Art Journaling and Flowers…

From time to time I read other artist’s blogs. More often though, I read their comments on Facebook through artist/creative groups or in the emails they send out to their subscribers. If I didn’t do this, I know my journey would feel like a very lonely one or I might have given up on it long ago. I know I am not alone with trying to work through various aspects of my journey which I feel the need to write about in this post today.

This is just a short list of what is on my mind today:

1. Watching/Viewing other artists as they create
2. Trying to figure out what medium I should work in
3. Is it my style or just a replica of another person’s style
4. Avoidance/procrastination, which is it

The first, watching/viewing  other artists as they create, causes interesting reactions, and often conflicting reactions within me. What draws me to watching other artists and why do I watch them? If, I watch an artist, it is because there is something about their work which intrigues me. Either, I love what they create or there is something about what they create which intrigues my imagination. In both cases, it creates a desire to want to learn. In the later, after observing their process, I may or may not want to attempt duplicating the technique. In the former, watching usually results in a desire to try and replicate the technique, and the artist usually makes it look easier than it is. I can easily fall into the trap of listening to my inner critic telling me I’ll never be able to do what the artist did which can result in various outcomes. One being I never try it. Another being I try it and get really frustrated because it is harder than anticipated, resulting in feelings of inadequacy, which may or may not result in continued attempts hopefully resulting in an adequate duplication of the technique. Another could be, and has happened on rare occasions where the technique either comes naturally to me or I am pleased immediately with how well I am able to duplicate it. Then on even rarer occasions I find a way to adapt the technique. This last is new for me.

The second on my list, trying to figure out what medium I should work in, is something I never thought would become an issue. Discovering mixed media, at first, felt like a Godsend. I suddenly felt like I had discovered something which wouldn’t confine me to a set of rules and I could do anything I wanted to do. As I added different mediums to my supplies for some of the courses I was taking, it was easy to choose the supplies to use according the course and create the lesson. However, when it came to creating my own art journal page or artwork, I had no idea what medium to use or mixture of mediums to use. I think this is because I relied too much on following the instructor’s lesson. Whenever, I played around on my own, many times the results were less than satisfactory, occasionally I would be pleasantly surprised by the outcome. The sheer volume of optional mediums to use can be staggering and impede the ability to make a choice as to which one to use.

The third, is it my style or just a replica of another person’s style, sort of goes along with the second item. I struggle a lot with trying to figure out what to create. I want to create something which is unique to me, something which tells my own story. I look at what I create from the lessons/courses I have to learn from and though I love what I created, when I look at them, I’m immediately reminded of the artwork the instructor created. It doesn’t feel like me. I don’t feel “me” emanating from the artwork. There are a couple where I attempted to “do my own thing” while still following the lesson and from those, what emanates from the artwork is a feeling of my inner struggles while creating them.  Below is an example:

very close to lesson

slight variation from lesson

complete variation from lesson

The bear is a very close approximation of a lesson from Life Book 2018. The second, I tried to add some of my own style to another Lesson in Life Book 2018 while incorporating some of the elements from the lesson. The third is completely my own for the same lesson as the second one. (I wrote about each of these in other posts here on my blog.) Though I really love the first one, it isn’t something that naturally comes to mind when I think about creating something all my own and when I look at it I see Tam (the instructor) all over it. When I look at the second one, the colors, the mixture of elements, all awaken the struggles I had when creating it. It was far from easy. The third one, emanates a strong sense of joy when I look at it. There were moments when I struggled with it but those moments are muted by the pure joy of how it all came together in the end.

This is what I want when I create something on my own. I don’t want to look at it and see another person’s style emanating from it like the first one. I know there will be times when I struggle like in the second one to find what works best for me, but I would rather it not have elements of another person’s style when those elements are not something I would naturally select.

I have often wondered how I know something is my own style. I think the three images above are a good example. Though the third is far removed from the other two in regards to subject or chosen elements, it definitely helps me to understand how I can use my emotional response to gauge what is my style and what isn’t.

The last on my list, avoidance/procrastination which is it, is something I have struggled with my whole life and not just in artwork. Some would probably say I avoid until I can’t avoid it anymore. Others would say I procrastinate until I have no other choice or the guilt becomes too much. I don’t ask for opinions from other people because they aren’t in my head to know what all is circling around up there which influences my decisions. More times than not, in other areas of my life, what looks like procrastination, what feels like procrastination, is my subconscious reading the universe and deciding on the best time to do whatever it is that is waiting to be done. Before that moment arrives I usually find obstacles in the way if I try and force the universe to bend to my will. When the moment arrives I will enter into a flurry of activity and nothing gets in my way, more often than not, doors are open before I even get to them.

Why is this in my list of things I’m trying to work through on my journey? Believe me, in this world, or as I was taught as a child, procrastination isn’t a good thing. Procrastination is thought of as avoidance, instead of as a tool. I have to fight against the brainwashing we receive as children to believe certain things, so many things which get in the way of feeling good about myself. This is just one of those. I have many examples where procrastination resulted in a good outcome, better than if I had tried to force the universe to my will, which would or could have been disastrous. Listening to that inner voice which tells me to do this, instead of that, and that tiny voice niggling at me saying I’m procrastinating has such a negative vibe, yes, it is something I need to alter the resonance of within myself.

In artwork, it can mean the difference between creating what my soul is calling out for me to do or slopping on mediums because I feel it needs to be done and not recognizing myself anywhere within it.

These are some of the things which have been going through my mind lately, between work, my studies, struggling to know who I am after the past few years of turmoil and what it is I want to do as an artist. In the midst of this, I’ve been feeling very lost and not sure how I can turn things around. Trying to force the universe to conform to what I want hasn’t worked. Not in the least.

I saw a video on Facebook today from one of the “America’s Got Talent” series. The guy who was about to sing, has 6 children that came out of foster care. He was asked what his goal, ambition dream was and he said something (regarding his children) I never heard before but suddenly resonated deeply with me. He said “when you are surviving you can’t dream…”. Everything suddenly clicked with me. I’ve been surviving for the past few years because of the life changing events which have occurred which make me feel as though our very survival has been threatened. Every time I tried to reach out to a dream I once had, or to find a new dream, it just wasn’t possible. It wasn’t there. I couldn’t come up with one. I didn’t understand why until I heard those words today.

Below is an art journal I started to create yesterday, before I heard those words, after I was going through a period of feeling lost, alone, and feeling like I should just give up, let whatever happens, happen.

The words I wrote on the spread which I am considering adding to it once it is complete is this: “I close my eyes and the world disappears. For a moment, I can believe everything is going to be just fine.”

She is done in watercolor. I started by sketching her in pencil and adding a bit of shading in pencil to get the contours correct, as close as I could around her nose. Then I added a very light tint of watercolor, I had left on my palette which looked like a previously mixed skin tone. It was close enough and in fact can barely be seen after I added the none traditional colors for shading.

I decided that some of my stress comes from trying to create exactly as I see things, so I thought using none traditional colors would help ease the stress I put on myself to make things “real”. I was right. I used about three different colors of blue, then some purple for the shading, then added yellow for some highlights. I’m not sure if I’m done with her face. It depends on how it looks once I add her hair and background. I haven’t decided what I’ll do for the hair and background right now. Usually, I don’t decide until, that moment I spoke about earlier (in the procrastination section) comes upon me and I know it is time to pick up my brush and paints.

