Today is the birthday of a good friend I've known since third grade. She is in hospice, dying of cancer. I can't be there with her, but I am in my studio making art. When my husband was sick and then dying, I took advantage of every free hour to paint as well.
Why? For one thing, the intense concentration necessary to make any kind of art takes you out of your thinking mind. It is a way to express what cannot be expressed.
Today I worked again on a new painting, creating the image by slowly accumulating lines on the canvas. I used a cadmium red light, cadmium yellow light, prussian blue and mars black. I added more parchment, and let some of my lines form circles. Then I used a brush to pat on some pale yellow-green and a watered-down brown.
I will continue with this tomorrow, after it dries.