Kids and Moms, Wreck This Journal and 59-63

Cover Page/Wreck This Journal/Draw Popsiple trees, Mommy!
59/100 in 100 creative challenge
pitt artist pens
(this and all following pictures from Wreck This Journal, by Keri Smith)

I'm trying to finish my book this week. I don't think I will totally finish, but I'm making a good effort. A lot of the pages are half done, so I just need to find my focus and wreck with intention. Or wreck randomly, really.

This post is child directed.

These are all pages that have been wrecked by my children or pages that have been directed by my children.

The cover page, for instance, was created because Ivy required that I draw "popsiple trees." She is obsessed with them.

As you will see by the following pages.

More Popsiple Trees, Mommy!/Instructions
60/100 in 100 creative challenge
pitt artist pens, diptych

Red!

Green!

Black!

They told me, and I had to figure out a way to make it work. Kind of interesting being instructed by bother Keri Smith and my children.

I particularly like the gray/black/green page.

Nice color combo. And the trees growing out of the words are whimsical and graphic at the same time. I could see using this somewhere else in the future.

Number Page
61/100 in 100 creative challenge
collage, newspaper, gold paint pen

It says here 1234canihavealittlemore5678910iloveyou... I don't know if my lyrics are wrong. I don't care.

Okay. This isn't child directed, oh well.
BLANK (double sided)
62/100 in 100 creative challenge
acrylic, pitt artist pen
BLANK (back side)

Kind of a post modern take on the instructions. She said to leave it blank.

Rather than ignore it. I blanked it. And I traced the blankness on the other side.

What does it really mean to be blank, anyway? What if your intention is blankness?

The opposite page is my intention of moving on and letting go of the past. Moving forward. It is awaiting the flame.

1st Ave Riding Sketch
63/100 in 100 creative challenge
pen, watercolor, pitt artist pen

Also not child driven. But drawn with them in the back seat on the way to the grocery store. don't worry I wasn't driving.

When things slide past you so fast, it's hard to capture exactly what's there. However, it wasn't as bumpy as I thought it would be. Watercolor was added later, as was the writing.
not counting this one in my creativity totals.

I couldn't bear to chew on the page. So I had Ivy do it. She didn't like it much, but she enjoyed doodling on the page. I think this is kind of her "writing." I think she might have signed it.
This is Ivy's page, too. Also not counting it in my totals, as it's hers.

She's been working on it for a while. She wants to use my markers, which she isn't allowed to usually. I don't know what she's trying to convey here, quite.

Here is Gabriel's page. Not my creative challenge, either, but I do know what he is trying to convey. He's into designing houses, lately. He wants to build a dog house, but this is a people house. Oh, we have no dog.

He's got kitchens and living rooms and gardens and bedrooms and a reading room for mama. :)

What have I been learning from this Wreck This Journal?

I think I have been learning to loosen up and let go and stop putting so many constraints around my creativity. Freedom? Not a bad thing.

I think I have also discovered that I miss my personal journal. I think I'd like to take it up again, not just journaling on my blog but in my pen and paper journal.

And I think I want to get back to artjournaling.

You wouldn't believe how long I've been painting in books. I should share some of the stuff I've done over the years. I even made my own chapbook of art and poetry one year. Before all the digital photography and my own blogging. Old school photocopies and hand binding. It took forever.

There are fewer boundaries than we would think. We have more freedom than we know.

Of course, true freedom is scary as hell.

Say Yes to Life, WTJ 55-58

Say Yes to Life
55/100 in 100 creative challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylic
(this and all following images taken from my Wreck this Journal, by Keri Smith)

I've been working on a lot of things. Some of these things are artistic in nature. Some of them are business. Some of them are daily living. And some of them are about higher purpose, sense of self, balance and grounding.

I still feel guilty counting these images in my total creativity challenge project, but I've been putting a lot of energy into my Wreck This Journal, as I just realized our book club is almost over.

I paint and collage and draw and doodle and ponder all day long, even while the kids are awake.

When I first heard of this book, I didn't think I needed it. I knew how to do an art journal. I knew how to deconstruct my life and how to get over the perfectionist hump.

But these are not things you learn once and then don't have to bother with. The amazing thing about living is that lessons are never ending. Nothing is static. What you think you have mastered merely becomes the stepping stone for what you have next to learn.

