Was gifted some pieces from some up n coming talent for Christmas! My niece and nephew drew. I've hung these above my desk where I can admire them when I need inspiration!
Sketches from bed
I've had to sketch from bed this month due to a turn in health. I miss painting! But I need to stay positive and committed.
Here's some snaps from my sketchbook including camellias that I practiced for when I come back to a painting in progress!
Sketching: Peonies
If you've been reading my blog you know my past month was loaded with bread-and-butter, church and family festivities. I came out mentally and emotionally drained so I didn't have enough energy to dive into my current pieces. Nevertheless, I've been religious in sketching.
Protecting my sketch time is crucial to my art the way practicing a violin is important to a violinist. Additionally, going to "work" consistently rather than waiting for inspiration keeps me thinking rationally and boosts my confidence. Going without sketching for long periods of time really dings my ability to communicate visually and to create fluidly.
Pen sketches showing how rusty I was when I first started sketching peonies, recently.
Here's some recent peony sketches. I'm studying aging peonies. I'm interested in observing the aging appearance of the camellia next because they'll be in a piece I am currently working on. I wanted to give myself a confidence boost by studying the flower I felt was more complex, first. Some of these blossoms took an hour individually. Each one required time staring at reference photos and videos.
Fortunately, it does look like things are on the up and up and I should be back at it with my bigger pieces, soon.
Winter 2005: Cold Air
DETAIL: Winter 2005: Cold Air IN PROGRESS
DETAIL: Winter 2005:
Cold Air
IN PROGRESS
DETAIL: Winter 2005: Cold Air IN PROGRESS
This memory-based work in progress is in it's earliest stages. I want to start building the central points of the memory right from the first brush strokes of the background/base.
In my mind's eye, there's some very vivid visuals in this memory:
- An electric, living, blueish darkness. I'm layering washes, texture and color to achieve this multi-dimensional darkness.
- Rushing, horizontal movement. I'm applying most of my color in horizontal strokes.
This piece is about one of my favorite memories of my dad. It had to do with him being completely courageous and fighting for me in the face of a seemingly hopeless and dire situation.
I thought it would be good to start this piece as Father's Day approaches. I don't plan to gift it to my father but this is a good time to reflect on one's gratefulness for their father.
Winter 2016: Walks
DETAIL: Winter 2016: Walks (IN PROGRESS)
DETAILS: Winter 2016: Walks
(IN PROGRESS)
DETAIL: Winter 2016: Walks (IN PROGRESS) - My fingerprints are seen here.
In this work in progress, I'm giving visual form to a theme I've never actually seen with my own eyes: my faith.
I am a Christian and I feel I have a deep and personal relationship with my God. Much like in other deep relationships, I sometimes allow myself to float from my beloved.
In Winter 2016, I was bitter over a relentlessly painful twisted pelvis causing life altering, sometimes bed-ridden pain for almost two years. The best parts of my day alone would sometimes be the walks I took. At such times, I allowed myself to feel empowered in my physical progress and I allowed myself to feel the presence of an entity that I could not see or feel.
The challenge of creating this piece is not only to create a visual language for what is unseen, but to reflect a recurring experience rather than a singular moment. I am trying to distill a certain feeling I had repeatedly through changing seasons rather than a single occurrence.
These memories are all very personal and the frames of images create a different narrative for me than they would create for any other viewer. I like the idea that my fingerprints literally create some of this imagery. I create finger paint "washes" in these progress photos.
Keeping Me Honest: Artists I Admire
Living life seems to bring more questions than answers, and yet it's all-at-once beautiful and redeeming in it's darkest places.
To me, art is like that, too.
Being an artist is terrifying: Expressing one's truth even when others demand answers. The truth isn't always pretty, doesn't always make sense, is sometimes more funny than pleasing, sometimes can't be explained succinctly... Yet, the truth, as art, is always beautiful in it's ability to inspire one to search deep inside for answers and reach outside for meaning.
I am inspired by
- artists who challenge truths. I might not agree with everything they do but I am inspired by their fearlessness.
- artists who seem to have styles/messages I try to convey. If they can do it, I know I can.
- artists who are having fun. Yes. Art can be fun.
Here is a short list of artists who constantly do this for me... artists who have got me through some dark times:
- Vincent VanGogh: for the dream
- Mark Rothko: for the depth
- Frida Kahlo: for making self-centered work okay
- Billy Collins: for making the mundane miraculous
- Odilon Redon: for the freedom in dream and myth
- Yoshitomo Nara: for the angst in the innocence
- Wassily Kandinski: for the child like expression
- Paul Klee: for the form
- Paul Cézanne: for the color
- Gustav Klimt: for the ornate
- James Jean: for making comic-like art high brow
- Audrey Kawasaki and Lady Gaga: for the dark and sexy
- Lykke Li and Zola Jesus: for the vulnerability and the raw power
- Es Devlin, Yoko Ono and Cai Guo-Qiang: for concept delivered through total experience
- Alexander McQueen: for delivering the dark and the honest through beauty
- Friends With You and APAK: for youth, wonder, joy
- Fafi and Koralie: for being badass females and painting them, too
- John Steinbeck: for his simple but beautiful story telling
- Jonathan Safran Foer: for the stunning, sweeping narratives about the simple and commonplace
- Johannes Vermeer: for making it okay to find the beauty in the commonplace
- Louis CK: (see Billy Collins)
Hope this is inspiring to you, too.
