I miss my camera!!

Silly me left my camera at my daughter (Margaret)'s house on Christmas and, wow, do I miss it!!  From taking photos of the sensor blocking cat asleep on the cable box, to pictures of the latest sketchbook efforts I keep rediscovering that I have no camera!!  Photos will just have to wait! 8-(

Yesterday I pulled out two pieces of chipboard I had painted and stamped 2 or 3 years ago when I made a little journal for my older daughter, Liszy.  Then I got out the Dremel, drilled two holes and made a cover for future use to hold watercolor paper, which I also spent some time cutting to size last night.   I cut some to ATC size as well.  Then while I watched/listened to my Monday night guilty pleasure TV, I made a sketch I like very much that may well wind up as a future art quilt.  (Photos will be posted when I get my camera back!!)

I had written down the line "The sea and the waves are not different" in the sketchbook maybe a year ago so that was my takeoff point for the drawing.  I began with Sharpie markers in brush and fine points to make bold wave-y lines, then colored in with colored pencils.  I have metallic pencils I like quite a lot so I used them as well.  Looking at the sketch in daylight, I'm really pleased.

In getting ready to make this sketch I flipped back through the sketchbook (which is almost full) and realized how much in there centers around an idea for a quilt, or a doll, or something I want to expand on further.  So making some of those projects can become a priority.

Even though we're not officially started with the Challenge, I have done more focusing in the last few days and have begun to overcome the getting started hurdle by pulling up something already planted, like the sea quote, and watering that seed.  It's given me a way in, to now take quotes I have scribbled everywhere and create a visual for the line.  Perhaps no more blank mind on what to do?

Clearing a new workspace on the dining room table is chore of the day.  I've been doing things in my sewing room but I really do not want to use that space for painting or anything else with materials like glitter (voice of experience) or water (forewarned is forearmed).  Just too risky in a room full of fabric!  At one time the table was available work space but I've left too many things out, in progress, or to keep close at hand and now there are only 2 little places, about the size of an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper, where I can do anything like stamping, but certainly no room for painting. But this task fits in with my de-cluttering for the New Year plan so it's progress on two counts.  Off, then, to clear the deck before the first is here and the real fun begins!

Learning Not to Fear

Today I was trying to drive to work and fear got the best of me as it often does if the roads are bad.  They especially were today due to the snow blowing back into the plowed roads and I finally said this is nuts and came back home.  So I have a day to play in all my stuff and I find fear can win the day here too but that's what I'm hoping to beat by doing this challenge.  Now is the time to defeat my own fear of the materials I have so happily collected with which to make "Art."

What am I really afraid of here in my own little house, when I get out the raw materials, the half-begun but not done things I've made, that go into the Parts Department and then stay there?  I look at the work of other people and I can see the elements they've assembled and I can make all those elements but I can't seem to assemble them into "Art."  As I began pulling out my stuff, I could feel the intimidation beginning, the fear of the materials creeping in and I said aha!  I can blog about this!

Words are my medium.  I hold a Master's in Wordsmithy.  Words are not fearful to me (until I sit down to work on the novel and then I blank out but I can usually get around that by reading what's already written and go forward from there).  Language works for me.  Paints? Not so much.  I don't know what to paint but I am driven to do it until the paints are in front of me. I bring all my pieces of Something together but they remain detached from one another.  How to get them to play nicely, to connect the dots that surely must exist between them?  I find it much more difficult to work with an image, to bring an image to mind, than it is write an entire essay on almost any topic.

It's not like being blocked because I've been there with writing and that's not the same as this anxiety about doing something new and foreign.  I'm not a bold adventurer in life but I admire the people who are, who say society be damned, this is Who I Am, this is What I think, and this is My Art.  Wow, I think.  I wish I were that certain of myself and could show up as the Real Me that confidently.  I wish I knew what the Real Me would even look like, let alone My Art.

So it is really helpful to see the process of other artists and see how they pull their pieces together, how their parts become the whole.  And I watch my grand-daughter who is seven and fearless in her art.  She may also be a harsh critic of what she's made, but there is never a moment when I see her hesitate to begin.  I remember being that way as a child and even as a young adult.  I am calling that person back to myself when I watch Zoe, ever eager, never without an idea about what she wants to make on any blank thing available.

It might require a daily casting out of demons for a while to get going, to be doing what my heart wants so much to be doing, but I will banish fear and intimidation from the house, at least where creativity is concerned. I know part of it has to do with relearning how to play; where did the playful girl go who, like Zoe, drew, painted, made Art for hours without a second thought about it?  I have a thing about keys, collecting keys, I have a key rubber stamp that I use a lot, adding keys to lots of things, but I had a revelation recently that it isn't about the keys, it's about the locks.  In unlocking the locks I think I can find the opening and get back to the Girl Who Used To Be, me in my deepest heart where all the art lives.

Merry Christmas!!

I hope everybody has had the chance to reflect on the blessings in their lives as all the holiday celebrations have been in full swing.  I spent a really fun-filled Christmas Eve and Morning with my favorite people, my son and younger daughter, 2 of my 3 grandchildren, and the family of my daughter-in-law.  We all gather at my son's home and this year we had Zane and Zoe races throughout the living room, dining room and kitchen (the layout of the house gives them a clear circle to run), cousin chasing cousin, rowdy, noisy kids at Christmas.  Zane is too young to understand much except that there are a lot of his favorite people in his house, especially cousin Zoe who is crazy wild and seven.  They're my younger grandchildren and they're a blast.  These are among my blessings.

