Happy work

What do you love about making art? For me, right now, I love how I get lost in it. I can sit and mess around with paints for hours, unaware of time, feeling no need to stop for dinner, wishing I could stay home every day to keep working on it.

After touring all those great studios last weekend and the weekend before, I just had to do something with my workspace, right? Most notably, I needed some storage solutions, and to reconfigure my tables so that I could reach the storage area. (Minor detail - with the old configuration I was right next to the book case, but I had to either crawl under or reach over the table to get to the shelves!) So here it is. Plastic containers with drawers, on sale from Fred Meyer, are just right for storing paints, stamps, papers and doodads.

Another container with lots of little drawers is perfect for spools of thread, beads, and charms. Works in progress lie in wait on the table, finished pieces fill the walls. I know it would be good to have a design wall, but I like to see that I do sometimes finish projects!

This wall serves as the headboard to my bed - I like having flying dreams!

Two weeks working in this new configuration, I can say that I'm really liking it. I can actually put things away at the end of a session, making it more inviting the next time I can steal away to my little haven.

Today's work was trying again to get Grammie's face for a Día de los Muertos tribute. First try: better than yesterday's attempts.

Second try: Hey! This one looks like her! I might actually use it.

This is a pencil drawing from the other day. I like it as it is. Sometimes I'm afraid to mess them up with paint.

Finally, this is a face that went terribly wrong today, so I decided to just play with it. Oh yeah, sometimes it's way fun to mess up! I'm loving mixing up paints, pens, stamps and crayons.

Hmmm... it's 12:44 a.m. now. Perhaps I should go to bed? Up bright and early at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow!

New faces

This was my first boy face - I did it a few days ago, or a week ago... Blue crayon and white acrylic. I like the simplicity of it.

More fun with artist crayons and white acrylic. I'm trying to do a tribute piece to my Grammie. This looks nothing like her, but it's fun!

Another try at a Grammie face. This one's closer, but I'll keep trying. Acrylics.

Just in time for Halloween - SCARY! I tried to do a photo transfer of a Klimt face and then painted on top. I think the paint mixed with the ink and turned the skin color zombie grey. Spooky face, too!

Image number 2 on top of the same Klimt image. The transfer still wasn't working too well, but I like this paint over a whole lot better!

My favorite face of the day. Acrylics and stamp.

Want to see a pro do faces? Misty has a video she made of her techniques for painting faces. See it here and scroll down to Oct. 12th, then get busy and paint!

Practicing and teaching

Two posts in one night! (Even thought the date says they're a day apart - it took two days to get the previous post done and posted...) Here are some more faces for you. These were done on top of photocopies of magazine photos. The paper was pretty slick - I'll try wiping it down first, next time.

Last week I did a little face lesson with my second graders. Here are a few samples:

I think this one is amazing - hard to believe it's from the hands of a seven-year-old! Here's the artist at work:

They came up withthe crown idea themselves (I promise! I did NOT suggest it!) I think they're so cute! I just love kid art!

Calvita revisited

Due to technical difficulties, the uploading of new faces will be postponed...

In the meantime, I had a good time on the PDX Open Studios Tour, part 2. I chose not to visit a whole lot of studios - mostly just the ones that Deirdra had recommended with a star on my map. What a great selection! The artwork was tremendously varied, from the beautifully rendered still lifes of very contemporary subjects (slab of beef, anyone?) by Scott Conary, to the wild mixed media word and image works of Chris Haberman, I saw a little bit of it all. As much as I enjoyed the artwork, I loved seeing the studios and chatting with the artists just as much. Very friendly and encouraging people. Seeing their work spaces gives me ideas for what I can do with mine now, and dreams for what I might want as a studio in the future. Talking with them, and hearing them speak to me as if I were a peer, helps me to accept myself or take myself seriously as someone who is working on her art. I still have a hard time calling myself an artist (except when speaking to a group of second graders), but I am getting closer to seeing myself that way. It was a great artist's date - very nourishing!

Ok, technical difficulties have been overcome. It turns out you have to close the scanner window to get your images to appear in the scanner file folder!

So here are a few faces for now - more tomorrow if time allows. This is a return to Calvita, the pencil drawing of a woman with no hair. She's gone through some transformations. First, artist crayons over the pencil drawing.

Next, the crayons were blended with titanium white acrylic.

I photocopied the crayon and paint version, then repainted just using the dark mixture that Misty showed us, and white. I was trying to get a similar effect to what I did on the face that I used on my canvas collage - a more subtly colored face in the tradition of the old masters (not that my rendering is anything like an old master's!). It didn't quite reach my goal, but it's pretty good progress.