Oh, I remember  I wanted to say something about selecting the mediums to use. I, often, feel like I should be using acrylic paint in my mixed media art. It isn’t because I love working in the medium. I had to think about why I would feel this way. I think part of it is because it is what I started learning first when I started learning about mixed media. Another reason is because it is in my art supplies and I feel like I should be using it. Another reason is because a lot of artists use it and I think I have to in order to do what I like so much about what they do. But once I tried watercolor (something better than the children’s watercolor, okay, really once I tried Prang) I’ve been hooked. I think I would be perfectly happy not using acrylic paint ever again, however, acrylic will work on other paper that watercolor doesn’t take to at all. So when I’m working in a journal that doesn’t have watercolor paper, or paper that doesn’t react well to water, then acrylic is what I reach for. Otherwise, I’m finding watercolor (sometimes mixed with a touch of white acrylic paint) is my medium of choice.

Back to my journal page. It took me a while to figure out what to create. All I knew was I needed to do something which would help me express what I was feeling. The earlier geometric design I created which was all my own style is nice and worked for what I wanted to do at the time but I knew this page needed something else. As I thought about how I was feeling, I knew I would need a face to help give expression to the page so it became my focal image. The words came after I sketched the face in pencil and knew she would have closed eyes. I have drawn enough faces that I was able to draw this one without a reference photo, except for the nose. I searched noses online and looked at a few of them to try and get the nose shaped better than I’ve done in previous pieces. I’m getting there.

I think I did good on not having the face look like any faces from other artists I’ve taken some lessons from. The hair though, in just the rough sketch is too reminiscent of one or two other artists, so it might change. This is where I have to let things germinate for a while to see what my imagination comes up with. For now, this is where I’m at.

I wanted to share the next few pictures because I’m thrilled with what I’m seeing. A few weeks ago I decided to pick out a couple plants and plant them in a flower pot to sit on my balcony. I wasn’t sure how well I would do with them or if I would end up killing them. I’m not great at keeping up with my inside plants so wasn’t sure how gardening outside would work out.

These are pictures of the plants. I may add more pictures in later posts if they continue to do well. There are two kinds but the two in the center don’t have any flowers right now. Like most flowering plants when you transplant them, it can cause a shock to the plant making them lose their flowers. It can be a bit of a crap shoot on whether they make it or not. The plants around the outside of the pot lost all the flowers they had in bloom after I transplanted them but now they are blooming all over the place. I’m just thrilled to pieces about this and our dog seems to like them as well. He’ll sniff them and then go lie down by them in the sunshine.  It appears the ones in the center have new buds coming up so can’t wait to see them. They are taller than the other flowers with large blooms and a different color so I’m thrilled to see them surviving and flourishing.

A few weeks ago I planted some seeds (pansies and petunias) inside. They are sprouting rather nicely. I hope to plant them outside in the next few weeks. I’ll have some nice flowers to use for some real life sketching if I can get past my perfectionist critic.

Art Practice, Work and…

I started writing this post last week. I’m not sure what happened. Something got in the way. Either it was my mental space or something else entirely. This is where I began last week:

I am finding it difficult to believe two weeks has passed since my last post. It isn’t easy trying to describe the past couple of weeks. I had to look at my calendar to remember what has consumed my life these past fourteen days. Out of the fourteen days, I worked eleven days. The last stretch was seven days long. On the last day, yesterday (16th), I was so looking forward to my time off the last hour and a half of work felt like three hours. My mind no longer wanted to think. Upon arriving home, I made myself and my daughter a cup of hot chocolate and sat down to let myself unwind and let my body and mind absorb the fact that I have two days off.

I have so many things I need to do and yet my mind bulks at wanting to do any of them because it would eat up my personal time for myself during these two days off. I decided to focus on one thing which means seeing my doctor for a prescription refill. This means half my day today will be spent driving to see my Naturopath for the refill and getting my daughter’s supplements evaluated and resupplied. Expenses which are no longer covered by insurance. Changes I have to learn to work into my new budget. Only time will tell how hard this hits.

The rest of the things I need to do will need to be addressed as time allows and as my finances allow. They will get done, one at a time, just maybe not as quickly as they would have been done in the past.  This seems to be the case for everything in my life these days.

This is also how my art journey is also progressing.  Although, in retrospect, as I looked back at the images I had to include since my last post, I had done more than I had first thought.

The image of the tulip is from Week 34 of Life Book 2017 “Be Bold” with Gwenn Seemel. This was way outside of my comfort zone. I generally prefer realism, using colors that are the colors in the real life object I am creating and using a solid application. To go outside of the natural colors is difficult for me and I had trouble doing the crosshatching technique the instructor did. I ended up just letting my strokes come naturally to me while varying slightly with the colors. I doubt I will use this technique again or very often.

This next piece is from Life Book 2018, Week 1, “Make Your Mark (Warm Up)” with Tamara Laporte. I felt much better about this one. The layering and colors I felt came out better than some of my past pieces even with the addition of collage. I created the symbol myself, loosely basing it off of the Ayurveda symbol of harmony and balance. I wanted to include my word for 2018 , balance, in this piece. I added the colors that closely represented the words balance, harmony and happiness. This is what I hope to bring about for 2018.

 

These next two images are works in progress. With my work schedule such as it was, I needed to work on something that would help center me and allow me to work on it in small pieces while I sat with my feet up, resting them from long hours of standing. Mandalas and Circles seem to help me to center myself. Working with tangles enables me to work in broken periods of time.

I also started adding color, whether it is an acrylic wash background, or a different color of ink, or using prisma colored pencils, it helps me to feel like I am allowing my inner artist the food and fuel she needs.

I have been slowly working on these over the past couple of weeks. I haven’t felt hurried to complete either one of them.

For this one, with the acrylic background, I used neon colors because they are more transparent than the regular acrylic colors. I added some patterns using a silicone pot holder that had a sort of honeycomb pattern to it and then overlayed a bit of white using a wet wipe to put it on thinner. This gave a more muted background for me to draw the mandala. Then added premier prisma color pencil. I may add some more color over time.

I have never studied mandalas and lately I am finding I have a deep desire to get into learning more about them. I have a couple books in mind to get and hope a class that went on last year will be made available again soon. I want to understand more about how they relate to our inner self and how they can teach us more about ourselves. I believe this extends back into Carl Jung’s teachings as well which I had delved into a few years ago. It is time for me to return to those studies.

Here is where I stopped and didn’t return to it until today (23rd).

Today, I find myself in an emotional state I very much dislike. This state is one where I feel almost constant anxiety and anything I haven’t done or need to get done and I’m not working on or seeing to, becomes a focus of my inner critic to berate me on what an awful person I am. I am in this place right now and feel powerless to do anything about it. I’ll explain something which may help to put some light onto this situation.

I’m in my late fifties. I’m completely menopausal. While going through Peri-menopause I discovered my lowered progesterone causes me acute anxiety and sometimes panic attacks. Things that normally don’t bother me on a day to day basis can become overwhelming during low progesterone periods which can become worse with stress (emotional or physical). My Naturopath recommends I take natural progesterone supplements and take them cyclic, meaning I go off of them about five days to try and mimic my body’s way of cycling hormones. When we first discovered I was definitely in Peri-menopause we decided to put me on a complete range of hormones. I had to go off of all those hormones except thyroid and progesterone due to my diagnosis of breast cancer, so I am trying to handle this by just using progesterone. When I was on the whole range of hormones I felt so much better but the doctors will only prescribe progesterone and thyroid now due to my cancer diagnosis. By the way, I know without a doubt that adding the full range of hormones didn’t cause my cancer, I had the lump before starting the hormone treatment.

