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Letting Go Of Perfection

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I never know from day-to-day what I am going to create, much less what I will blog about. Both projects are discovering themselves as my day goes on. I will have to be very honest here, both the art and the writing are on the top of my daily “to do” list, but both are the last things I do at the end of the day most of the time. Why? I’m still struggling with putting myself first and letting go of my duties as wife/mother. I’m still making sure the kitchen gets cleaned in the morning, and that there are meals on the table, and every other thing I can think of in between. I’m working on it, but without much success. I will continue to figure this out, and at some point (hopefully) I’ll learn to ignore that the floor needs to be swept. (Disclosure: I can’t eat at those restaurants where they have rude wait staff and peanut shells on the floor. I cannot stand rudeness, and absolutely cannot eat in a place that has a dirty floor. I don’t know why I feel the need to share this, except that maybe it lets you know me just a little better. One might think by reading that, that I am a neat freak. Far from the truth. My house is clean, very clean, well at least as clean as a house with three cats and a twenty-two year old male can be, but I’m messy. I think I mentioned that before, I mean the me being messy part, again for no particular reason…)

I brought all of the above up because I (as regular readers might know by now) am struggling with not being good enough or perfect in my art. Tonight I had a little breakthrough. I didn’t work earlier today because of anything more than it was really hot here today, and unusually humid. Hot plus humid equal lethargic for me. I just wasn’t in the mood. Not that I didn’t try. I made a few pathetic attempts at something with clay, and although I promised to put up all work, warts and all, I didn’t even come up with something I could photograph even as an attempt. So at the magic hour of seven p.m., which seems to be turning into my starting time, I began a watercolor painting. My breakthrough was that I didn’t sweat it at all. When I do a rough sketch for a painting I worry over every little detail. I measure and fuss over the drawing being just right. I didn’t measure tonight. I just sketched, and then I just painted. In a moment I had the thought that the reality is, unless I am painting a well-known monument, the people who see my work are more than likely to never see the photo I use as inspiration, or into my brain to see where ideas spring from there (God forbid!). I started out tonight feeling like I was doing homework again, but then I relaxed, I let the process and my enjoyment of it take over. The finished project, a watercolor and ink inspired by a photo I took in Carmel, California, isn’t perfect. The perspective isn’t perfect. I am not perfect, and I’m learning to be content with all of it.

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Art Of A Different Sort

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Tonight I have a strange one. Jessica’s portrait is still too wet to touch, so I decided to begin work on another project. When I began the 365 project I had planned on focusing on finer art. Today’s project is more of a craft, but there are some crafts that are truly artistic. Earlier in the week I posted a photo of some fairy wings, and mentioned the fairies that I have sold so many of in the last several years. I have for some time wanted to take that project a little further. The fairies I create are painstaking, I spend so much time on the details of them with the exception of one thing. Their heads are wooden beads with a dot of an eye painted on them. They are truly beautiful, and people love them, but I want to make them more individual. Today I sculpted some heads out of clay for the fairies. Sounds simple, but it was a pain in my….Anyway, I made them with Sculpy, baked them in my oven and then painted them. The paint needs some fine-tuning, I painted them in the dark in my garden (because I want to go blind), but they took me a couple of hours to create, and I am quite happy with their faces. I made two, one meant to be an elf, the other a fairy. The object is to make a mold of the faces so that I can reproduce them. It wouldn’t be cost-effective to individually make each face. I would use a flesh-colored clay, and only have to add lip and eye color. If it works out as I hope, then I will possibly do a few different expressions. I may try to finish a fairy by tomorrow and post photos of old and new for comparison.

While rereading what I have just written, I see that I am a little defensive about this project. I guess in a way I have a problem with the word “craft”. I have done so many of those church shows, and honestly never fit in. Not that there isn’t some good work at those shows, but I always thought I could be more than just a church show craft artist. I have had people approach me at shows to ask why I’m there, and tell me don’t belong there. I just never believed enough in myself to try for more. I’m beginning to change my opinion of myself.  I do good work, craft show or not, and believe me it isn’t easy to sculpt a face as small as these. I photographed them next to a pencil for scale. I’m actually excited to see a finished one.

