developing an idea

24 x 24, oil on birch panel

looking at watercolor sketch as I paint with oils

15 x 15, watercolor sketch on Arches 140# cold press

it all started with an ink sketch, 1.5" x 1.5"

You might remember seeing some of my tiny thumbnail sketches as I tried to work out my feelings about my father's dementia. It seemed to me that Dad had lost his memories and that he might look for them like you would if you lost something else that was precious to you.

Is it behind the couch?

Under the bed?

Maybe I threw it away.

The little thumbnail sketch, done in waterproof ink, became the basis for a watercolor sketch. I liked it well enough to develop it into an oil painting. Some of the bones of this painting are right, but it needs something and I that what it needs will be clear to me tomorrow when I look at it with fresh eyes.

Lucky for me, as my father has lost his memories (short and long term) and has become more confused, he has become even more polite and agreeable. Several of his caregivers took me aside to tell me, "Your father is such a nice man!" And, he is!

Eva Cassidy gets it right, too. "You've Changed."

thumnail thoughts

My father has dementia.

I know that. And I know that it is a progressive condition.

All of that knowledge did me no good when I saw him earlier this trip. And saw him struggling (and failing) with my name. And forgetting where we were or what he liked to eat. I still felt like the air had been knocked out of me.

Since that visit, I have been filling my sketchbook with thumbnails about Dad and my feelings about his dementia.

It ain't easy!

All thumbs

My sketchbook is filled with words, sketches, notes from books, notes from classes and lectures, incidentals, ideas, feeling words, starts of poems, and thumbnails.

I've been following blogger Barbara Newton and her exploration and use of thumbnails as a part of her painting process. You can read about her thumbs here.

Loriann Signori uses thumbnails regularly, but lately in a new way as she explores memory work. See her thumbs here.

I like the brevity of thumbnails. By necessity they have just enough information about the shapes and value to give a good idea about what's going on in a scene. In my thumbnails above, I have done many of them from life, but several of them from photographs. Photos can lead me astray with all of their precise information, but I'm beginning to try on the idea that I can reduce a photo to a thumbnail and then paint from my thumbnail to become a more expressive and painterly painter. We'll see.

Ideas are like shoes. Until you try them on and walk around in them for a bit, you don't know if you should buy them and take them home.

Do you use thumbnail sketches?