One day a teacher was speaking to a group of students. He pulled out an extremely large jar and set it on a table. Then he produced about a dozen big rocks and placed them, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is this jar full?” Everyone said, “Yes.” “Really?” he asked. “Let’s see.” He pulled out some gravel and dumped them in. He shook the jar, causing the pieces to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks. He asked the students again, “Is the jar full?” His class was catching on quickly. “Probably not,” one of them answered. “Very good!” he replied. He then brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. When he was finished he asked again, “Is this jar full?” “No!” the class shouted. “Excellent!” he replied. Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and poured it in until the jar was filled to the brim. The students looked at jar which was totally full, then looked back at him. The teacher looked intently back at the students and asked, “What is the point of this illustration?” One student said, “You could always fit more things into your life if you really work at it.” The teacher said “That’s true, but it’s not the point of this illustration”. He said, “The point is, if you don’t put the big rocks in first, …… would you ever have gotten any of them in?“

11x14 acrylic paint, gel medium, wax, fabric, papers, stitching I started out this week intending to do something with large blocks of color. I really liked some of the things I saw on Jennifer Sanchez's website last week (she was the featured artist in class). At certain points throughout the week this canvas contained large blocks of pure color. Over time it morphed - there is such a huge lesson for me in the waiting and the letting it happen. There were many times I was frustrated with the amount of layers I was ending up with and I have a certain level of impatience with waiting for paint to dry. Today though I moved in a new direction, inspired somewhat by Donna Watson (found her featured in book called Masters Collage), back towards a more neutral overall tone (vs. the pure red and pure turquoise I had on certain days this past week). I took my base painted layers and built a group of boxes on top. Within each box I did something, including stitching fabric directly onto the canvas. I might mess with it some more, but for now, it's taking a rest.