This image here is an idea I've been working on in my life for a while now. After painting it here, I think it might make a nice print. Hmm. Maybe something for my shop?
Say Yes to Life/Yes
diptych

Slowly, I am starting to get my groove back.

It's so crazy how everything can be going so smoothly, and something puts a bump in your smoothness and all of a sudden the whole road gets rocky.

Maybe it's just coincidence, maybe it's being thrown off a rhythm.

Whatever it is, I'm working on getting the positivity back, the center, and the momentum.

Start (just begin) (detail)
56/100 in 100 creative challenge (part of diptych)
Pitt artist pens, gold paint pen

It's really hard to see how that path is going to go when you are just beginning down it. You don't see how you will get to that long distant goal of the cradling hills.

But you just have to start. You just have to keep going in your baby step, slow going, non stop line of life. It goes on twists and turns.
Start (just begin)
56/100 in 100 creative challenge ( diptych)
Pitt artist pens, gold paint pen

I have no idea what this says. Something about the journey and keep on going.

Well, what else are we gonna do? Lay down and give up?

"Just keep swimming" in the immortal words of Dory the fish.

Blind Map
57/100 in 100 creative challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylic, white and gold paint pens

More pages about the journey. About being lost. About looking for sign posts along the way.

Are there any?

I think there are, but they don't always mean what we think they mean.

Hard things are what you need. Easy things don't last. What you thought would be simple gets oh so complicated. What you thought would be complicated just kind of slips into your life with ease.

Yet we keep looking for these blind maps, trying to find the way in the darkness.

What if we aren't lost at all?

What if we aren't lost at all?
Make a Mess and Clean it Up
58/100 in 100 creative challenge
Mixed media, diptych

I've been doing this page for so long I don't remember what all I did to it, what media I used. It's a blind self portrait and it is many many layers of futzing. That's my interpretation of making a mess and cleaning it up. I started a portrait with the intention that it would be a mess, and I would keep going with it until it felt right and was no longer a mess.

Does it even look like me? I don't think that much, but that's not really important.

Maybe sometime I'll post the various stages of this one, and the reverse side of the page, which is really cool actually. Maybe I'll do something to the reverse and finish it off as a stand alone page.
Make a Mess and Clean it Up
58/100 in 100 creative challenge
Mixed media, diptych (detail)

This morning I felt the urge and knew what to do with the facing page. It was her hair, it was her mind, it was the message. So I drew it in and wrote in the words.

I like the way it turned out and I think it goes well with the highly worked/layered portrait of the other side.

It says

I am learning the lessons I need to learn and it's not easy. i learn to make my messes and to clean them up. failure is temporary.

say yes.

trust your strength.

Believe in yourself.

I'ma trying.

I have many more pages from the book. I two or three paintings in various stages of working. I have no time to post. I have no room to post!

I will have to be backed up until next time.

Oh well, I believe it will all come out all right.

Keep on wrecking. Keep on creating.

Keep on swimming.

49-54 and Thinking About Art

The Sign Says Yes
49/100
pen and ink, Pitt Artist Pen, gold paint pen, 5x8"
This and all following pictures are from my copy of Wreck This Journal, by Keri Smith


This is what my sign says. What I need to hear. What I need to think. No comes too easily to me.

For instance, I keep wanting to not count these Wreck This Journal pages as art. I don't want to count them in my creative challenge because I think I am cheating, but I am not. I keep thinking that all of my creative challenge pieces should be something to sell, but you know what? That's not good for my creativity. It's stifling. Which does not help the YES that I need.Ivy Likes to Paint, Just Not With Her Tongue.
50/100
tongue, crayola marker, pitt artist pen

My "no" wants to say that this is not art.

Lollipop Trees Directed by Ivy
51/100
Pitt Artist Pen

That this is not good enough or finished enough to be considered part of my creative challenge.

YOU SUCK
52/100
Pitt Artist Pen, hilighter, rollerball pen, diptych

My NO likes to say this a lot. This is one of my NO's favorite phrases. The other being, "I can't."
Time Passes in Moments
53/100
Pitt artist pen, diptych

My NO wants to say that this is just hatch marks so it couldn't possible be art, but then my YES (see first picture) reminds me that some of my favorite artists do not use figurative art. Or they use materials that will deteriorate. Or they write with chalk on public sidewalks. Or they factor graphic lines and casual marks into their work on a regular basis. Or repetition functions as a poetic metaphor.

