Painting in Quarantine

©Dora Sislian Themelis, Oil Painting in Quarantine, April 2020

The days move slowly in this time of quarantine. It's perfectly fine with me, I call this period "Art in the Time of Corona" and I am busy working at my painting. Everyday after noon, I walk into my basement art studio and get lost in my work. The outside world doesn't exist, nor do I while I'm at the easel.

Some would say painting is an act of mindfulness. I would say it's a matter of mindlessness, as when I am painting there is nothing else. Time and space do not matter. It's me and the work.

The larger work was once a self portrait gone bad. Nothing I did to it helped make any sense. Rather than let it languish, I turned it upside down and began violently brushing oil paint over the old work. Quarantine changes your brain!

I had taken this photo of my seashells from Greek and New York beaches with the intent to paint from it, and I went at it. It was quite enjoyable to cover up the old, ugly work. 

Every day I paint another area of the painting. It's taking time. Since I get antsy I started the second painting, another photographer's work of a beach in Crete, Greece. I loved the color of the water and started laying in color quickly and finished it earlier than expected.

Meanwhile, the seashells wait their turn, but there is plenty of time because we still stay home in quarantine.