When Art Invites You In

I have been either a very bad girl or a very good girl, depending on your point of view. I have been making much art and traveling as well, but I have gotten out of the habit of writing about them. You see, I have lately been overtaken to the extreme by my new found love of drawing. They say that to get better at something you need to do it every day, make time for it just like a job, just do it. I guess I took that to heart this spring, because this "Mermaid Circus" class seems to have taken a turn for the obsessive. I draw and paint and letter and cut collage materials. I shop for new art supplies and make room for them in carts and boxes and closets and piles. I try them out in new combinations and make lists of even more colors to own. I post photos to my class group, and friend my classmates on Facebook. The photos show up on Flickr too, but because the class is not centered there, that venue has taken a back seat for now. I am, in short, in the hackneyed phrase and with no irony, living the dream!

The sketch on the right was done while watching a video lesson, then used as the basis for a painting in acrylics and colored pencil.

It all started with that first face drawing lesson (see the April 29 entry) in which I drew and painted along with my teacher Jane Davenport. I was hooked! I realized that I don't have to draw "real" people if I don't want to, I can learn to work first with stylized faces and character creation. Bingo! I am learning to love storytelling, and I really want to be able to draw a face with consistency and personal style. This second face, "The Upturned Face" lesson, was the start of a series of three successful journal story pages based on the same initial sketch.

Adding the first shadows and highlights, bringing it to life.

Portrait of a sweet young mermaid, later to be called Cecelia.

Now it was time to reuse the art. This is the crazy looking but well conceived beginning to a story of Cecelia and her goldfish. The face would be color copied but painted over, and the fish, also an enhanced version of a piece of journal art from three years ago.

Practicing mixed media tricks: the luminescent sea is created by painting  Golden Fluid Acrylic over the red/orange base, spraying with water and blotting. The hair has quite a bit of florescent orange and red paint. The mermaid's tail end is a piece of batik fabric collaged with gel medium. Matte, shine, glow, texture.

A second use of the painted face was made with a tissue transfer of the original: color copying direction on (supported) white artist's tissue to make a sheer version, which was matte medium applied over a copy of a (real) tattoo pattern (meant for an arm). Finally, paint and pencil enhanced to change the coloration and character of the girl.

This became "A True Tale of Caution" about a mermaid who went  "bad".

Meanwhile, it was time for Teesha Moore's sixteen page journal to take center ring. I decided to dedicate the whole thing to one story, the actual "Mermaid Circus," styled a bit after impressions received while reading the novel "The Night Circus." 

Learning about (and liking) folded small flaps as extra pages.

I had a mammoth collaging session during this week and painted and prepared the collaged story on all sixteen pages. It will probably take me months more to get the time to finish them all, but now the story is set for me with a trajectory and a style that will add consistency to the finished book.

Be sure to click on the images to see them larger and check out some of the pen work and shading.

Meanwhile back at the zoo, I was neglecting my original 2013 muse, the giraffe. In preparation for "Paint the Giraffe" month in June, May was a time to explore color, consider our preferences, analyze a bit, get to know something about pleasing palettes. The next three images are collaged pages from an inspiration journal I had begun about ten years ago. Strangely enough, they still inspired. Now that I am learning about mixing collage with pen work, I look forward to returning to these at some point to develop them further.

Purple and more purple for me, but deepened.

My favorite for many years, purple and green, but ethereal.

And yet again, with an interesting image of "art clothing".

Sometimes the man has a day free to spend with me that coincides with great weather and a peaceful place. Before the heat of summer, we enjoyed a hike on the beach of Lake Michigan and up to the summit of "Mount Baldy" one of the high points in the Indiana Dunes National Park.

Because the normal route up the side of the hill is being recovered from erosion, we were forced to hike all the way down to the beach, along the shore and then straight up the hill. It was a fabulous workout and proof that keeping fit makes life more fun.