Today is only day two of not taking my progesterone during the five day period.

I made that sentence separate to emphasize this fact. DAY TWO. This started happening recently where my emotions start plummeting severely within only a day or two of stopping my progesterone so much so that in at least one case I returned to taking my progesterone on the evening of day two because the anxiety and my emotional well-being just got too bad. I may do that tonight too. I absolutely hate feeling this way. That other time I saw an immediate change the next day so this is not my imagination. Today, I am trying something a bit different by trying a slightly lower dosage instead of going back completely at my full dose to see if that helps. In my studies I have learned that our hormones fluctuate in a cyclic manner. If they are working properly in our prime they do not deplete completely they just slowly cycle down and then cycle back up over a period of time and we always have some of all our hormones all the time.  For women this is generally related to our woman’s cycle. In Peri-menopuase and menopause our hormones can deplete so badly we may not have any for varying periods or at all. It is much harder for men because they don’t have the obvious signs like women do for their reproductive period in their lives to teach them what this cycle is.

What I hate about this most is how this effects my life and especially the creative aspect of my life. I can’t think straight. I often forget things and I rarely have control of my inner critic which means it might have full reign. When my inner critic has full reign then I often have difficulty working on anything new where my skills are lacking. For instance, I have been wanting to draw a dragon, which I have never done before. I don’t want to copy someone’s design of a dragon. I want to create my own design. Yesterday, when I finally picked up my pencil to work on it after having studied some drawings online, it took several tries. My attempts felt child-like. I sketched across four pages in my sketchbook, four different versions. Each try, I put my pencil down afterwards, sometimes after only drawing a circle for the head and walking away from it, sometimes for a few hours before returning to it. I can’t repeat what went on in my head during each of these attempts. A repeating theme though was about giving up, and I can’t do this.

When my inner critic gets involved it isn’t just words I hear. Sometimes I don’t hear words at all. I FEEL. I FEEL VERY STRONGLY. Those feelings sit heavy and hard like a rock in my chest and my head feels like it will explode. I can write about this now because I feel it as I write this. My inner critic tells me I’m getting too personal. I’m talking about things I shouldn’t be saying on this blog. That this blog is supposed to be to show my art, not to reveal my inner pain. But it doesn’t just say this, it makes me FEEL it. It doesn’t make me feel shame for feeling these things. It makes me feel shame for revealing them to those who will read this and it makes me afraid I’ll be laughed at or shunned or think less of for showing my weakness.

All these feelings are so much stronger today than they are when I’m on my progesterone. It doesn’t mean I don’t have them when I’m on my progesterone. It just means the progesterone helps me to put them into a more manageable place and lets me feel the GOOD feelings more than the BAD feelings.

Today, I want to hide away from the world. I don’t want to be around people. I hear the verbal criticisms I have received in my lifetime louder today when most days they are silent or just whispers. Today, I just want to wrap myself up in a warm blanket and turn up the TV so I can’t hear the words in my head and watch shows that will make me feel differently and better than I feel right now. Which means I have to choose the shows I watch wisely or they will just bring out the voices even louder and the feelings even stronger. The same goes with my artwork which is why I tend to work on things I know best, like my mandalas.

I generally don’t show my rough sketches or failed attempts at something I tried to create so doing this is stepping outside of my comfort zone. Here are my attempts at creating my dragon. I wanted something different because of the piece I plan on including it in is my week 1 class of Life Book 2018, the Garden Fairy.

I decided not to worry too much about taking a good picture. I just wanted a couple pictures that would reveal my struggle. In all of my sketches you can see I erased quite frequently and tried again and again to get something I liked. My very first attempt is actually the image on the right in the first picture. It didn’t look that way in the beginning. In fact, I came back to it after working on the other three. It had a partial body to go with it which I removed. I like how it now looks like the dragon is snuggled up to the neck of the girl I’ll draw, protecting her.

These two were just an attempt to figure out what angle I wanted because I wanted my dragon to end up sitting on the shoulder of the girl I will have in my final sketch. This may change to the snuggle image, but this was all done before that sketch morphed into it’s form to snuggle.

You might wonder why a dragon. Part of week one is a meditation and in my meditation I was surprised to find my animal to appear as a dragon. I want this represented in my art piece. Even though in my meditation my dragon had the appearance of a dragon like in DragonHeart the movie, I wanted a less imposing dragon for my art journal page since this will be more of a whimsical art piece or at least I think it will be. My first drawing was the closest to what I wanted so I returned to it to work on it some more. I am not totally happy with it right now but it is close enough to begin my art journal page using the suggestions from the week 1 class “Garden Fairy” of Life Book 2018.

I wanted to somehow explain my art process and how life, emotions, physical health can have an impact on that process. I don’t have a set process. I try to do something creative every day but what that something will be isn’t something I plan ahead of time. I don’t set down any rules that say okay, I’ll draw something every day, or I’ll paint something every day or I’ll do some art journaling every day or I’ll work on an art lesson each day or every week. That isn’t how it works for me.

Because my work schedule isn’t for the same set of hours five days a week, I can’t set a particular time to sit down to be creative or work on the classes. I can’t even set a particular time to write my blog. I do try and write a blog post on a day I’m not working because it does take time. It just doesn’t always work out that way and sometimes I miss a week or two. After my two days off, I have another seven days I work in a row which ends with the last day being an eight hour day with only one day off. This will be especially hard for me. I’ll be exhausted at the end of those seven days with not much time to recover. Luckily the other days are four hour shifts with about three of them being morning shifts. I like those because they give me the rest of the day to work on art in between the other chores I need to do. This is also why I will never ‘keep up’ with any of the art course I take.

There is one other thing to mention. I used to rush my way through the art classes but since I decided to incorporate the possibility of not copying them exactly, I find I need time to consider what I’ll do. This might take a few hours or it can take weeks. It depends on so many different factors going on. One of them being like trying to work out the dragon sketches, sometimes it is about deciding what I want included in my art journal page. These things go on all the time in the back of my thought processes while I’m doing other things like work or chores or errands. It isn’t until I feel ready to put pencil to paper that I begin like I did with the actual sketching of the dragon. That dragon was in my thoughts since I meditated more than a couple weeks ago.

I think I am already beginning to feel the smaller dose of progesterone working and slowly lifting the dark shadowy blanket permeating me. This is good. Today, I have chores to do and I plan on working on my sketch for my Garden Fairy. I want to make this page my own which means not sitting down and copying exactly what Tam created in her class but using her ideas and finding a way to design and create my own art journal page.

I welcome comments and love reading them. I’m not good at asking people questions to invite discussion but I would like to hear your thoughts and would love to hear about your own experiences especially if anything I wrote here brought things to mind. If  you don’t want your comments public, you can reach me through my contact page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thinking about the life of an artist…

I woke up this morning thinking about the life of an artist and I guess I could easily include the life of a writer in this as well. I consider myself both. I love both writing and creating art. Both journeys are pretty much in a learning phase and I wonder if that will ever change. My thoughts sort of went like this:

The life of an artist isn’t an easy one. Not only because most artists are assailed every moment by their inner critic and can be compounded greatly by their feelings of self-worth but also because artists, at least the artists I’m aware of, have a variety of issues that have nothing to do with art. Some may have mental health issues while others may have physical health issues. If any of these issues are severe enough to prevent an artist from employment then their issues maybe accompanied with financial concerns. But, even if an artist doesn’t have any of these issues, they still have to deal with every day life like the rest of the population who might not consider themselves artists and don’t pursue this creative adventure.

