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I thought I’d share our “artistic” lunch too!
Sometimes You Need To Read The Instructions
Yes, it is after dark, but today wasn’t about putting myself last. I spent the morning getting supplies to make greeting cards, and sorting through my computer photo files. I barely made a dent. I mentioned the over two thousand photos I took in Paris, there are also the hundreds and hundreds of photos that I take every where I go. They are somewhat organized, but choosing what to use took time.
About today’s work…I looked around the studio again, this time I spied a watercolor canvas that I bought to try. Unlike watercolor paper it’s a wrapped canvas. I had printed out a few photos this morning that I wanted to paint. I sketched it out on the canvas and began to paint. Disaster ensued. The paint just sat on the surface going nowhere. I wiped it off and tried again. No luck. It then occurred to me ( genius that I am), that maybe I should have read the little pamphlet that was attached to the canvas. It seems that the canvas has to be wet heavily and let sit for ten minutes before you paint. I had of course, as always, jumped in head first. I’m the kind of girl who doesn’t measure things, I am a “create by the seat of my pants” kind off girl. I have the ability to look at a piece of furniture and see it in five different colors in my head, When I buy something at the flea market I know from the moment I buy it what it will look like when I’m done. However, I can read the same instruction booklet twenty times and still not know how to do things. I’ve owned a kiln for more than two years and I’ve yet to use it. Why? Because I am waiting for Dan to read the instruction book and show me how. Yesterday he figured out my very expensive printer that has been gathering dust upstairs for…you guessed it…two years. Logic and I are strangers. I quit interior design school because I was too intimidated by drafting class. And as anyone has read this blog knows, I have never had art lessons, I do however own an instructional book on just about every form of art imaginable. Here’s a novel idea, maybe I could actually start reading them, and then I will have less days like today.
I tried for a third time and then I gave up on the canvas and switched to paper.
I may have mentioned that I have a thing for doors and windows. ( Some deep-seated need to escape?) This painting is a watercolor of a door I came across in Monterey, California.
I’m not sure what I’ll do tomorrow, most likely something with no instruction needed!
I Am An Artist
The sun is still out. Although it’s after seven, I am so happy with myself for taking some time today to really work. I finished a piece of art today because I wanted to, and not because bedtime was looming and I still hadn’t produced for my blog project. It is a pastel and pencil drawing.
As always I had no idea what I wanted to do when I started. I looked around my studio and at some photos that I had either taken myself, or at some time in the past clipped from a magazine for the “to do” pile. There are a lot of pictures in that pile, I’m ashamed to say how many. I took more than two thousand photos in Paris in 2009, that makes up most of the pile. I reassured myself continually that I would some day “work”. Setting aside ideas made the illusion seem that much more real. As long as I had projects for the future it meant I wasn’t giving up on myself, when in fact I had given up a long time ago. That again is another source of pain for me. When I think of the countless hours I spent organizing my photos, my supplies, and rearranging my studio, I could cry. All it was was a way to avoid the reality of not being good enough. Money spent, not wasted so to speak because the supplies are all still there waiting to be used, but I honestly have enough “stuff” to fill three lifetimes. I was playing at being an artist. Doing a project here and there so I could lay claim to the title because it was the only part of me that I hadn’t given to my family. I stopped working a time-clock job in 1994, I did a few murals in Chicago, did more than my share of craft shows, and even entered a painting that was accepted into a museum show here in town. The reality is I gave all of me to my husband and children. Do I have regrets? Yes, but none having to do with time I gave them, but for the hours lost when Dan was at work and the kids were in school when I could have given myself permission to be more than “mom” or “wife”. Instead I felt guilty of every moment I gave myself. Days were spent cleaning, rearranging, making things as special as I could for them. They all have nightmare memories of craft shows, when the night before they were frantically helping me to finish things because I hadn’t given myself the time. I’m sure more than a few people wondered how many strip clubs my husband went to, he was covered in glitter for days. And at the shows I found myself being approached by people asking me why I was there, telling me my work was too good. I didn’t have enough faith in myself to believe it.
I have written here before and will write it again and again until I believe it. I am an artist.
A Step In The Right Direction
It’s late as usual, but today wasn’t about avoidance. To begin with I did only a very small watercolor today, but I honestly thought that this would be the day I didn’t accomplish anything. I have a horrible
, horrible neck and shoulder injury from a car accident, and some days it rears its ugly head and becomes painfully intolerable. Today was one of was one of those days. From the moment I woke I was in pain. All that aside I took a major step in the right direction to further my artistic self-esteem. I have a friend here in town that owns the Temecula Valley Cheese Shop. I had spoken to her more than a year ago about selling in her shop. At the time she agreed, but “not good enough” was a major influence in my life at the time. Basically, I chickened out. I changed that today. I made up several cards using my photography and brought them into her store. I start selling later this week. Of course now I’m worried that no one will buy them. Surprised? You shouldn’t be, many years of self-doubt have taken more than their toll. Well, that and I’m Irish. As I tell Dan when you’re Irish the glass is not only not half full, it isn’t even half empty, its shattered on the floor.