The truth is, that this Wreck This Journal is about breaking out of the boundaries that we all set for ourselves. It is about taking chances and trying new things that we are not comfortable with. It is about experimenting and failing and making messes that we would never make if we were trying to make Art with a capital "A". Art for commerce. Art that other people will look at and say, now that's Art.
Night and Day
54/100
Pitt Artist Pen, Pen, Watercolor, Gel Pen, shower scrubbie. Diptych

Take a look at how I have squooshed all these pieces into one post, although there is something to say about each and every one. There is something to use in my "real" art. This is the mind working, the subconscious, happenstance, experimentations.

This is what art is about, not always about creating a perfect picture or something on canvas or something with masterful technique and craft.

Where is it going? That is the question, here. What path would this piece take me down? What can I utilize here in the next piece I do. Also, it serves as a survey, almost.

What is here in me? What are my thoughts? What are the marks I keep coming back to? What are the colors? What images, what themes, pull me again and again, and why do they?

This is about the exploration of the self, I believe, at least for me.

I don't know if I will ever do anything again with any of these pieces. they could stay stuck in my Wreck This Journal forever, mouldering away, for all I know, after visiting the book club.

But then again, they could lead to my next breakthrough. They could become the new connection. They could tell me what I should be doing with my life.

They've already gotten me thinking.

What about you? What is your current work saying to you about you? How can you break out of your comfort zone and travel to somewhere new?

Pink Dawning Traveling and Carelessly, Now

Pink Dawning Traveling
48/100 in 100 Creative Challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylic on paper, 5x8"

Sometimes, when I sit down here to write I feel like it's the only time I can take a breath and think about my life.

I feel like I am always on the run, even if I am not going somewhere. I'm not even that active a parent, taking kids on outings and all. I just feel like the very day has me on the run. The very day is a whirlwind of averting disaster and kissing booboos and getting everybody fed and cleaned and picking up and putting to bed and playing games and getting them to calm down.

And then there's my To Do list, which is still somewhat spotty in its achievements. I'm always trying to multi task my day and be so productive.

Sometimes I feel caught between my to do list and my living.

Do you have ways to live in the moment without letting your moments take over? Ways of getting things done without letting your To Do list make you into a future machine?

I guess I want to start living in the moment again. It feels so hard.

I'm finding this Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith and Jamie Ridler's bookclub to be a big help in living in the moment. I used to write in my journal like I was mainlining ink and paper. Now I have the blog, but it's a different thing.

Even my paintings are less about my thoughts about life and more about an abstract idea and the application of the paint on the paper. I enjoy it, but it's not the same as the personal tidbits I put into my journals and even Flying Girl. Right now I have pages of paintings and drawings in WTJ that I'd like to share, but the boy is dropping his nap and my time to organize it all is getting shorter. Sigh.

Yesterday, I wrote a poem on the WTJ page with the direction to "WRITE CARELESSLY. NOW"

Here's my poem
Carelessly, Now

carelessly, now
as days shock by in a never ending
cycle of tears and tantrums, cheerios
and milk
the dirty diapers and demands, the
hunger and small soft kisses, carelessly
now we follow the sighs .

carelessly, now. carelessly, now
grasping too tight to that relentless
motion trying to gain control of the
mommy mommy mommy never ending.

carelessly, now
rushing past the very things
that make my heart beat.

carelessly, now
just trying to get through the day
carelessly holding in my own
tears.

carelessly
carelessly
this aching precious life
slipping
by.

bedtime calls
carelessly, now.

waiting to be roused too early
by children and their cuddles
that morph into shrieks. carelessly
now

don't

let go.

Traveling River and City

Traveling River and City
47/100 in 100 Creative Challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylic

Have no fear, faithful readers. I have not been swallowed by the rising tide of new paintings.

We have shifting situations as my kids hit new stages of development (here we call it affectionately "you-have-got-to-be-f***ing*kidding*me twos",) and I have started the process of job searching and resumeing and thinking about what I have to pack for the move.

I've been exhausted and very busy with little time or headspace to get all the paintings and photo-shooting and uploading and posting together. Yipes.

But I got some business done so hopefully I can get on a roll again.