Note: replace artist with writer and these thoughts seem to be equally true for both. If one pursues being both an artist and a writer then there is even more to learn and less time to divide up into each adventure.

I, probably, love writing just as much as I love being an artist. I classify myself as a creative being. I didn’t always do so. I had my first real taste of being an artist during school from eighth grade until twelfth grade, thanks to a wonderful art teacher. Then because of needing to work and earn enough money to live off of I ventured off into the digital world of computers and never looked back until a few years ago. (That statement isn’t exactly true, I had moments of trying to pick up a pencil to draw but my inner critic always won and I would put the pencil back down and not try again for years.)

The one thing I never stopped doing was writing because our whole society and workforce requires it. For my personal life I would keep a handwritten journal or as they called it back then, a diary. I, however, was not consistent at it. Usually it would reappear in times of strife. If I really think about it, I never really stopped being creative. I might not have picked up a pencil much to draw but I did do other things, like learning to crochet which my mother started when I asked one day while I watched her crochet. I then took that further and taught myself how to knit since my mother didn’t know how. Knitting and crocheting have been a part of my life ever since with periods of abstinence.

Over the years I ventured into several avenues of creative categories. I tried polymer clay, making my own beads which were then made into jewelry. This took me into taking a jewelry repair class which I absolutely excelled at but never had the money to pursue. The equipment and supplies were just too costly plus no landlord would ever allow the combustible products on the property. Since I have, until recently, only rented the places we lived this wasn’t a viable option for me to pursue. It is still true today since I live in a townhouse complex under strata management. Besides I will not risk other people’s homes. I never checked but I’m sure the homeowners insurance would be rather costly if it included a jewelry repair workshop.

I also ventured into pottery. I learned slab and throwing skills for creating beautiful things out of clay. This is something else I fell completely in love with but when I moved away from the city where I lived, any new place I moved to didn’t seem to have the same opportunities at such a financially feasible cost. I miss it. Again having the equipment in the places where I live just isn’t possible and are quite costly and working with polymer clay just isn’t the same. I really love raku which involves flame/extreme heat which isn’t something you ask a landlord or strata council to approve.

I have always had a secret dream of owning my own home that isn’t under strata management, has a yard and not attached to another person’s home. If the yard was large enough and I had the funds, I have no doubt I would create a massive studio where I could pursue jewelry making and repair, as well as, pottery, and have a portion of it for my art. When I say my art, that can be anything from mixed media, watercolors, oil, graphite, charcoal, pencils, pens and inks of a mixed variety. I want my comfort too so I would need a comfortable sitting area and a screen for watching videos and sound system for listening to music. I have no doubt other artists have similar dreams. And because I LOVE books my home would contain a library.

The dilemma we artist’s face is often financial. Unless one is already well off financially that is. As you can see, after reading my secret dream and what I have learned along the way in my journey, being an artist doesn’t come cheaply. Though it can. Our, or at least mine, doesn’t except when I am forced into such a situation.

Learning to be an artist on a strict budget has been a challenge but not as big a challenge as I had first believed.  When I was laid off of a rather well paying job, and not earning any income for a year and half, now finding myself earning only minimum wage in a part time position, I have had to find ways to manage my creative life on a very small budget. Not having so much time to work in the love of my life, helps. It has greatly reduced the consumption of my art supplies. I can write as often as I like on my computer. It only takes up digital space so as long as I have enough hard drive space, I can write until my heart is content. Art supplies, can come cheap, but my artist has expensive tastes and loves the not so cheap art supplies, so those get purchased only when there is room in the budget which isn’t often.

The same goes for art courses. Like several of my artist acquaintances I have discovered I love to collect art classes so at any time when the urge hits, I can sit down and follow along on a class. Following along on a class means I don’t have to come up with my own idea. There are times I need that period of mindlessness to just do something creative, even if it isn’t from my own imagination.

Creating something from my own imagination can be quite difficult at times. That is a topic of another discussion but yes, it is part of an artist’s life which should be mentioned. I don’t think there is an artist out there who hasn’t faced their own issues with trying to create their own piece of art solely from their own imagination and not come up against a wall of doubt and sometimes a complete vacancy of ideas in the mind reflecting the completely blank canvas before them. The more the blank canvas is looked upon the blanker the imagination becomes. Breaking through is hard because it involves letting go and trusting one’s own instincts or intuition. Sometimes, especially in the learning stages of one’s journey, this doesn’t come easy and sometimes we don’t hear the intuitive thoughts at all.

I want to write, “now, back to the life of an artist not being easy” but I never left that topic, though it might seem as though I went off on a tangent, I haven’t really. Being an artist doesn’t necessarily mean you are a painter. I have touched upon a few other mediums artists can work in, there are other’s like wood, metal, textiles and so on. Artists can work in anything, even food, as long as one creates, they are an artist. When you consider it in that way, I don’t know of a single person who isn’t an artist or a creative. After all, we all are responsible for building/creating our own lives. There are just some people who feel the need to take that creativity further into a medium of their choice to create something which physically represents their state of being at the time they created it.

I might find people who disagree with me on the last statement. I would imagine some artists would say their creations don’t represent their state of being. I believe everyone is allowed their own opinion and if this is what they believe then I support them. I used to think this as well about my own creations but have since seen my own reality within those things I create. Sometimes that is difficult to admit, especially when what I created isn’t something I like. Generally if that is the case it is because I’m either not in a good place or I am trying to force it to be something I am not at the time. This is the part of the artist in me which isn’t easy to face. It also isn’t easy to write about. But if I am to be authentic and write about the life of an artist, then I need to include this as well.

Like any piece of art an artist creates, our journey goes through an ugly stage. We don’t often want to admit it. We often don’t want to look back and remember it either. But those ugly stages are when we have learned some very important things about ourselves and our abilities. If we give up during the ugly stage, then often it is because we don’t think we have the ability to make what appears ugly, beautiful. We also can’t look at it and see the beauty that lies within it. I’m not talking just about art. I’m also talking about life.

I think we have all heard a saying that goes something like this “we have the ability to make our lives anything we want it to be” or “our life is what we make of it”. Make means we create it. It also means we can destroy it. It can really be whatever we want ‘it’ to be but we first need to recognize the overall authority we have. Plus, we also need to recognize where we are in our skill level set. Don’t expect a masterpiece if you are only just beginning your journey. While at the same time, if you have perfected several skills don’t aspire to do something at the beginner level. This journey is about learning to create and learning is about improving your knowledge and skill. A journey is about movement not stagnation. Through each level, there will be ugly stages as we learn and perfect new skills.

I’ve been the worst at being hard on myself. Sometimes in my journey I have gone back to being a child and acting as a child or creating as a child. There isn’t anything wrong in doing so. Sometime we have to revisit old skill sets and mind sets in order to remember why we have left them behind. The journey of an artist is such a one and therefore will always be a difficult journey, a life that isn’t easy, because we choose to express ourselves outwardly by creating something that represents where we are in our journey, while others keep as much as possible internal. Those who also choose to put their artist works out in the world for others to witness also put themselves at risk. It is difficult enough to listen to our own internal doubts and self-flagellation all we can think of is that is what we will receive in return when we put our work on display. Sometimes that is true but more often it is not, or at least I hope it isn’t for all artists.