So here is the tiny painting of today, pinched nerve and all. I will follow with photos of a few of my cards. Wish me luck, and if you happen to be in the cheese shop and need a card….
Old Lessons, and a Still Not Quite Complete Mia
I finished Mia this morning. Still not completely happy with the drawing, but I think I might have done better drawing a white cat on a paper with color and highlighting with white pencil or chalk. It’s what I had done on the earlier post of the drawing of my grandmother. Sometimes its best to walk away from a piece and revisit it later with a fresh pair of eyes.
I had a realization this morning. Again, when I started this blog I was excited and challenged, but as I wrote last night I find myself not getting to it until later and later each day. I told Dan this morning that it is becoming reminiscent of high school. I did take art in high school. I wanted it as early as sophomore year when I had my first shot at choosing an elective. However, my dad didn’t see the value of it. My electives were gobbled up by sewing and typing/ shorthand, all marketable skills for a young woman who was sentenced to no more expectation in life than that of a secretary or housewife. (Typing? Yes, I’m that old. My high school graduation gift was an electric typewriter, the latest model of course!) Junior year left me open for an elective of choice. At that point my dad had three of us in high school and was probably too busy to interfere. What I should have done was take Art 1, the basics, but what did I do? I took a few drawings and a painting into Mrs. Miller’s office and told her my sad story. She looked at my work and put me right into Art 2. I lost the opportunity to get the basics. I didn’t know any better…..back to the project.
The first few days of this project I was anxious to get to work every day. I truly was excited about what I would do next. Then my bad habit of putting myself last began to creep in just a little further every day. Cleaning, cooking, bill paying, watering the garden and so on. Finding little ways every day to push it further away. Just like high school. I was excited to get into art, more so that I had been allowed to skip ahead, but as time wore on I began to not do assignments until the night before. There was a girl in my class who quite frankly couldn’t draw very well. We both turned in assignments for a graphic design project, she got an “A”, I got a “B”. I was incredulous, my drawing was so much better than hers, at least technically. When I approached Mrs. Miller to complain she said, ” No she can’t draw as well as you, but I can see how hard she tried. You have so much talent, but you did that last night didn’t you?” I had to admit I had. She said, “I know what you can do, that’s why you get a “B”. I should have learned from that, but here I am so many years later doing the same thing. I am cheating myself each time I do this without my full effort and attention. Yes, sometimes my life will get in the way. Today my son is sick, but there are more than enough waking hours for me to fulfill my promise in every way possible.
Thank you Mrs. Miller
Riley
It’s late, nine here in California, and I again find myself putting my project off until the end of my day. Today it had nothing to do with avoiding the project at hand, but because it was a hard day for us here. Issues beyond our control came to a head. It was a long emotional day, one that I will be glad to have over.
I grabbed my sketchbook tonight, as always not sure what my subject might be. I started a drawing of some flowers, but I chose the wrong paper for the pencils that I was using and couldn’t achieve the correct amount of blending. Therein lies the biggest issue I have with not having had lessons. Materials are foreign to me. I still have a painting that I completed in my early twenties. It is large and a little abstract. I gave it to a boyfriend. His friend who also painted was curious as to why the background of my painting, which was entirely black, was painted using both matte and glossy paint. Matte? Glossy? I had no idea that paint for art came in different finishes. I was of course familiar with the terms, my dad was a house painter, but for art? I thought black was black. I know of course I could read books, and believe me I have more than a few, or I could take a class. Classes don’t work for me either, too judgmental. I did take a stab at art in college. My first fine art class was a drawing class. Within days I felt out-of-place. Remember I started drawing around the age of five. There I was at eighteen with thirteen years of bad habits that I had obtained, at least as far as the teacher was concerned. But I liked how I did things, and as I pointed out to her after she told me I had to use the oval with the lines to draw portraits, my portraits were better than hers. Mine actually looked like the people they were meant to look like. I dropped the class. (Long story to make a small point. I seem to do that a lot.) By seven-thirty or so I was gaining that familiar feeling of frustration. I decided to look on my computer to see what I had photos of to inspire me. I came across my file of photos of our cats. Spouncer (who sadly passed away, but was named after an art tool), Riley, Mia and Sophie. I decided on a photo of Riley. I used a combination of the photo and real life model, who unfortunately was more interested in swatting my pencil away. So here is Riley. I don’t do much in the way of drawing animals, but I’m happy with these results.