Nearing the top and where, on a clearer day, you would have a view of Chicago fifty miles to the west across the lake.

Feeling happy, but with about a pound of sand inside each sneaker. Soon we were off the the outlet stores to find me a pair without holes.

Trying to establish a daily drawing routine in a journal, I prepped a number of pages in my Moleskine with acrylic paint, then started using them to inspire complex doodles or simple themed drawings. This one was about keeping occupied during a yard sale, but ended up looking like fireworks over New York City.

This one was full of affirmations to just draw what was in my heart, Teesha style.

This "fat mermaid" was a Jane Davenport drawing lesson that felt not quite ready for my "prime time" journal, until it was complete, and then I realized: I am ready for prime time, this is it. I'm doing good work and so proud of how far I've come in just a few years. Art has made me its friend I have bonded with it. I think we will be traveling companions for a long time to come.

The Colors of Winter

As winter proceeds step by step toward spring I find I am not truly tired of it yet. After all, the days are lengthening, the occasional smell of thawed earth is on the breeze, and I still have so much yet to do without the constant call of the garden. It is now when I start to long for the colors of spring, that I truly notice how wonderful are the colors of winter. There is something so grand about the washed out skies and the starkness of black branches and clean spaces, that serve as a clean palette and draw the eye to everything special that the low light provides. There is warmth in the cold, and there is elegance in the simplicity. I woke with the thought today that in winter it is all about the noticing. You must be vigilant and look around yourself for the special gifts offered up each day. They may only last a few minutes and if you aren't careful to notice, they will disappear without a trace.

The special gift of sunrise and sunset is something I like to look for and record. This is the view from my bedroom window on a recent morning. How could a day not proceed with passion after seeing that? The golden light is also reflected on a quilt hanging on the opposite wall. It commends me to the work of my hands and makes me thankful for being able to express myself in warm and comforting ways.

Simple things draw my eye throughout the morning. The shimmer of the metal faucets, the bubbling of the water's stream, its double shadow on the cup. I have to stop to capture the image of something I might normally not see. But today I am noticing things.

On this day I notice the temperature is the lowest of the winter so far, that this is the first and only time recently it has fallen below zero. I take the photo, to remember, and also to send a silly joke to a Facebook friend in Australia, something corny about "down under".

In the midst of all the "giraffing", I try to find time to continue my class on "Capturing the Essence" of animals. I don't get too far, but I thoroughly enjoy recording the personalities of these ducks and an old goose. I am using oil pastels and enjoying their rough drawn texture which becomes creamy when smeared with a finger. The sheeps' backs below feel lovely and intimate, and such a simple sketch draws pride in my growing knack for looking, and many favorable comments from friends who notice the composition and light touch with line and color. 

The animal sketches are a prelude to beginning to develop a personal arsenal of symbols. The assignment here, to remember how I felt at the death of a beloved pet, was both difficult to begin, but easy once I got moving. The serious nature of trying to express deep feeling in an abstract manner in mixed media (and to try next time to do this without words), left me a bit drawn and needing to distance and return at a later date. I am very in love with this first attempt. I have no doubt I can learn to improve on it greatly, but I know we must all start somewhere, and I finally did.

The month of January involved drawing the giraffe as much as possible (or as desired). I did draw as much as I could find time and energy for, but not nearly as much as I wanted. I will try to continue to return to it throughout the creative year of many assignments since drawing is the thing that makes me look and learn about the nature of the beast.

I decided that amidst all the many ways that people were doing creative interpretations of the form, I really needed to do at least one "photo" accurate portrayal to study the proportions and details of what makes a giraffe "so". I only succeeded partially, as you can see I was still having a lot of trouble getting the length of the legs and neck as improbably long as they are in real life. My husband says it is because I am working on a short page, and he is probably somewhat right. I was trying to make it fit and still have a sizable presence. I didn't work with a grid or formal measures, but tried to look and see. I was pretty happy with the layering of three hardness's of graphite, plus a terra cotta pencil. It took about four sessions to complete. 