Artists don’t just have to face the battles of every day life, they have to face their inner battles over their work, not just to create it but also whether to let others see it, and if they do then to face their own inner demons again in making it public, then possibly again when someone chooses to say something unkind about their work. Artists take such comments to heart because their artwork is a reflection of them which is something not everyone understands.

It takes a brave person to live the life of an artist and an even braver one to put their work on display. I, however, think the world is a better place because of these brave souls.

This is always in the back of my mind whenever I display my own work. I don’t necessarily feel very brave, though some have said I am and also brave in writing about my art journey. I watched a movie recently titled “The Circle”. It deals with transparency. This is a very controversial topic which the movie does an excellent job in bringing out. Transparency is how I like to be in regards to my art and my journey as an artist. If what I write about can help an artist to have the courage to either be an artist or even show their artwork, then my time and work in writing about my art journey is worth it.

Since my last post, I worked on a few things. I worked more on the abstract flower page. I think I have reached the point where I am done working on it. Yes, more could be done with it but it is has served its purpose. It has helped me learn more of what works for me and what doesn’t. Plus I’m learning my own style of abstract flowers.

I then watched week 30’s videos for Life Book 2017 and chose to do the bonus lesson titled “Practicing Radical Acceptance” with Samie Harding. I’m not usually into this type of art but in the end, I enjoyed it and like how it turned out. It might be something I do more of and would be in my private journal if I do. This class was more about learning to accept things in life even if you don’t agree with it so it can bring out a lot of emotions which some would want to keep private.

Sometimes when I work on a class, I don’t realize the emotions that are brought up. When this happens, I usually feel the need to work on something that can center me and is something within my comfort zone. Working with mandalas and tangles do that for me. When I find myself resistant to doing another class or a harder piece of art is when I realize I need that comfort zone for a bit before moving on. So the next thing I worked on which took several days is this one:

Abstract art which feels comfortable to me generally includes geometric shapes. This one started out with using a compass to draw circles of varying sizes and overlapping. Once I had the circles in place, then I proceeded to either make smaller circles within them or add in lines to divide the circles into parts like a pie and to connect the circles. Then it just took adding a few more lines to create a tangle I wanted or adding tangle patterns in the smaller circles. For the largest circle I altered the smaller circles so they became a spiral, then created the pattern.

This was a fun and soothing project. I was glad to have it to work on over several days while I worked my various hours at my job. I could work on it before I went to work or after I came home. It helped me to wind down after work and relax and I could work on it while streaming Netflix. I had discontinued our cable service as one of the things to cut back on expenses after being laid off of work. I am surprised how little I miss it. Netflix and CraveTV are our solutions to no more cable TV. I consider this part of the artist’s life because I choose to spend my money on art supplies instead of cable TV. Streaming programs I love while working on art then becomes my zen zone.

My final step in this one was to add some shading. I like this piece. I especially like the bolder lines and the stippling I did in the spiral. I am also understanding more of how repeating a pattern can improve the appearance of the overall piece. I often found myself questioning my first choices, or my intuitive thoughts. I have learned when those intuitive thoughts persist to just go with them. It is easier than trying to resist them. As I do this more and more, following my first intuitive thought is becoming easier so I find myself resisting less and less.

After writing all of this, a question just appeared in my mind, “What is my goal as an artist?” It wouldn’t be what many might think it is. It isn’t to sell my art, though at one time I thought maybe I would and I might still but that isn’t my goal. My goal is to create a harmonious life. That might sound strange to some but for me it makes perfect sense. I find peace, joy and contentment when I do something creative. This means as an artist I experience these things even with things I don’t like. I might find angst as something I also feel when something doesn’t turn out the way I like it but I’ve learned for even those things I don’t like, there is also contentment, joy and peace because I learn from them more than I probably learn for those things I do well and love.

When I wasn’t doing my art, my life wasn’t very harmonious. Facing difficult times was even harder. And my inner landscape felt like I had abandoned part of it. Now, as long as I’m doing something creative, my inner landscape feels whole. Don’t confuse whole with finished or complete. There will always be room for improvement and growth but at least now I feel like I’m working with the whole plant including its root and not just with pruning it’s branches.

 

Moving Forward

As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to start focusing on drawing faces or portraits. I have two courses as resources for learning plus all the free videos on YouTube. I decided to start with Fabulous Faces course by Tamara Laporte. You can find it here under her art classes. This is my version of the first week’s front facing portrait.

This lesson did not use a reference photo and was focused on proportions and placement of facial features it is not meant to be a realistic drawing. Her instructions also focused on shading. What I loved most about this lesson was learning how to use layering to add depth to the shadows instead of pressure on the pencil to darken the lines. Her explanation of how using pressure can cause distortion in the paper making it difficult to erase or even to blend out helped a lot on learning how to apply her technique. I feel it has improved my ability to create contours in the face.

I then decided to use a reference photo to practice the shading techniques I learned from Fabulous Faces Week 1 class. This is the reference photo I chose from online when I searched for front facing women’s pictures. I liked this one because it gave more contrast for the shadows and showed clear highlights.

This is the result of my second sketch. When looking at my drawing I couldn’t see the wonkiness in the eyes (the eye on the right is slightly lower than the one on the left). It wasn’t until I took a picture that I saw it. I tried fixing it but I lost something in it when I did. The thing I like about this drawing is how my shading is improving. I was using a mechanical pencil when I drew this but by the end I realized I need to use better graphite pencils which I do have just didn’t use them for this drawing or the previous one.

I have another course called Let’s Face It, you can find it here. I purchased Kara Bullock’s “Let’s Face It 2016 – Kara Only” classes since it provides instruction for front face, 3/4 face, profile, bust and up portraits, and also the figure. I am on the first lesson and the first exercise is to do a drawing or painting from a reference photo to see where your skill level is right now. This is to help track your growth as you progress through the classes. I decided to draw another face using the same reference photo. This is the result using a better set of drawing pencils. I can definitely see a difference between this drawing and the previous one when I used a mechanical pencil.

I know faces are not exactly symmetrical but again the eyes are off, though better aligned, one eye is larger than the other. I say this as a constructive criticism. I do this so I know what to work on for improvement. In the first drawing where they were wonky, I realized I didn’t see it because of the way I sit and draw and how I hold my sketchbook. I hold my book at an angle like I was taught to place a piece of paper when I’m writing. I’m learning that when I do this when drawing, it is difficult to see when something isn’t in its proper alignment. Tonight when I drew the last sketch I made a point of holding my sketchbook straight (not on an angle). This helped a lot with getting the eyes aligned properly.

I need to work on the hair more, however, that will come later. My main goal with this last drawing was to get alignment and proportions more accurate. I printed up a copy of the reference photo and glued it to the opposite page in the journal I am using. This helped a lot . Not only did it help to have the reference photo right there but with it sized to fit the page, it helped with working out the proportions and placement.I’m considering my drawings complete at this point. Mainly because if I messed with them any more I know one of two things could occur. I will either become frustrated because my perfectionist would come out of the closet and start nagging me about how it doesn’t look right and isn’t perfect which could put me off of drawing for several weeks if not longer. Or I could screw up something which I feel is pretty good at this stage of my artistic development. Since this will be used as a reference for my growth, it shows clearly that I’m not skilled with hair yet and though I’m fairly good with placement and proportions I still have a ways to go for realistic portraits. So this is a good drawing to use for this purpose.