I also photocopied onto my inkjet printer so that I could try another photo transfer. The transfer part worked pretty well, even if the painted part has a long way to go. It's nice to work with the photo copies and try different ways of painting the same drawing. I think I'd like to do this kind of exercise again.

Opening to the possibilities

Synchronicity, serendipity, good things coming together as if by magic. Through Art & Soul I have learned new skills, both artistic and social. The experience truly is uplifting my soul. Today I went on the Portland Open Studios tour with new friend Deirdra. Although our navigational skills were at times hilariously lacking, things we found in common with each other were not. How wonderful to spend a beautiful fall day enjoying art while making meaningful connections. The joy of life opens itself to me, and I accept it with gratitude.

A face a day progress: I took the previous day's pencil face and had fun with another one of the techniques Misty taught us, using artist crayons and acrylic paint. I like seeing the evolution.

Have a wonderful day tomorrow, and if you're local, I recommend the Open Studios tour - the art and the studios are inspiring!

Another just pencil face, but it will be interesting to see what happens to these drawings after I add color. So far I like the proportions better in the sketches, so I'm going to have to figure out how to maintain that in the paintings.

Tomorrow I'll be checking out the Portland Artists Studio Tour with Deirdra - looking forward to that! Not only do I enjoy seeing the art, but the studios as well - they can be very inspiring themselves. I know I'll come home green with envy over studio space, but that can be a good motivator. I'll be dreaming and scheming, and maybe taking a few steps closer to making those dreams come true.

Go see this!

To friends and family who may wonder, "What's all this Art & Soul stuff all about?" Misty Mawn, my teacher extraordinaire, has posted a video where you can see what it's all about. Check out her blog and go to "Landing~Art & Soul pt. 1, a music video," her post from Oct. 7th. Enjoy the rest of her incredible creativity while you're at it.

Calvita

Well, it turns out a body really does need sleep every now and then, so this is as far as I got on last night's face. So, she's kind of weird for now, but that's ok. (Pencil)

First scarf day. Brrr...

Here's last night's face. I'm not sure how it got SO big - it looked better at 12:30 a.m. last night...

(Acrylic on paper)

Yesterday was the first really chilly day of the season for me - had to wear a scarf but still caught such a chill in the afternoon. It was nice to walk into a heated classroom this morning! Wasn't my best day with the kids - perhaps I need more sleep???

More pics from A & S

A million thanks to Deirdra and Tina for sending me photos from Misty Mawn's class!!!

Misty and me and the lady in blue.

The fabulous Tina C with Misty.

I absolutely LOVE the way Tina's paintings turned out - such beautiful colors and collage work, and FUN - just like Tina!

The super-talented Shariyah's painting.

I wish I could have unjammed my camera and taken photos of ALL the paintings - each so different, and each so beautiful.

Yikes, it's about 11 pm now, and I still have a face to paint for today... Another late night, and another hard time waking up in the morning (at 5:30 a.m.!) G'night.

A Face a Day #2

Notes to self: I like it better than Day 1, that's for sure! Crooked nose, but I like it - good length. Neck is better but needs more shading, I think. Color blending is working out a lot better now that I know not to mix a medium shade - just let the light mix with the dark. (Acrylic on paper)

A Face a Day

Ok, don't laugh - it's only day 1. Notes to self: Try a shorter nose and not so flat, and a thinner neck. See if that helps.

On the bright side, I'm really happy I jumped right in last night. Time to go try another one! (Acrylic on paper)

A & S 2008

This week I attended the A & S retreat in Portland. Awesome treatment for my depression. Seriously. And what great medicine it was!!! I only took two classes, and only one of those was a studio class. The non-studio class was Judy Wise’s business of art class, “So you want to sell your art.” I don’t actually know if I do want to sell my art again some day, and I certainly don’t have any art to sell right now, but Judy is wise, and witty and full of great advice based on her years of success. Reading her blog you can see what joy it brings to be on your right path in life – she is a role model to me. Taking her class has got me thinking, maybe I will take that u-turn in life (after the girls graduate from college???).

My studio class was with Misty Mawn. I got off to a shaky start because I went to the wrong Embassy Suites – I took the MAX to the one downtown, and of course I had planned my trip for just exactly the amount of time I needed to get there. Well… the retreat was being held at the airport Embassy Suites. Back on the MAX I got, lugging all my art supplies, and clenching my fists at how slowly the train moves through town. But I managed to take a deep breath and let it go – there was nothing else I could do. I did, naturally, miss the stop I needed, had to go all the way to the airport and then back again to Mt. Hood drive, which, although the closest stop to the Embassy, is still a good half-mile to the hotel (lugging art supplies!). The kicker was that I’d taken the MAX because I didn’t want to pay $18.00 for parking at the downtown hotel. As it turns out, parking at the airport location is FREE! Next I had a hard time finding the office, and then the classroom, but I finally made it (30 or 40 minutes late) – an urchin in ratty overalls who quietly slunk into an available chair, but it all turned out unbelievably wonderful after that.