Some winter days arise with a blank color palette, mist shrouded. The birds twittered in a nearby tree; an occasional red flash when the cardinals alighted by the window. I hadn't touched my fabric stash since last summer and I felt the need for an infusion of bright color.

Even Lucca was a bit down and subdued by the mist. I decided to pull fabrics and get back to making the pages for new months of embroidery samplers.

You may recall that last year I began a challenge project called "Take a Stitch Tuesday" from embroidery maven, Sharon Boggon. I only completed three and a half months of the twelve, and intended to return to it when time allowed. I am making my sampler in the style of a fabric book that works it way around the color wheel. I began the first stitches in January of 2012, with a red page and at this point I was up to constructing the summer pages.

After visually falling into the pile of happy yellow green through blue green quilt fabrics, I composed three 2-page entries which will hold four to five stitches each. The challenge project is ongoing with new stitches this year, but anyone can access last year's as well, and begin whenever they like. It is a wonderful way to take a free and fun course in modern embroidery. Sharon showcases the work of many talented participants throughout the world. If you'd like to see what I've finished to date, you can check out this "TAST" flick set.

While I spend a lot of time noticing sunrise and sunset, almost better in the way of lifting the spirits is to see, on a day of overcast and gloom, the sun break through the clouds late in the day and set the landscape alight. The contrast of steel blue-gray with golden bare limbs of my elm tree always brings a smile to my face.

In February, the giraffe assignment is to explore, fearlessly, the use of mixed media. I was quite excited to begin, but first I had to do a little drawing warm up. I was quite thrilled to capture some giraffe personality in this threesome drawn from a photo reference. This was the first time I had used a water soluble graphite, and just that bit of water brush smear added a wonderful softness to the sketch.

I needed something with structure to begin, and for a long time now I had admired the lesson by Carla Sonheim in drawing animals to mimic the style of painted wood figurines from Oaxaca, Mexico. My "Oaxacan Giraffe" began with a series of one-liner drawings from which I chose my favorite stylized design, then built up the lines with Sharpie markers, then colored with layers of Copic markers, colored pencil, white gel pen, watercolor pencils and markers, and other fine point colored markers.

The final beast has the colorful patterns and white dots of the namesake carvings.

I am always looking for reasons to capture the glorious sunset view from my front window. When Flickr Friday, a special weekly contest for themed photos, announced that the first week of February was all about "beyond the horizon", I knew what I had to shoot. Because all submitted photos must be taken between Friday and Sunday of that week, participants have a limited window to find inspiration. It was fun to participate and see my photo next to amazing shots from around the world. If you like a photography challenge, check it out each Friday. No qualifications, no obligations. Free to join.

Last weekend, some of my fellow giraffers were talking about a fun mixed media technique using a rather unusual medium, nail polish, to create marbled designs on watercolor paper. I thought I'd try it, and I can see how I might make use of these in a collage. Now to figure out a more giraffe like result.
The info for the tutorials can be found on Carla's blog, here.

The funny thing about creative inspiration is that you can never guess where it will be hiding next. While I was having a fun hour of play with the polish, I really wasn't totally invested in what I was doing or whether I would actually use any of the pieces I made. What did captivate me was a pile of scrap paper from the cut out circles sitting on the nearby counter. For some crazy reason, I couldn't wait to finish what I was doing so I could photograph that silly pile of shadow-throwing bits that might just as easily have ended in the trash instead.

What I got for my efforts was a thoroughly satisfying series of intimate photos of  accidental form and shape, "real" and created by light. Something I then went on to play with in simple photo editing to expand the vision. I am inspired to try more of this in time. In short, I am inspired.

Whether it's the soft blank canvas of grey sky and snowy ground, or the color of things lit by sun breaking though in late afternoon, the colors of winter are captivating if you will just take time to notice them.