I have learned several things from this exercise.

1. Take pictures along the way as I’m drawing to help me see anything that might be out of kilter or needs adjustment. Taking a picture helps me to see things more clearly quicker than it would setting it aside and looking at it later.
2. Be kind when I’m looking at what I have created. It is okay to point out to myself the things which I need improvement on but above all else give myself credit for how much I have improved.
3. Using pencils, meant for drawing, work a lot better than mechanical pencils or pencils meant for writing.
4. Greater dimension and depth can be achieved with drawing pencils using light layers than pressing firmly with one pass or two passes.
5. I have also found I like using a blending stump or tortillion better and a kneaded eraser than my “fat” fingertip (“fat” only to describe how much larger the tip of finger is when compared to the tip of a fine point tortillion).
6. Paper has a big influence on the feel and look of a sketch. There is an obvious difference between the two drawings I did from the reference photo. The first was drawn on very smooth paper and the second was drawn on a heavier and more textured paper.

I may continue to use the same photo for a while but that depends on the next lessons in the two courses I mentioned here. I plan on doing both classes in tandem. I think it will be interesting to switch from a more whimsical style that Tam does, to the more realistic style that Kara does. I naturally tend to draw realistically however I love learning how to create something completely from my imagination.

It can be rather daunting to step out of my comfort zone to draw a face. All too often I hear my inner critic tell me it is too complicated… faces are too difficult… I’ll never get it right… it will never look like the person or photo I’m drawing… and if I let the voice continue… and I let myself believe what it is telling me… it will hold me back from picking up the pencil or making any marks on the paper, or it could cause me to quit in the middle of what I’m creating because it isn’t exactly like the person or image I’m drawing.

However…

If I ignore the voice, or better yet, if I allow myself to hear the voice, acknowledge what lies beneath the words, I usually can move forward with my drawings. Most times as I move forward and progress into what I’m creating, see how it is developing, it can quiet the voice. Because, I know I still have areas to improve, that voice will still be there letting me know where those improvements are needed but another voice becomes louder. That new voice often says things like… see, I can do it… yes, it isn’t perfect but look at the eyes, look at the shading, look at how realistic it appears or how much I’ve improved in a month or a couple months… and so on.

This is my journey and I am loving it.

Loving Watercolor

Watercolor is quickly becoming my favorite of all paints to work with. I don’t know how to express the joy I feel every time I work with it. Today was no different.

Most of my watercolor experience has been only recently in the past year. It started with just playing around with watercolor pencils a year ago when I discovered bullet journals. I decided to use watercolor pencils to decorate my pages. I knew absolutely nothing at that time about how to work with watercolor pencils, let alone watercolor paint.

I came across videos on YouTube but my general interest at the time was mixed media, so I was hopping around all over the place watching videos on all different types of mediums. I think the only medium I haven’t touched is oil paints. Some day I might but not right now. I have too many types of mediums I want to perfect my skills within.

I think when I was a teenager watercolor terrified me. I think this because when I returned to studying art, in the past year or so, watercolor was the last thing I considered pursuing other than just simply playing around with it. I never thought I would pursue it as a medium I would desire for any serious art.

Isn’t that how it works sometimes? The things we least desire or think we have the remotest chance of being even close to good at, ends up being that one thing that makes our hearts soar and our souls sing. This is what I’m finding with watercolor.

About a year ago, I purchased 21 Secrets “Tools and Techniques” course. One of it’s lessons is by Jodi Ohl, called Flowing Facial Features. I have probably put off doing this lesson for at least three months if not more. Guess the medium yet? The word ‘flow’ should give you an indication. If you guessed, watercolor, you would be correct.

I studied her videos, watching them in their entirety probably three if not four times before I attempted just one facial feature study. Why did I wait so long? Trepidation for one. My inner critic for another. My perfectionist personality for another. I knew very little about watercolor. I didn’t even know what it meant by stretch the watercolor paper, or how to tape down watercolor paper properly. I tried one time with some painters tape but the tape ended up releasing from all the soaking in the water.

I finally found a video on how to properly prepare for doing a watercolor painting, thanks to Lindsay Weirich’s YouTube video. She has a wordpress blog too.  She does live streams on YouTube, which I try to catch as often as I can.  I don’t know how many videos of hers I have watched before I felt confident enough to try my first facial feature study.

Here it is:

I had a couple issues, that involved retaining the white spaces, especially the white highlights in the eye. My paint ended up bleeding into the space I had reserved for the highlight so when I finished with the watercolor paints, I used colored pencil to bring out the highlight more. White for the highlight and some black around the highlight and pupil to bring it out more.

I also, over worked the eyelashes but once overworked I couldn’t undo it, so I used some black colored pencil to try and bring forward some eyelashes hoping the rest might look like shadows or would recede enough to not distract. Lesson learned though for the next eye on my facial studies.

I have three more sketches I did for the facial feature studies. Another eye with a partial nose, a nose with a partial eye, and the lips. In the end, I hope they will create a full face when tiled together.

What I learned while working on this piece was even if it looks like the color is too dark when I apply it to paper, it isn’t the end of the world. I can lift some of it up to lighten it. Something I’m learning to do without scrubbing and pilling the paper. After working with acrylics it is sometimes hard to remember to not apply pressure when doing a slight bit of scrubbing.

I love that Jodi Ohl recommended focusing on one facial feature. It took the pressure off of trying to paint a full face. I need to take this approach in other things like drawing. I become overwhelmed when I consider creating a large piece, even if it is just a face with all its features. It can be rather daunting.

I used to think watercolors were unforgiving and difficult to keep some semblance of control over. That is the perfectionist within me wanting everything to come out perfectly. She doesn’t believe that something that will bleed and move around on its own could end up in all the right places creating a beautiful piece of art. I’m working on proving her wrong. I think I made a beautiful start at it today.

Feel free to leave a comment if you feel moved to do so.

~Patti

Bloom’n Hand

Artists are faced with all sorts of challenges, not just trying to find ways to deal with their inner critic. Though the inner critic can be rather creative in its way of manipulating the artist. Every inner critic has its own unique way of working its interference in trying to protect the artist. This is by no means, the only challenge some artists have to face.

Of late, I have become aware of just how many artists within the online communities I am part of are working through their own challenges. Some of them face mental illness, while others face physical limitations. Some face both, while others face their own demons in the guise of their inner critic.

These challenges are in no way small or insignificant. For each of us, they are powerful. The type of power they wield, depends upon the artist. Some artists are completely controlled by their challenges, while other artists work hard at controlling and utilizing their challenges to create beautiful and sometimes startling pieces of art. You can find examples of this all over the internet all the way from masters to novice. No one is immune.

I am also not immune. Up until recently I have not had any physical impediments as a challenge that has hampered my journey as an artist and writer. Today, I find myself struggling with the use of my dominant hand, consequently, I am trying to train my left hand to do much of what I have relied upon my right hand to do for my whole life.

My inner critic is having a wonderful time with this. As you maybe able to imagine, she can’t find anything worthwhile in what I create when I use my left hand. I’ll prove her wrong eventually. For now, I’m learning to mentally accept what maybe a permanent impediment.