Misty Mawn is another amazing role model. The class was called “Ulterior Motif Mural,” two days of painting and mixed media! This was Misty’s sample – so gorgeous…



The first day she taught us techniques for drawing a portrait with a variety of media. In her demonstrations she works very fast (check out the blurry arm in the photo below!) as she explains what she’s doing. I LOVED her teaching style. I had the impression that she didn’t want to take a long time on the demos because she was eager for us to go try it.

She taught facial proportions, painting over your own sketch, painting on top of a magazine image, acrylics, artists’ crayons, oil sticks – wow! Although I was liking my sketches better than my painted faces, I loved playing with all that stuff, and I did get good results by doing a transfer of a da Vinci face and then painting over that. Here are some of Misty’s demo samples:

There was great energy in the class, everyone encouraging and helping each other. I even made friends in class! (Yeah, shy, introverted little me!) This was exactly the kind of experience I had been hoping for when I went to ArtFest – making connections with people who are artsy, feeling like I was part of a community. I am so grateful that I was led to sign up for this class.

I didn’t get around to taking many photos, especially the second day because I jammed my camera, but I did snap one student sample from the truly gifted Shariyah. I hope Shariyah won’t mind, especially if I link to her etsy site! (But let me know if you do mind and I’ll take it off.)

The second day Misty taught us a gazillion techniques for creating interesting backgrounds using stencils, scraping into or pressing all manner of things into the wet paint, adding gel, adding inks. She was using her hands in the demo, so I did, too – what a mess but oh what fun! Everybody chose such different color combinations, and every single canvas was gorgeous. I thought I was totally messing mine up at one point, but I kept going and it turned out fine. After the background came the collaging. That part was actually hard for me, deciding which papers, images, and shapes to use. It’s not really that crucial, I guess, but that’s my hang up. Misty showed us how to integrate all the elements with layers of transparent color and zinc white. Again I was having a hard time, but I kept going with a spirit of experimentation, et voilà, I came up with a glowing pale blue that set the figure off. Happy happy!

It was so much fun walking around and seeing what everyone else was doing – honest to god, every single one was beautiful. And everyone was effusive in their compliments. It was such a good feeling. Misty had taught us well.

Again, I wish I had more photos to show, but several people like Tina and Deirdra were kind enough to take photos for me that I will post when I have them. I have to say how grateful I am for the friendliness of the people in this class. I found myself coming out of my shell, thanks in large part, I think, to my new friend Marilyn, whose outgoing personality may have rubbed off a tiny bit on me. I loved talking with Bonnie, Tina, Abigail and her daughter Shariyah (such a talented family!!!), and so many others – I’m sorry I didn’t get everybody’s name, but I hope to see you again and would LOVE to see your finished murals! I’m adding some embellishments to mine and will post the finished product soon, I hope.

Also… I’m thinking about what somebody said in class: if we all painted a face every day we’d get really good at it. I may pose myself that very challenge – a face a day. Anyone else out there want to play?

Finally, a big hug of gratitude goes out to Misty for her amazing generosity of sharing so much with all of us. Thank you, Misty! (For the chocolates and everything, too!)

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Spoiler alert: deeply personal stuff ahead.

Days, weeks, a whole month has flown by. Lots to catch up on, but I'll do it in bits and pieces. This is from my journal, dated September 29, 2008:

After 30-some years of dealing off and on with depression, my therapist asked me last month if I were finally ready to deal with it. Her Pac Man diagram of seratonin deficiency in my brain helped convince me that a lot of the problem is actually physical, not just the jolly events of my life. Three health care professionals within one week diagnosed me as severely depressed, and I was a danger to myself with a plan. What saves me, what pushes me to stick around? Two things: my daughters, and art. I love my girls so much, and I hope to God I will never abandon them and leave them scarred for life. As for the art - I would be very disappointed if I didn't push myself to meet my potential, whatever that potential may be. As my favorite high school English teacher, Mrs. Feuerstein, wrote to me: "Share yourself - you owe it to the world."

So yes, after rejecting the idea of meds for 11 years because I was terrified of them, I have finally accepted that I need them for now. My body has had a hard time adjusting, as seen in my doodle above. The mood has improved, but the grogginess has been overwhelming. It's getting better, though. We'll experiment with the dosage and try to get it just right to make Goldilocks happy again.

Part of my tardiness in posting this was the question of whether or not I should post anything this personal. But I know there are people out there who could relate to this, and it helps to know that you are not alone. If this does find anyone out there who can relate, I hope it gives you some comfort. In the next post I'll show some of the positive effects.