Don't Dillydally, Dauntless: Just Be Idle

"Scene Unseen XX" by Jim Carpenter, Mixed Media on Board, 16 x 20

"I am struck by how the phrase 'Study to be Quiet' expresses the paradox of idling, which is that you have to work at being idle." - Tom Hodgkinson

I'm Not Dillydallying. I'm Getting It Done Without Working.

This is day 10 of the 30 day challenge and I'm on painting #9.  Some of you may recognize the reference in the title of my blogpost. The line "Don't dillydally Dauntless" is a favorite alliteration of mine uttered by the stern but "sensitive" mother-Queen in the musical comedy Once Upon A Mattress. It's also appropriate here because the painting above is one I've been dillydallying over for a while - just as I have over several other paintings I've put forward in the challenge. In fact, I am using this challenge to stop dillydallying and finish - or transform - or dismiss entirely - all of the paintings I have lying around in my painting-Limbo. Oddly enough, it is the call to be idle that is allowing me to finish up what I could not do otherwise.

This gentle shift in point of view - of seeing the painting as something I love to do rather that seeing it as a job - something it is not now and never really has been, except when I thought it might be - is what is allowing me to be free to paint as I wish. It is my idle time - my time to relax and enjoy and be inspired. 

Between the book, "How to Be Idle" by Tom Hodgkinson, and the Challenge from Leslie Saeta, and the 700 other artists painting along in the challenge - it is easy to be inspired and encouraged and idle even when being challenged.