thinking lately that I need to carve more emptiness into my days.  Even my days off work feel too full. I am tired of not having enough hours in the day for everything I want to do.

I work only part time (30 hours/week) and my daughter is an adult living on her own.  So I should feel that I have enough balance between working for others and working/playing for myself.  When I think back, I didn’t feel so busy in my 30s and 40s when I was working and parenting full time.  What am I doing differently?

The culprits are books, blogging, and DVD movies.  One of the perils of working in a library is that I’m tempted by far too many reading and entertainment choices.  Over the years, I’ve succumbed to reserving and checking out more and more items.  It’s insidious.  There is always a new blockbuster, new releases that garner enticing reviews, clever titles, and inviting book covers.  A few decades ago I didn’t feel that I had to see every “good” movie or read every “good” book.  These days, access is too easy.  It’s a flood, and I’m drowning.

“The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.”
— Raymond Chandler

This is not how I want to live the rest of my days, so it’s time for me to make some changes.  I need to set new parameters around my library borrowing.  And I will have to re-think how I use my blog.  By cutting back in these areas, I hope to give myself some space in my days, enjoy a slower and more relaxed pace, and live a more thoughtful and artful life.  I want to create some empty spaces so that some new possibilities can alight.  I want breathing room for my spirit.

“Whatever art offered the men and women of previous eras what it offers our own is space — a certain breathing room for the spirit.”
— John Updike

Within emptiness is the promise of satisfying fullness, not frantic, but thoughtful.

Moon Snail Shell # 65, watercolor painting

Moon Snail Shell # 66, pencil and watercolor sketch