On Sundays, I usually start thinking about my weekly spread, sometimes referred to as an MDS or multi-day spread. A term I learned from Effy Wild’s Book of Days course and Boot Camp. By the way, if you want to experience a free lesson by Effy Wild, check out her Book of Days Boot Camp. It is amazing. You can find a link to the class on her right sidebar here. The amount of content for a free class is unbelievable. While I was thinking about what I wanted as a focal image, my dominant hand was prominent in my mind, so I decided to have it as my focal image. I traced it and here is the result:

This piece was done in watercolor, Faber-Castell Pitt pens, Posca pens, and Uniball Signo white gel pen. It is a sort of play on words and an attempt to feel positive about my dominant hand.

I am not sure if this will be my weekly spread or just an art journal page honoring my dominant hand. Or possibly both. I may pick it up at the end of the week and just journal about my week all over it. Or it may stay as it is.

~Patti

 

Watercolor cloud story telling…

I did an earlier painting using this process from a class I took. During the class, I did three pages with the watercolor technique that forms a sort of abstract cloud. My earlier painting was posted here.

Yesterday, and today, I took the two pages left from the class and completed the painting and the story which came out during the painting of each one. Here are the two paintings:

I have really enjoyed this process.

Another class involved blind contour. I was really resistant to doing this class. I was resistant because I thought it would be a waste of paper and I wouldn’t be able to do it very well. I was both right and wrong. The class involved doing a blind contour of a reference. I chose a bamboo plant, once the drawing is done, to then paint in the different sections in the line drawing.

This turned out better than I thought it would. I really liked how it looked but the next steps went like this. Journal over your painting. The suggestion was to journal about blind contouring but you can journal about anything. Then paint over it lightly, covering about 90% of the painting and journaling. Once dry, do another blind contour over the paint.

I really loved how my painting looked with the journaling over it. I was tempted to stop at that point. However, I was determined to do the whole class, so I continued. I painted over it and chose using a Neocolor II for the blind contouring, then I painted it and it came out like the first picture.

I absolutely hated it.

I decided to do it again, only this time stop at the end of the journaling. The second picture below is my second blind contour before the journaling. I love it even with the journaling I did later. It kind of makes me think of a short story written over a painting representing the story. I like the thought of that.

This last is from a class on creating a journal page. I used homemade texture paste which I don’t use near often enough. I love the feel of the texture and how the texture takes the paint. I’m not fond of collage, however, a collage of something I created with my own two hands felt good and I like the affect.

I finally got caught up in my classes. This is a relief. I felt pressured to get caught up though the pressure was coming only from me. I didn’t feel like I should work on other things until I got caught up. It was hard to balance my day and focus on other things knowing I was falling behind in my classes. Now that I’m caught up, I should be able to focus on some of my own ideas.

~Patti

Challenges and chances to win a seat in Ever After

Life isn’t without its challenges. Neither is art. Every day when I wake up, the first thought that enters my mind is “what will I do today?” This is such a broad question but for me it is directly related to my creativity. If, I’m not creating, then I feel lost, as if I have been disconnected from my anchor.

When I don’t know what to do, I generally fall back on classes I have available for me to learn from or work along with an amazing artist. One of those artists is Tamara Laporte. She has many classes I want to take, including her upcoming class of Ever After.

The desire to take her classes isn’t just for what I will learn in art and art techniques. The main reason is because of her personality. She radiates love. Her laughter is contagious. I find her hands beautiful and an inspiration to me that no matter my circumstances I will always be able to be creative.

Tamara Laporte is having a give-away for her Ever After course. You can read about the course here. They are conducting a blog hop with the various teachers participating in Ever After and each teacher is giving away a seat in the class. I write about this because I want everyone who reads this to have a chance at winning a seat.

I was introduced to Tamara’s work after researching online art courses. She has a free art course “Art, Heart and Healing” which you can find here at the bottom of her page. I am all about learning all I can about the way a teacher instructs before buying any of their paid classes. Most instructors give just a mini course which at times can be misleading as to how good a teacher they are, so I was impressed that “Art, Heart and Healing” is a free 4 week class. It is larger than Tam’s mini classes and a full blown class on its own with lots of content.

I am not a whimsical type artist, or I didn’t think I was. I’m not so sure now. The point I’m making is when I started taking “Art, Heart and Healing” it was when I was trying to find my way back into being able to do art like I had in my high school art classes. For some reason starting in grade 8, Mr. McFarland, awakened something in me I never knew I had. Having him as my art teacher until I graduated high school was the best thing that ever happened to me and I believed I was an artist. After high school, it was difficult to make that connection and I doubted myself as an artist.

Even though Tamara Laporte’s style isn’t really my style, the whimsical nature of her work drew me in. It didn’t have to be perfect. Everything didn’t have to be anatomically correct. I always attempted realism and my inability to create anything even close to realism was what my inner critic had a field day with. Doing Tam’s classes and hearing her say it doesn’t have to be perfect, in fact, get messy, accept what you think are mistakes, helped me respond to my inner critic in a way that helped me continue and create imperfect pieces of art. In fact, watching her make her own mistakes and how she worked with them, helped free me from my perfectionist.

I credit Tam and a few other artists, like Christy Sobolewski, and Effy Wild, for helping me re-awaken my inner artist and believe in her again, but I will never forget Mr. McFarland’s influence. This is an important journey for me and is why I created this blog to write about it.

I often face challenges when I try new mediums, or when I attempt to draw a face or an animal. I often have to let go of my perfectionist, and my natural proclivity towards details. The best advice I ever heard was when beginning a drawing, forget about the details. Start with a loose sketch, drawing just the shapes making adjustments to get them sorted out where you want them to be. Then you can begin to build upon the details.

My eye for detail generally has me immediately diving in deep. I might decide to draw a whole face but as soon as I put pencil to paper, I’m suddenly drawing just one eye in all its fine details, then the next thing I know I find out it is in the wrong position on the page. I do have to consciously put aside my attention to detail when I first begin a sketch. I have learned, if I don’t, then frustration and angst will eventually follow.

This piece of advice came from this youtube video.

I’ve learned a lot over this past year. I would have to say, the most important thing I’ve learned is how to face challenges. There have been many. Thanks to teachers like Tam, Christy and Effy, the challenges within my art, my creativity, aren’t so impossible to overcome anymore.

I hope you will check out Tam’s new class Ever After. I know I have not been disappointed in any of her classes and generally feel her content far exceeds the price of admission.

I am currently working on two drawings which I plan on painting. I haven’t decided on what medium I’ll use yet. Both are on watercolor paper which means I can use any medium I have.  I am leaning towards watercolor and augmenting it with a bit of acrylic paint, especially for highlights.

This first image is from Pull, Pen, Paint a course provided by Kiala Givehand. Thisi s my beginning sketch for Effy Wild’s course in week 4, titled “Mirrors of the Soul”. It is an inspired art journal page using our Soul card as inspiration. My soul card happens to also be my personality card, The Chariot. This is still a work in progress.

This second image is a drawing I created in mid-March. It is also a work in progress. I’m still making decisions on what else needs to be included in the sketch, and I have the challenge of how to do the background and retain the image of the mandala. Then how to bring that image forward. I will most likely go over everything in permanent ink before adding any paint. I love these ladies. I’m not sure where they came from but I am connected to them.

