Studio journal: On Darwin, Steinbeck, and paint smooshing
Where my painting inspiration comes from and how I put it into an art journal
Today I have a video for you all about my studio art journal. This book is where I am storing all my ideas and inspiration for the series of paintings I am working on.
It was an accidental smooshing of watercolor paint and the interesting texture and pattern it created that got me all started. The paint patterns reminded me of the ocean, the beach, tides, and cliff faces. Somehow this got all tied up in my head with time and history. That got me thinking about Darwin and his famous trip to the Galapagos Islands where he found evidence for his budding theory on natural selection. I had On the Origin of Species on my shelf and started reading it at bedtime. It’s not the most exciting story to be sure lol but I find it really relaxing and enjoyable. Something about Darwin’s confident but humble writing is refreshing after a day of twitter scrolling.
Another book that popped up in my mind was Steinbeck’s The Log from the Sea of Cortez. This is another story that’s a bit heavy on repetition, lots of lists of the sea creatures they find, but it has so many little philosophical gems. And of course, Steinbeck’s friend and travel companion Doc, a marine biologist, is always enjoyable to read about. I first read about Doc in Cannery Row, which I highly recommend. You can’t go wrong with a good ole Steinbeck flophouse story.
Some of my attempts at camera close-ups may be out of frame and some of my printed out images are quite small, so I’m including some pics of the journal pages here in the photo galleries. On the blog, you can click on each photo and read some of the book quotes I have in my journal if interested. I’ve also posted below the two Cannery Row quotes from the end of the video.
Here’s Steinbeck, to close out this post :)
“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, “whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,” by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, “Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,” and he would have meant the same thing.”
“Doc is the owner and operator of the Western Biological Laboratory. Doc is rather small, deceptively small, for he is wiry and very strong and when passionate anger comes on him he can be very fierce. He wears a beard and his face is half Christ and half satyr and his face tells the truth. It is said that he has helped many a girl out of one trouble and into another. Doc has the hands of a brain surgeon, and a cool warm mind. Doc tips his hat to dogs as he drives by and the dogs look up and smile at him. He can kill anything for need but he could not even hurt a feeling for pleasure. He has one great fear—that of getting his head wet, so that summer or winter he ordinarily wears a rain hat. He will wade in a tide pool up to the chest without feeling damp, but a drop of rain water on his head makes him panicky.”
Cannery Row, John Steinbeck