Do you see this painting? I do not know how I feel about it.

I wanted to use smoky grays and purples, after seeing some beautiful things on line, and yet it came out this intense color. And the clouds skipped away from foggy and entered dramaville. It reminds me of standing at this little park in Williamsburg, looking across the East River at the sun going down. We can just pretend it was during the most recent blackout and that's why there are no lights over there. I'd like to say that when that blackout happened, after 9/11 and after all of NYC changed over night, everyone was so worried that there would be crime and looting and madness. They thought it would be full of danger and fear.

But what happened that night was kindness and laughter, music on the sidewalks and restaurants giving away free barbecue. Neighbors who barely spoke invited people to garden parties and people who walked miles and miles to get home stayed on friends' couches until the electicity came on once again.

When it's dark, you wouldn't believe the power of the stars.

Goldenrod Light on Gray Horizon, Traveling

Goldenrod Light on Gray Horizon, Traveling
46/100 in 100 Creative Challenge, 7/15/09
Golden Fluid Acrylics on watercolor paper, 5x8"

This has so many layers and it took me forever. I started out thinking I'd try metallics again. You can actually still see some silver paint in the sky. But it didn't work out. I liked the warm gray better, the umber, and titan buff. And it wasn't yellow to start with, but orange. Can still see some of that there, too. And there's green, too. For something that seems so limited in it's palette, I sure used a lot of colors. I like it.

I think this is it.

I think this is the direction I want to go. I feel the urge to get larger with these paintings. Of course, that's not so easy since I don't have the time, space or supplies to get larger right now. Plus, I am getting ready to move, so not really looking to bring in bulky canvasses and all of that. This is not the time to get larger.

And yet. I feel it growing.

Not only do these paintings make me feel like painting larger, but they also make me think of other things. No. They don't want Flying Girls in them. That is not their purpose. But you know what? They want Flying Girls WITH them. I think these might come in pairs. I think the landscapes might translate into companion FGs. They might be separate, but also have inspired FGs, too. Oh I don't know. Maybe not, but the point is they don't close out the FGs.

I'll tell you something else. I'm going to start listing again in my etsy shop. I just have to work out some logistical problems... mainly time issues, and then I will try. And some of these will be going as originals, not prints at all. I don't actually see these travelings as prints. They seem like originals to me. And the gold Flying Girls have to be originals. Well, these are more logistics. I will give everyone a heads up on my process when I get things worked out.

Golden Traveling and Wreckage

Golden Traveling
43/100 in 100 Creative Challenge 7/14/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on watercolor paper, 5"x8"

Here's a new one. Moving away from the washes, and back to thicker more painterly effects. I was inspired by yesterday's painting, which was orange, but I almost wrote as gold. I thought, hey! why not try a gold landscape? How would that work? If it doesn't work out, I still get a post out of it. This is actually gold and bronze paint, with white and a touch of green and a turquoise, which surprisingly ended up being the same color as was actually in the bronze paint if you let it sit and separate. Like oxidized copper.

The blue I had thought was the sky beneath the clouds... but when I looked again it seemed like mountains. So hey, whatever you want. It's supposed to be abstracted. And then when I was done, I waffled over putting in the light streaks of the other Travelings... was it a gimmick? Was it just thrown in there randomly because I'd done it before. I must have sat there for a good long time with the paint on my brush before deciding that I liked the streaks for the feeling of movement, along with the graphic, flattening element.
What is Left When I Close My Eyes, (Wreck This Journal)
44/100 in 100 Creative Challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylic, Gel Medium, Dryer Lint

Ha Ha! My first inclusion of Wreck This Journal into my 100 paintings in 100 days creative challenge. Let me tell you, with one readjusting of my personal constraints, my totals will shoot up and I will no longer need to feel like I HAVE to paint just to keep up my numbers. I will be free to experiment, to try new things, to be meaningful or explore things that are outside of my Flying Girls or Travelings or what have you.