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A Wonderful Day

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I had a wonderful day today. We decided to head out for a hike in Torrey Pines State Reserve this morning. It is in La Jolla, California, near San Diego. The trails run alongside the Pacific, and it is spectacular. Very inspiring to say the least. I took more than two hundred photos.  I thought about painting one of them, but I have been anxious to get back to the portrait of Jessica. I am still working on blocking in and building color. As I have mentioned before I feel like my work lacks texture, appearing very flat. The last few paintings I’ve done are better. I want to do the same with this one. I also want to take my time and build it slowly. I was pleased with the progress that I made today.  Although I did find myself adding too much paint and muddying it in the process. I have again put the painting aside for a few days. I am also working on my patience. In the past I would have rushed to finish this painting. I’m not really sure about how, or why I do that. To do the kind of work I want to do I need to learn to slow down and take my time with it.

I also did a little watercolor of a lemon, really for no other reason than I felt so inspired by our morning. I find walking so relaxing, and doing so in such a beautiful place left me feeling stress free and more than happy to get back to painting. Now if I could only live right there…5 30 5 30 2 (1) 5 30 2 (2)

A Not So Original

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Back to full size art! A busy weekend didn’t allow for a lot of time for art. I’m going to pat myself on the back once again for following through on my project. The art may have been small, but I still managed to get it done.

Tonight I decided to work on something that has been on my “to do” list for quite a while. Among my collection of vintage tins is one that I have wanted to reproduce. I love the design on the tin, but it is small, and I’ve always thought I would love to see it enlarged. I wanted to create my own version, one based on the original but not an exact replica. It isn’t something I make a habit of. I have great respect for the work of other artists. This is a project just for me, to hang in my own house. I actually had a long-standing argument with a family member about piracy. The livelihood of so many people can hinge on the work of one person. My argument has always been that I wouldn’t want someone taking my work without giving credit or compensation. I have noticed the work of a few bloggers with copyright posted on it. It is unfortunate that we can’t trust each other enough.

I hope as time passes with this blog to begin to sell my work. Selling has been a sore point for me. I have worked so little in my life that selling a painting is like giving up a child for me. And as I need to remind myself, the point of this project is to clean out my studio as much as it is to produce work. As it stands right now my portfolio is full, and as for wall space in our house, it is almost nonexistent. My son still lives at home, so I have no “empty nest” issues as of yet, but I guess just as I steel myself up for Brian’s departure, I must also do the same when it comes to selling art.

The design on the box is by Henry Clive. I’ve owned this box for years and never really looked at the signature before. I did an internet search of Mr. Clive and have found another artist and illustrator to love. I really had no idea. So with a nod to Mr. Clive, here is my watercolor of his design.Image

Gaining Vision

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Sound the alarm! I actually read one of the many, many, many art instruction books that I own (Well not the whole thing, just the part I had a question about). I did that because I also returned to the full figure painting of my daughter that I began several weeks ago. The same one I have been avoiding like the plague. I really liked the way the initial sketch was looking on the canvas. I also for the first time with a painting have a vision of what I hope the painting will look like when I am finished. That is a giant leap for me. For years I complained that I couldn’t get what was in my head onto the canvas. I really think my mind was so bogged down with all the nonsense of not being good enough. I really feel like my artistic vision is developing. I’m not going to post the painting yet. All I did today was some color blocking, and honestly it looks a little creepy at the moment. It actually looks like a portrait of one of the kids from Village Of The Damned. But proportionately it looks good, and I can see my daughter’s face emerging. I still wanted to have a piece of art to post this evening so I played around with my watercolors. A photo of my garden provided inspiration. It’s a little abstract, but I love the color, and I enjoyed painting it. I did it just for fun, which was actually quite nice. I really feel like I’m moving ahead. I’m not getting as stressed about what I’m working on. One of the benefits of working every day I guess. When I started this blog I used words like pressure and homework. I will admit that there are days when I have fleeting moments of wishing I hadn’t gotten myself into this, but they don’t last long. I think this blog and its accompanying artwork is one of the best things I have ever done for myself. It’s about time.Image

No Surrender!

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Tonight’s project is a small oil painting, but before I get into that I want to be really honest here about my struggle today. I’m actually working on several projects, most of them have to do with refurbishing flea market finds. I’ve been putting those projects ahead of this one, thus the late night art work and posting. I’m fine with that because it isn’t about avoiding my art, it’s about earning a living. My struggle today was with the very same issues I addressed last night. I almost did it today, I almost walked away from this painting. Oil painting is my biggest obstacle. It is the art I am most drawn to, and the one I have the biggest issues with. To begin with I really am an “instant gratification” artist, when I want something done, I want it yesterday. I’m also a bit of a control freak, (A bit? I don’t like to fly, I hate it actually, but as I have told Dan repeatedly, if I could fly the plane there would be no issue) anyway, oil is not a medium for control freaks. It directs the time line. Things were not coming out the way I wanted and the canvas only had paint on half of it. I put it down and went in search of my watercolors. I decided what to paint, but then I stopped. I made myself go back to the oils. The struggle continued right on to the end. I won’t give in to it. I have to keep pushing. No Surrender!

