Everything is Possible, or Whale in a Bowl
78/100 in 100 creative challenge
Acrylic on paper, 5x8
Another piece commissioned by my kids. He asked for a whale in an aquarium, and I thought I'd try round instead of square. And paint makes me feel like it's more finished. He's really into aquariums, terrariums and pets right now. He's moved on a little from making movies, but he may be back. Oh the obsessions these kids have.
Anyway, he picked these colors. I never would have picked them. But once I started, I could see how they would work. G, however thought the whale blue was too dark and he yelled at me to change it,(ah those tantrumming clients) however, I held him off until the colors were all in and he could see what they looked like together. I said I would change it if he didn't like it, but in the end, we were all satisfied. These colors remind me of a boy's outfit. Brown cords and a bright shirt. Actually, I think this would make a good tshirt.
The words are mine, of course.
B is for Blocks, or build.79/100 in 100 creative challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylic and Pitt artist pen on paper, 5x8"
This was first a sketch of a block tower G did. I was impressed with the precarious tilted balance of it. (please no one mention the unfortunatel phallic appearance. I didn't notice until later, but I still like the colors and paint treatment.) Then G demanded that I paint it and these are the colors he chose... sort of. He wanted multicolored blocks, but I went ahead and did green.
Anyway. I've been thinking about my inspiration and about my self imposed constraints, lately.
When I first thought about getting back to art, after having my kids, I thought the only/best way to do it was to integrate my daily life (mothering) with the art, allowing my kids and my day to inspire my art. When I first got back to this blog, that's what I was doing.
When I started to paint every day, I carved out the time to commit to making art, but I created a limited theme to work with. That's when I started Flying Girl... or when I took her up again. She was an image I first painted in college. I limited myself to Flying Girl so that I didn't have to come up with new inspirations every day. It allowed me to get back into a routine and to explore my craft and to expand my definitions while not making me crazy trying to figure out what to paint every day.
I'm very thankful to Flying Girl even if I don't always paint her everyday.
I've kind of gotten off of the "limiting my creativity to one theme." I think I've broken into the painting habit and no longer need such tight constraints to feel comfortable. I have gotten used to being an artist. I can now do Flying Girls or Travlings or Flowers or sketches of my day or Child Inspired drawings. It feels good to expand, but there was a time when having that freedom would have frozen me up. There were too many choices for me to go deep.
Where in your life do you think it would serve you to have fewer choices, instead of more? Where could constraints allow you to go deeper into your life, your craft, your experience?
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2 comments:
Love the whale and all it represents. . . .love the tower and all the shading--wonderful depth on the whole piece.
Your closing question is a huge one to me. .. I don't know how everybody else lives, but I have a million ideas living in my head, and for so long, I felt like a failure if I didn't allow every single one to come to fruition. Naturally I spent all the time feeling like a failure, because a hundred lifetimes isn't enough to DO all I imagine.
It's the sheer number of things that I need to do, or imagine doing, that freezes me. Just plain paralyzes me.
I"ve learned to listen to which of the ideas hollers a little louder than the others, which glows a little more brightly . . .which whispers more insistently. It's like lots are calling to me, but I have to listen for the one that something in me sends out an answer to . .
I've had to just change my perception of my inner process and realize that I may imagine 100 things, consider maybe 20, seriously contemplate 10, and then DO 1. But I need to review that quite often, because I can still feel as if those "undone" 99 ideas are like the starfish dying at the edge of the sea . . .
I don't have a good answer, but having too many choices is something I think about a lot - in my life, in my art, in the way I spend my time... For art, I go back and forth between trying to expand my horizons (new materials, subjects, etc.) and placing limits on myself in order to go deeper into one theme or body of work. Sometimes freedom is helpful, and sometimes it's paralyzing.
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