Being an artist is also physically challenging. I wasn’t prepared for the abuse our bodies can experience while creating art.  Pain has become a constant in my life except during some moments when I am creating art. I am fascinated by this.

~Patti

 

Tarot, Quirky Bird, and Stillness…

When thinking about today, my first thought was that I hadn’t accomplished anything. Then I was struck by what lay in front of me. I had three, yes, three completed pieces of art. Completed today.

Isn’t it funny how our minds trick us? I woke this morning with one thought on my mind and that was to work on the next lesson in Pull, Pen, Paint. When the evening came to a close and I had not worked on it, I immediately rated the day as a failure and tried to convince myself I hadn’t accomplished anything.

Only one of the pieces of art in front of me had been on my list of things to do today. After reading a post last night about creating a Tarot Journal and why the author also creates a sketch to go with the Tarot card, I changed my mind on what I would do in my Tarot Journal.  I decided to also create a sketch. I know this can be challenging for me. When I first thought about it, I thought there was no way I could create an accurate sketch of the Tarot card. Then I realized it doesn’t have to be of the whole card. I could pick out what resonated strongly with me and incorporate it into a sketch. In doing so, I hope to make a meaningful connection with the card and eventually the whole deck.

Here is my first entry in my Tarot Journal, a journal meant for studying each of the cards. I will use a Tarot Diary for recording any readings I choose to do. My first entry is of the Ace of Wands:

I made some choices. The ink I will use will be the color which is representative of the suit. In this case, the color for the suit of Wands is red, so I used red ink in journaling about the card. I also decided to include a small picture of the card. This way, I can look at the image along with the artwork to get a better feel for the card whenever I need to review my journal entry.

For me, the wand stood out from everything else, probably just as it should. Even so without looking at the image of the card, I remember there are hands on either side of the wand in a position of protection and reverence.

I’m not doing a Tarot card pull and then studying the card I pull. I am going systematically through the deck to learn each card in the order they are in the guide book (I’m using the Easy Tarot Gilded deck). This way I’ll journal about them in their suits and my journal will have them in logical groupings, which satisfies my very logical mind, for when I might want to add more to my journal for a particular card or just look up my journal entry for a particular card.

The second thing I did was watch the recording of a live stream of Tamara Laporte. She does some amazing whimsical artwork. Her live stream is public on her Facebook  page if you are interested in watching it. While I watched, I arted along with her. Here is what I created:

I didn’t use the same supplies she did. I just improvised with my supplies of Art Crayons, White Acrylique paint, Prisma Premier Color Pencils, black Sakura Gelly Roll pen and Signo White Pigment Ink pen. Oh and Uniball Gold gell pen.

This technically is my first quirky bird as Tamara calls them. I love her style, although I don’t think her style is anything close to my style. I do love the freedom I feel when drawing whimsical people and animals. It helps alleviate the feelings I get about being perfect when I’m doing art.  Learning in this way first, has helped me to feel freer when attempting realism.

The next thing I did was complete a journal spread I had started a couple days ago. This one was in response to Journal52 prompts. I’m woefully behind on the prompts but I’m not worrying about it. Having them available to work on for fun, is great for those times I want a break from some of the classes I’m taking. This one was for week 8. The prompt was Stillness, here is my journal spread:

I started this by using Craft Smart acrylic paint and just finger painting. No brushes, just my fingers, for the sky, grass, flower and bee. Next, I did the words with a Permapaque Pigment Marker. I then embellished the bee, flower and water drop using Prisma Color pencils.

All three of these were completed after my daughter and I went out and ran errands today. Renewing my car insurance was top on the list, then groceries. We didn’t get home until around 4:30pm.

Prior to going out, I had spent some time writing my morning pages, and watching some videos on art but mostly one on organizing art supplies. I’m in much need of organizing things around my house and need to do so on a shoestring budget so I’m trying to find ways to organize and create neat storage using what I have already around the house. It is rather challenging to say the least.

Now, back to what I didn’t do. I really wanted to do the next lesson for Pull, Pen, Paint. I had tried last night to do it. In fact, I tried at least 3 different times. A portion of the lesson is a meditation and last night every time I tried, I fell asleep and would wake up, finding out I had missed a major portion of the meditation, so I would start it over again, to only have it happen again.

Let me explain something. Yesterday, I had an upper cervical adjustment. Whenever I have them, I generally feel very tired later after I’m home and take a moment to relax. This is what was happening with the medication. I would become so relaxed, I would fall asleep. I finally gave up and went to bed with the intent of doing the lesson today.  That, as you have read, didn’t happen.

I’m okay with that. I don’t have to be on a set time schedule. The course is available until the end of the year, so I have time. And once I re-evaluated what I had done today, I gave my inner critic a virtual bitch slap for trying to deceive me into believing I hadn’t accomplished anything today.  Quite the contrary. I was quite prolific in my accomplishments.

These are things our inner critic just loves to do to us. It is all supposed to protect us from the unseen horrors of our life. Even now, I can hear her telling me, the poem I wrote on my Stillness art journal spread is crap. It doesn’t follow the rules of a haiku so it isn’t a haiku.  I try to tell myself, I don’t care. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

The important thing is, I’m doing my daily art practice. And, I’m learning. As I practice, as I learn, as I get better, that voice, that inner critic, isn’t quite so loud, doesn’t speak as often. And sometimes, sometimes she even applauds what I do.

~Patti

Practicing faces…

I’ve been working on learning how to draw faces for a few months now. The challenge being to get past the blocks and the loud voice of my inner critic telling me I can’t draw portraits that will look anything at all like the real person.

I’m doing my best to ignore her or put her on other duties while I work.

A picture of Florence Colgate I found online to use as a reference for my drawing.

I think the completed picture came out fairly good considering I have only been practicing for a few months and not every day, sometimes going weeks without drawing a face.

This is my final drawing done in pencil on light yellow card stock.

 

The thing I find interesting is how scanning a drawing can show discrepancies in a drawing more so than just looking at the real drawing.

I didn’t notice the slight tilt in her mouth until I started writing this blog. That’s okay though. I’m learning and improving and that is what counts and what makes me happy.

I decided to use my handmade journal that is pictured in an earlier post which contains different colored card stock for its pages and some pocket envelopes. I may use the envelope pockets to store copies of the reference photos to keep with the journal.

I  can’t find the words to express how this drawing makes me feel. When I first started drawing it this evening I had many moments of my inner critic chatting away at me telling me the eyes were off, the mouth wasn’t right, the nose was all wrong and that I’d never be able to draw her with any semblance of accuracy. Instead of telling her to shut up, I listened to her critiques, made some erasures, redrew the mouth (several times), fixed the eyes, and so on.

I’m finding that my inner critic isn’t there to just get in the way but is also there to help me learn and challenge myself. Without her I may never have made the changes I did tonight to come up with the drawing that I now post.

I didn’t use any special pencil. I have a mechanical pencil (Energize Pencil by Pentel) with .7 lead. I use a paper stump to blend and shade and a white eraser. That’s it. Drawn on 65 lb card stock from Michaels. This is my cheapest form of art I could possibly do and what makes it nice is I can carry it with me anywhere I go.

I won’t be painting my drawings in my journal because the card stock won’t hold up well to the wet medium. I will at times use other dry mediums like colored pencil, charcoal and pastels but for now, graphite makes me very happy.

~Patti