This wreckage, for instance is from the page that says to collect your pocket lint. I don't have that much pocket lint, and often don't wear pockets and besides, I just didn't like the itsy bitsy pieces I was coming up with. And I remembered seeing some artist somewhere who used dryer lint in different shades, so I thought, what the hey? Why not? I took the lint out and folded it and cut it like a snowflake, then painted the page black, even the instructions. I've decided to not let the instructions rule my wreckage. Then I used gel medium to stick it on. I thought I'd collect more lint, but when I brushed the lint with my hand some of it came off and some of it dusted down onto the rest of the page. Instead, I decided to paint on it. I kind of like the way it came out although I don't know what it means or anything.
Breathe and Release (Wreck This Journal)
45/100 in 100 creative challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylic and Lavender shower gel.

This is the page marked "infuse this page with scent." The kid dumped all my essential rose oil out.. so my night table infused with roses, but I remember reading that to make regular moleskine paper work with watercolors was to wash it with dishsoap, so why not use this pretty smelling soap and mix it with my paint? That's what I did. And it now makes me feel so good and calm whenever I open the book and take a breath in that I wrote about breathing and releasing on the page. Ahh.

There's more wreckage, but a lot of it is in progress. I think I'm using the instructions as kind of background for something that I want to say. Not just exercises for exercise sake, but as kind of prompts into exploration and creativity.

Morning Traveling

Morning Traveling #10
41/100 in 100
Golden Fluid Acrylic on watercolor paper, 5x8"

Slowly working on getting re-un-disorganized.

Making lists of what I need to do this summer. Breaking things down into tasks. Some I should get overwith quickly, if I could just go ahead and do.

I don't seem to be able to pay attention to my lists once I start them. I write a list and let them get lost and ignore them and go back to being confused until I work myself up to writing a list again.

I'm also rethinking my 100 paintings in 100 days goal. I want to continue, but I'm getting too stressed out at being a couple days behind and it's just no fun. It's a chore.

That is not my intention.

So I'm expanding to paintings and drawings. Should I include WTJ? Maybe I should. See the thing here is the journey.

Maybe in the back of my head, I am thinking that everything I do in my 100 in 100 project needs to be saleable. But the truth is, art is not really about the product, not for me. It's about the process. It's really awesome and wonderful to have a beautiful meaningful painting, but it's about what I learn while I am painting. Learn about painting. Learn about myself. Learn about the world.

So if that is true, then focusing only upon PRODUCT work means that my important process is shunted aside. Maybe that's why I feel like painting is a chore sometimes.

Wow. I think that's it.

I don't think it's a coincidence that almost all of the work I've done in the last year is focused around the journey. It's been one hell of a journey these last couple of years. In life and in art. In art and in life.

My paintings reflect that journey, document that journey, and are the very steps of that journey.

So you know what? There may be fewer flying girls and travelings and more... well... experimentation. And I'm counting WTJ from now on. I'm learning a lot from it. It's part of the journey.

Not coincidentally, that will get me caught back up to my 100 in 100 and i will no longer have to fear falling behind.

Sunrise Still Coming and Ground for the Journey

Travelings #8, Sunrise Still Coming
39/100 in 100 creative challenge, 7/8/09
Golden Fluid Acrylics and Pitt Artist Pen on linen finish paper, 3.5"x2.5" ACEO

I drew a pattern on the paper first. I thought I would like the subtlety of it coming through. I do. I'm using the acrylics like a wash, lately. Thinning them with water and laying them on in layers, dripping, blurring. But I can also use them in thicker opaque layers, or rub them out for texture. I like the flexibility, although I still wonder if I should take up watercolors again. Haven't done watercolor in years.Flying Girl as She Moves, or Ground for the Journey
40/100 in 100 creative challenge 7/9/09
Golden Fluid Acrylics on watercolor paper. 5"x8"

I wondered what would happened if I put Flying Girl into one of my travelings.

I don't like it.

I don't think the more illustrative style fits with the more painterly style. It's possible she could fit in another painting, but not in this way. Or perhaps the problem is I changed the proportions of land to sky. I forgot the real vision of the roadside blur and tried to combine it with the more standard long landscape of the old FGs.

Well, try and try again. Keep on swimming. ;)

Oh, and my Wreck This Journal for the week is still drying/in process. I'll try to post it tomorrow.

Travelings, Orange and Fireworks

Travelings #7, Orange
38/100 in 100 Creative Challenge, 7/8/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on Linen Finish Paper, 2.5"x3.5" ACEO

Here I'm starting to explore a little. My son dumped my orange paint on the floor. Yes. Yes he did. I salvaged as much as possible and cleaned up the floor and sent him to his room, and then I got to thinking about why the paintings were always dark blue. Sure, it's dawn, but why always dark blue?