Whew! Got that out. The painting…

Struggle Part Deux

My other problem, I have no style. Not personally of course, that is if you consider jeans and a shirt of some form roughly three hundred fifty days a year a style, but a painting style. Again the lack of lessons has left me clueless in the use of materials. Just before I started writing I told Dan that my paintings are flat. My Dad was a house painter by trade, it’s sort of how I used to paint. No dimension, like painting with a brush on a wall. When I go to art museums I am as close as legally allowed to paintings, always studying the strokes and texture of the paint. My paintings looked for the most part lifeless. The other issue (there’s more?), is that I can’t decide how I want to paint. Realism? Yes and no, too much precision. Impressionism? More yes than no, love Impressionism, first place we went to in Paris was the Musee d’Orsay, the Impressionist museum. It’s a difficult style for me because I’m still a little hung up on the “it has to look like it’s supposed to look” issue. I love Grant Wood, Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth. Particularly Hopper. I’m just not sure who I am as a painter. I just decided to post two pictures tonight. The one I did earlier this evening, and another older one. In my efforts to get over myself I figured out a little trick. I had put a soft focus filter on a photograph to blur the lines. It helped me get past the “has to” nonsense. I only needed to do it one or twice, but it really helped. Once I realized that my “not exactly as it really looks” paintings were something I liked, I was able to move past some of the crap in my head. (The older painting was actually in part a photo from Gourmet magazine. Just want to make sure I give credit.)

So tonight I was playing with style and texture. I didn’t work from my actual photograph, which was from a sunrise I photographed in Virginia Beach, but from what I saw in my mind from looking at it earlier in the day. Not entirely pleased with the results, but happy I didn’t give up.

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The Art Of Simplicity

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I think I have spent years complicating my artistic process. When you focus on what you can’t do I think it tends to color what you can do. I have now spent forty days on my project. When I started I was focused on this idea of using up all of the materials I had filled my studio with over the years. I don’t think I really thought about the commitment to the work, or how it might affect me, and it has. Over the course of the last twenty years I have started far more projects than I’ve finished. Drawings, painting, even silly craft projects, where something didn’t look right, or I would make a mistake, or more likely, I would decide that whatever it was, it wasn’t good enough, and then the project was scrapped. Even now if I were to clean out the studio, and our garages, there would be a lot of half done paintings, pieces of wood, etc.. I had given up on myself and it is reflected in every unfinished project. What has happened to me in the last forty days is a transformation. I kept my promise to myself, and that’s a big accomplishment. I have produced more than fifty pieces of art in that time. Not every piece is something I love, or even like. But what is important, the biggest accomplishment is that in the process of creating those pieces I struggled with several, and didn’t stop.There were a couple that I was ready to quit, but I didn’t, I stuck it out. Some of those turned out to be some of the best work that I have created since I started this. I believe that forcing myself to confront this mental ball and chain I been dragging along has done great things for me.  My thought process is changing. The thoughts of what I can’t do are straying further and further from my mind. That is because I have forty days of “can do” looking me in the face. When you start something and you are already defeated, you have lost before you have begun. I have a quote on a magnet, I think it is Eleanor Roosevelt, but it states, “Do something everyday that scares you”. I bought it a few years ago when I was in another of the endless “new starts” that I promised myself. Sort of like all the diets that start next Monday, and  trust me I am very familiar with that one. The magnet has been sitting on my drawing table, and I have looked at it so often and thought, “It’s time”. I didn’t do it. I was afraid. Of what? Failure, maybe finding out that after all of the years of “what if?” I might discover that even if I had taken those art lessons I felt cheated out of, I still wouldn’t have been the artist I wanted to be. I am doing something every day, but guess what? I’m not afraid anymore. A little uncertain, yes. A little lost, yes. But things are getting better with every day, with every project. It’s simple. One project, one day at a time.

Two motivations behind tonight’s project. The first is that I am still trying to fulfill the object of the project. I bought a couple of mat boards at Blick last year simply because I liked that the size of the opening was different, it is long and rectangular. So when I went upstairs to see what I would do today I came across them and decided that whatever I did tonight needed to fit in that opening. The second motivation is that Dan likes pen and ink drawings. So for tonight a “simple” pen and ink.IMG_9705

The Season

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It’s Autumn

But the leaves

Have yet to fall.

The time is now,

Opportunity is in my waiting hands.