Then a long, much needed phone conversation with my older daughter who has been incommunicado since I saw her in August.  I found out today that the reason I haven't been able to get in touch with her is that she's in cosmetology school, about half-way through!!  I'm really happy for her and she's so excited to be honoring her girlie-self, loving what she's learning, has made a couple of friends along the way, and really is finding her niche.  So more blessings on that front with her, my older grandson playing the French horn, trumpet and tuba with some ease between the three, and life looking up all around. 

Zoe got tons of her favorite things for Christmas-art supplies!!  She's very excited to do some painting with me later in the week so we'll have an overnight which we haven't done in a while.  I've told her about the sketchbook challenge and she's very interested so I'll probably post some of her work on the theme for each month along with mine.  It's only days away now-ready, set, go!!  Before you know it, we'll be arting all over the place!!  

So now I'm back on my mountain top, it's snowing outside and I'm watching a Buffy marathon (don't have cats named Willow, Darla, Spike, Xander, and Jonathan for no reason, y'know). Big blessings in the year just past, big blessings in the year to come, life is so very good!  Happy holidays!!

NEWS!!!

Big news came my way last night!!  I got a new job that will begin in January that will mesh perfectly with my art/life goals!!  It's part time, regular hours, I will have to get up earlier to be at work earlier (that's the downside for my non-morning person self) but I will be learning, growing, eventually teaching and I am SSSOOOOO excited!!! How fortunate this Winter Solstice is for me!!

I also spent some time drawing with colored metallic pencils, regular drawing pencils, and some inks.  I just went where ever, no real plan, but it seems I've a thing for trees right now.  I've always wanted to draw better trees, very far from that achievement so far, but I'm finding I can ignore the inner critic and just go with what comes into my hand.  One of my trees turned out to be the hair on a head sketch.  Another goal is to really pursue making dolls, to have the dolls make it out of my head and into the sewing room-this has been brewing for years but it's time to make it happen.

So, lots of excitment for new things and old things coming into fruition.  I'll post the photos for last night's efforts later as I need to prepare myself for going to work at the current job whose days are numbered. (I've liked it, and it has led to this new opportunity, but there have been aspects that have been more draining than energizing.  So it's good to know that the job without regular hours is going bye-bye!) Later!

Happy Winter Solstice!!

Happy Holiday to all my friends and family!!

I don't have time to make this little tree-t for everyone so I thought I'd share the one that is made with everyone I love through this post.  It was so much fun to make and it has me very excited to make more small projects as they are very focused and reasonably quick to make.  For some reason I am very drawn to using my scraps as much as full cuts of fabric and that's how I made this completely out of "leftovers." I hope your winter holiday, whatever you celebrate, is filled with love, sparkle and a happy glow!

Water Soluble Wax Pastels-what a find!!

Last night I got into the drawing, sketching, coloring box and pulled out these awesome pastels!! I'd bought them a year ago and used them once and kind of wrote them off as crayons but when you add water-what fun! I've had this picture in my head for some time and thought it would be a quilt, and it still will be tried as one, but it was an opportunity to try out using these. I drew the picture, then got out the water and brushes. The colors intensify when water is added which I guess I hadn't done before. What I liked the most was the ability to pull out the twiggy branches with a small brush stroke. This drawing/painting is really primitive and I will work on some variants of the idea before fabrics get cut up but I'm very happy with what I learned from working with the water-soluble wax. You can also dip them in water and draw that way, or wet the paper and use them on that. Lots of options, lots of playtime in the future for these guys!

Getting Started

Thanks to Melanie Testa's youtube videos I got started with some "warm-ups," specifically drawing with the non-dominant hand. My personal brain doesn't know which side is dominant as I am righthanded but left eye dominant and perform many tasks as a leftie. I found my left hand to be surprisingly cooperative for this task and even took my sketchbook along to continue the practice while I got new tires put on my car. Here are some of the results:

I even worked on writing my name and the alphabet as it wouldn't hurt to have this skill in case the right hand ever got into trouble. This was a great exercise to do and I plan to continue getting my left hand more talented! You might notice that a lot of the designs are repetitive curliques. This is a constant practice for me, to work on potential quilting paterns for free-motion quilting. They need to be one continuous line so it sometimes helps to work on drawing a pattern to figure out the lines. So give your non-dominant hand a turn with the pens and pencils to see what you come up with!

Begin

The Fearless Little Witch was my beginning, I guess, into starting a new part of my journey. She was created after much dismay about cutting into the cloth without an idea about what I should do, no pattern or game plan and I am pleased with the result. The idea of being an artist has always been brewing in my heart and soul, then along came all these outside voices saying that it wasn't practical, that you needed a real job, you needed a career with benefits, all kind of secure future in place and I listened and did as I was told. Blah, blah, blah...

So I did all the usual boring supposed to do things and it frankly wrecked me. I was not made in a way that fit my round peg self easily into someone else's square peg hole. But I kept stuffing myself and stuffing myself because I was trying, even though there are those who might dispute that. But I kept not succeeding either. So finally I have reached the point of self-validation and set out to be who I have known myself to truly be all along but I have gotten here without learning the skills I might have learned had I followed my own voice to begin with. So this is the new journey: Get over the fear of cutting into the fabric with no plan in place, open the treasured pots of paints and mediums, tear into the paper, have a play date with myself as close to daily as I can. And here's hoping I can write some things about it as I go along.

But if I'm too busy creating, at least put up some photos of how things are coming along. Intention set. Ta-ta!