And I thought about switching them up, instead of blue with white and orange lights, I thought why not make the whole painting orange. I thought of making the whole thing a kind of negative, but this is what turned out.
Traveling #6, Fireworks
37/100 in 100 creative challenge
Acrylic on Linen Finish paper ACEO, 7/7/09

This one was inspired because my son watched the fireworks from his bedroom window, behind the avocado tree. I know I didn't get this one right. The proportions in my head were too far off of the proportions of what I was working with. Spacious vs enclosed. And the fireworks take away from that feeling of movement. Plus, isn't that spark going to set the field on fire?

Anyway. 100 paintings in 100 days and you're going have some duds. That's okay. Crap. I'm still behind. I've got to stop taking these lazy breaks. (Oh, I don't want to paint today, I'm too tired!)

I actually have been thinking about what it takes to keep the movement going forward in life. I'm pretty sure that it's not flying that keeps you moving.

I think it's grounding.

I'm trying to figure out how to ground myself so that I can fly. I think I might need to take better care of the mundane things, things like housekeeping and mail. It's kind of tough for me, because I've always lived in a world of thought and speculation and creating.

Maintaining our spaces and our bodies, that's grounding. Maintaining our relationships. Maintaining the order of our world.

The only thing I can think of to get this grounding going is to start keeping my lists again, to dos and did dones. I should take up yoga again, but I don't know how I'm going to get here, (no yoga) to there (yoga). I might have to wait until I move to do that.

Anyone have any suggestions for grounding, so all this movement doesn't unbalance the journey?

More Travelings

Traveling #4
35/100 in 100 creative challenge. 7/4/09
Golden Fluid acrylic on linen finish paper, ACEO 2.5"x3.5"


Traveling #5
36/100 in 100 Creative Challenge 7/5/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on linen finish paper, ACEO 2.5"x3.5"

To tell you the truth, I missed a week somewhere. Well, it just blurred right by me. I could have sworn it was there somewhere, but I looked up and it was gone.

Like when the car goes fast and you look out the window at the passing landscape.

It can be so beautiful, but there's so much, some of it is much the same, and it goes by without stopping, no landmark to call you to attention, and it become one big passing.

I'm a little bit afloat. But still moving.

Just keep moving, right? Just keep moving.

Traveling Treasury and Wreckage

My first news is very exciting for me. I grabbed my first etsy treasury. It's probably because it was the holiday weekend and not everyone is sitting around at home while little kids nap. But I did it! I got one. Woo Hoo!

It was so much fun. I have moving on my mind. I want to do a roadtrip across country, but I don't know if it will work out. We might have to go another route. BUT, the very concept inspired my window shopping and curating. The treasury is called Traveling, just like my aceos. These are almost all new shops to me, but most of them just popped right up in the search to be exactly what I wanted. Please take a look, it won't last long. In Wreckage news... somehow, I can't see taking my book into the shower. I just don't want to, and my shower is very tight. There isn't anywhere to put it but on the floor. Not willing to do that. So as an alternate, I put it out in the torrential downpour in the garden. There are puddles showing the rain drops.
I also dropped paint, in various dilutions and colors and then closed the book here to make a print. The kids really enjoyed watching this process. I did it color by color, rather than all the different colors together. And you can't really tell, but the last shade is gold, and it gives it a lovely butterfly wing kind of sheen.
This is the page that went along with my Traveling ACEOs. I actually kept the little cards on the paper as I painted. Part of the painting was drips and runs, so I let the ACEOs drip onto the page, as well as wiping and testing paint on the page. I like the color theme. I might add more lately.

I didn't do a whole lot of wreckage this week, but I am noticing that it is having an effect on my art. The experimentation of the book is leading me to things that draw me. Things like repetition and pattern, for instance. Using less figurative work and more conceptual. These are things I have used in the past, so maybe I'm just getting back to them.

I still am uncomfortable with letting go of things. Proabably why I didn't want to completely soak my book. I don't want to lose something that I like. I will work on it.

Travelings

Three ACEOs
Traveling 3
Traveling 2
Traveling 1
32, 33 & 34/100 in 100 Creative Challenge, 6/3/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on linen finish paper, 2.5"x3.5"

And with these ACEO's I'm caught up with the challenge! Hurrah. But I don't fool myself that I won't be skipping days here and there.