The frost of Winter

A distant expectation.

Mother Earth at her voluptuous best,

Ripened fruit,

Lush with knowledge.

Now is the time of realization,

Seeds of Spring

Long since grown,

Summers promise

At last fulfilled.

Now is the time

Before Winter’s harsh wind

The harvest of self,

To reap reward,

To be at last,

What I was meant

To be.Autumn (1)

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday’s thoughts, today’s project, watercolor and ink.

Putting Life In Perspective

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I finished my project for today in the late afternoon. I hadn’t taken the time to post either the drawing, nor the accompanying text until now. Just yesterday I had spoken to Dan about the tone of this blog. I feared it was becoming a little “woe is me”, and quite frankly I have no tolerance for whining. I told him I was planning to expand a little on my personal history, and despite my complaints here of feeling as though my artistic gifts were sorely under appreciated (because it’s true),  all of my history and the people in it, make me who I am. That was the plan, and it seems that with this blog the plans I make the day before are rarely the things that happen.

This morning the line of a poem came to my mind. I haven’t said so here before, but I also like to write, and have done so for years. New plan! I was going to take the line, which by mid-morning had become several lines, and write it all down, and then my intention was to in some way illustrate either by paint or pencil the thoughts I was having. I even had some idea of what it should look like in my head, but then I came downstairs and looked at a drawing that I began yesterday. It is of the niece of one of the dearest friends I have ever had. She is four, and in her short history, (which I will not share) she has had much loss and sadness. I put aside the brilliant epiphany of my poem and began to  finish her portrait.  As I sat here this afternoon working, the news of the tornado in Oklahoma appeared in the news feed on Dan’s phone. We turned on the television in time to see the devastated school. In the course of less than a single day the some of what I feel, the self-pity, the feeling of being inadequate, the chip on my shoulder, seem petty.  Sure, I’m entitled to my own human struggles, everyone is. No ones pain is any less than that of another, because pain, its causes, and its individual effects are just that, individual. But when I look at the face of this beautiful child, her history, her future, and the futures that so many children won’t have, I see my struggles in a different perspective. It doesn’t mean I won’t continue to look at the whys and hows of who I am. It just means that maybe I won’t be so hard on myself. That I will continue to grow as an artist, and in the process become a better, and more whole human being.

A little note about my materials. I worked in a grocery store for more years than I care to think of. It was then that I began to draw on the blank side of the bags. I love the look of chalk on brown paper.

So here is Emily, in pastel chalk and pencil.IMG_9710

Regaining Lost Ground

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I’m back, not 100% to say the least.  Very, very bad reaction to some medication, I think it may take a few days to feel better. That being said, I managed to create not one but two pieces today. Dan asked if I felt like I had to do two pieces since I lost the day yesterday. My initial reaction was to say no, but I think deep down maybe I did feel something. As much as there have been those days when I felt pressured, or an obligation to this project, or felt like it is an unwelcome chore, I have gained more than I imagined from it. I have an old leather portfolio, I’ve had it for more than thirty years, and up until the last few weeks it  didn’t have much in it. It isn’t that I haven’t worked at all, I have always kept a toe in the water, but never in my life have I worked this consistently. My portfolio still had work from high school in it. The plastic sleeves are cracked, and the zipper isn’t what it used to be, but I have aged as well. I could go buy a new one, but this portfolio has been waiting for an awful long time to be filled, almost as long as me. Each day I feel more and more authentic in my work, and each night as I slide a finished piece into my portfolio I find myself feeling happy that I haven’t given up. I find myself excited at the prospect of what lies ahead for me and my art. I am taking one day at a time, each day looking through my studio to decide what to do today. I also realize that as I look around my studio that it would take far more than a year to use up all the materials that I have. What no longer seems overwhelming is all of what I own. I will use it all. There may be days in the future like today where I produce more than a single piece of art. I feel as though the chip on my shoulder is fading away. I am no longer focusing on what I can’t do, but rather what I can.

I saw a photo in the New York Times that I found very appealing. It was of a couple of ballerinas, one of which had her back to the camera. I loved the line of her body. I have mentioned that figure drawing is something I haven’t done much of. I jumped right in again and did a watercolor. There are a few sections of it I would like to redo, but watercolor can be an unforgiving medium, so it stays as is. I still love it. My second piece is a pastel. On a drive home from Arizona last year I took some beautiful photos that I wanted to paint. I had a box (unopened) of some soft pastels. A medium I am still not used to using. I like the way the light fell in the photos on the hills, and I’ve managed to capture it fairly well.

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