OK, so I know this is getting long-winded, but it reminded me of a painting I did as a teenager. A very nice man I worked with asked me to paint a portrait of his poodle as a gift for his wife. I didn’t really want to do it but it was a job. I had just finished the painting, it was oil, when I knocked it off the easel onto the floor. My bedroom floor that was covered in carpet. There were fibers stuck to the paint everywhere. I could have cried, but just blended it into the paint. He loved the painting. In particular the “texture” I had given to his beloved dog. He paid me more than I asked.
My mother was not so happy, how could she possibly fail to see the value of sacrificing the carpet for my art?
Jigsaw Puzzle Art
Like the title of today’s blog? I called it that because that is what I feel like I produced yesterday. I decided to go with oils, and also to try something new. Many of my paintings appear flat to me. Again, without lessons I’m not really sure if I do things the way they should be done. I did a small 9×12 painting based on a photograph I took in central California farm country. I am very drawn to old barns, abandoned buildings, old doors and windows, essentially anything that looks lonely, speaks of solitude, and seem left behind. I haven’t mentioned it before but I am also quite a good photographer. My photography is much the same, lonely; there are never people in my photographs. I was a very shy child and sometimes quite lonely. Alone is a place I’m comfortable in. (I’m sure at this point arm-chair psychologists eyebrows are raised.)…back to my painting saga…
I tried to use a palette knife to lay the paint on thickly. My knife was too big for the small canvas, so it quickly became a mucky mess. I scraped it off and tried again. Same issue. At that point I was feeling defeated, I felt like things just weren’t going to go right. My artistic mojo had abandoned me. I almost gave up, but the blog was calling. I kept thinking that I had to do something. My “not good enough” voice was whispering in my ear, “You have other work you can use.” Do you think it’s possible to get Catholic guilt from a blog? I believe it is, because I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t use an old painting, or another piece of art, I couldn’t break my promise to myself. I told my “not good enough” voice to shut up, and I tried again. This time I used a small brush and dabbed the paint on the canvas thickly. It seemed to be working; at least the piece had texture. My husband came in the room and said he liked what I was doing. That gave me the confidence to continue. All in all it took about two hours. When I was finished my husband said he loved it, me not too much. There are particular areas that I like very much, where the paint has a vibrancy that I love, but quite frankly, in the end I don’t like it very much. I wrestled once again with the thought of not posting it, but this blog is about discovering who I am as an artist, so I guess that means warts and all. Even if I think it’s garbage, it will be here. Things will get better, of that I am sure. I have not consistently produced art or painted in years. So I have decided to give myself a break and tell “not good enough” to shut up more often, maybe at some point it may go away.
Oh, the title of today’s blog? When I looked at the painting and told my husband I didn’t like it he said, “I love it”. To which I replied,”You know what it looks like? It looks like one of those awful paintings they turn into a jigsaw puzzle.”
Anyone need a thousand pieces?
Tulip
Acrylic on canvas
The First Date is Over
You know that feeling when you are going out with someone for the first time? You feel all nervous but excited at the prospect of what could be coming your way. That’s how I felt about yesterday. I was terrified of heading into this project, but at the same time excited about finally forcing my own hand (literally!) I spent time creating the page that would explain it all, I jumped head first into a few paintings, I told just about everyone what I was going to do. I got great feedback, mostly on my Facebook page. I had hoped, and still do, that my family and friends might offer feedback right here on the blog. (Hint inserted here.) I did get one wonderful comment that brought a smile to my face, and was excited to see people following my page.
By last night fear began to creep in. The excitement of the first date over, the did fear of, “Did he like me, is he going to call?” nonsense started. Yesterday was a pretty stressful day. Some issues relating to other parts of our life were causing upset to both my husband and I. We had a good day despite the stress, but I, as always, internalized the situation. I find it difficult to be creative when I’m upset. The whole suffering for your art thing never made sense to me. I believe that in giving birth naturally to two eight pound plus babies, and having had six knee surgeries (Again, good with the hands, not so good with the feet.) I have suffered more than enough for my art and that of everyone else too. I am happy when I create. As the day wore on the weight of what I had done to myself was crashing down on me. I had committed to the world that I was going to produce one piece of art EVERY day. I pulled out my watercolors and painted. I didn’t just produce one painting, I did three. Two are artist card size. For those of you not familiar with the Artist Trading Card movement Google it.( Worth reading about and trying to do yourself if you’ve been hiding your own creative desires.) The size is similar to a wallet size. Two and a half, by three and a half in size, it can be anything, made any way as long as the size is right. I find it an easy way to do a quick piece of art, especially when I promised to do some! I will publicly admit right now that all three are falling into the “not good enough” category in my head. I am posting the three of them because I said I would, and I always keep my promises. So that being said and my excitement diminished, here are three pieces of work. Not my best, but not my worst, and at least I did it!
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