I like the smudgy darkness. The suggestions of trees and hills and roads. And then, when I added the blur of the light the interplay between the indistinct dark blue and the bright sharp white made it come alive. And the pop of orange? Zoom! It came to life. I imagine movement and stillness... at the same time. Serenity and time passing. Power and passivity.

I really like these. Throughout my time with Flying Girl, I have still loved landscapes. I still love abstract art. I was surprised at finding myself using these ACEO's almost like thumbnail paintings. Planning. Exploration. A place to try new things that have been rooting around in the back of my head. Like these pictures I took almost a year ago.
This is another of my roadtrip series that I rediscovered while cleaning out my photo files. I love them. They have captured my imagination, just like they did when I took them. I suspected then that it was just my own eccentricity that was drawn to the underexposed, blurred, smudgy, ruined photo. But I don't care!

Let me tell you. I know I know nothing about exposures and lighting. I know my pictures are often blurry and grainy. I don't know if I printed them out if they would be anything at all. I know there are many photographers who would toss these images out in the trash, or who wouldn't have taken them at all, but I love them.

I think that because I don't have the training of a "real" photographer, I am free to explore anything I want. I don't know what is correct and what is not, so I can just go with what feels right.

We all know there are benefits to being trained and expert in a thing, but perhaps we take for granted the benefits to be found in being a beginner.

Flying Girl and Flowers, or Deluge

Flying Girl and Flowers, or Deluge
30/100 in 100 Creative Challenge, 7/1/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on paper, 5x8"

This was inspired a day that woke up to poop, and just kept on going in that vein. I said to myself, "Self, this is a day for flowers." And then, as the sky opened up, yet again into the kind of rainfall that actually scares you with it's ferocity, I realized, the kind of days that are made of shit are the kind of days that feed the flowers... both metaphorically and literally.

I know the Northeast has been inundated with rain, but we had a hot dry streak instead, down here in Florida, finally broken by this system that just sits here and lets loose. I prefer it to the heat where I have to hide all day in shade and air conditioning.

Anyway, I once made a FG with flowers inside, also in a rainstorm. This one was definitely on my mind as I painted the new one (I used silver paint here, in case you can't see it). I notice she doesn't have an umbrella. She's not trying to take cover from the storm, she's just existing within it. I think I might list it in my shop as an original as soon as I figure out the shipping.

On the plus side, I think by tomorrow, I will be caught up with my paintings and my posts... thanks to a nifty series of ACEOs. Tiny paintings are a life saver when you're trying to keep the numbers up. Oh yeah, and a painting that I am choosing not to post, because it is U.G.L.Y. And it ain't got no alibi. But it still counts towards my total. :)

I Am the Treasure and I Will Not be Afraid

Flying Girl When She Loses Her Way, or I am the Treasure
27/100 in 100 creative challenge
GOlden Fluid Acrylic, gold paint pen and Pitt artist pens on paper 5x8"

I am so behind. And sweating up a storm. It's hot after the deluge of this morning. Ahh Florida. I've been editing photos in my computer all week and am still 9 months away from today. A package came for G's birthday from his Wisconsin grandma. Yesterday we had some accidents that needed to be cleaned up, nothing serious, but messy and time consuming. Once done, I felt better. Today has been technical difficulties and beginning the process of purging whatever we have collected this past year that is unnecessary in a new life across the country.

To tell the truth, I feel a little lost. Not sure what to do next or how to tackle it all. there's time, but so much!

I did some list making yesterday, and that helped. I'm going to continue in this. Prioritize. Recognize what is necessary and figure out the baby steps needed to get there.

Still painting, but still behind in posting. And I want to start listing new items in my etsy shop. I think it's time. I was a little overwhelmed in my desire to do etsy full time while being a full time mom and still a writer and artist. I need to pull the shop back and go more slowly. I think I can manage it if I organize and prioritize. It's all coming. Slowly.

Maybe this Flying Girl will help me remember what else I need to accomplish all I need to do. Actually... she did. I painted her, and started to break through some of my stuckness.
Flying Girl and the Writing on the Wall, or I Will Not be Afraid
026/100
Acrylic and paint pen, paper 5x8

Viva La Flying Girl