Beep Bop and Bop Beep

Flying Alien Says Happy Birthday, or Our Friend Beep Bop
016/100 in 100 Creative Challenge 6/16/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on Moleskine Watercolor paper, 5x8"

Thinking about birthdays... my son's birthday is coming up, and we are having an early party for him before his father leaves on a trip.

I decided that I would paint him a picture, and all sorts of prompts came together into this painting. The IMT prompt of Child's Play, the totally optional Creative Everyday June prompt of sound, since this is a character from our bedtime story telling. And also, my first entry into the etsy bloggers group, whose biweekly theme is Birthdays.

He's asked for berry cake, ice cream cones, chicken nuggets, french fries and juice. Oh and presents.

And of course, what one child has, the other child must have, too, so I painted a companion piece. Beep Bop's sister Bop Beep, for Gabriel's sister Ivy.
Flying Alien Brings Ice Cream Cones, or Our Friend Bop Beep
017/100 in 100 Creative Challenge 6/16/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on Moleskine Watercolor paper, 5x8"

I think I will tell a story where Beep Bop and Bop Beep come down from outers pace, and Gabriel and Ivy give them presents.... perhaps one gets a tshirt w a picture of a human boy, and one gets a green and purple tutu.

Tonight, instead of an alien story, I told a story about pirates and pirate ghosts. What can I say, it was an audience request.

Flying Girl Like a Child, or Yes to Life

Flying Girl Like a Child, or Yes to Life
015/100 in 100 Creative Challenge 6/15/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on moleskine watercolor paper, 5x8"

Did I paint like a child? Probably not. But my intention was to do so. I was thinking about the way my son draws, but trying to combine it with the flying girl. It's an approximation. S says it reminds him of Francis Bacon, and I can see the similarities, but I would like to think that mine is not so nightmarish. I think I was influenced still by TST I saw red prompt. But also by Inspire Me Thursday Child Draw prompt. I don't know if it matters, but there is also gold in this painting, that you can't see in this picture.

It can be quite interesting to see what happens when you put two prompts together.

In fact, that can be the what makes creativity take off. I remember reading Orson Scott Card's website... probably his writing workshop... and in it, he said that his novels always start out with at least TWO instigating inspirations. Two separate and possibly clashing ideas that allow all sorts of tensions and connotations to grow within them.

What do you do to get that inspiration pop? Do you have any tricks or treats to turn your ideas into works of art?

How have you managed to keep your ideas flowing?

Sunny Flowers and Shade

Sunny Flowers and Shade
Mixed Media on Vintage Book Page

Hi all. Still here. Sorry for not posting lately. Still funking over here, but that's not the only thing. The economy has hit us kind of hard and worried creep up. I also don't have as much access to the computer as I did before and not as much time to work. Plus I'm not really feeling creatively inspired.

It got me to thinking.

What do we do when we are in a time of constraint? When the motion that was happening before seems to choke up and slow down?

It would be very easy to get cranky and sulky. I can't deny that I don't do that sometimes. But it really isn't a productive way to deal with constraints. Frankly, it just makes you feel worse.

So when I was being cranky and not really liking what I was painting and not really wanting to paint anything anyway and feeling sulky that I had to share my computer time and all around just kind of grumpy, I thought I'd just try something new.

Well, not new. Old. I took out one of my old loose book pages, torn from the altered book I did years ago. In fact, a page that I had already started drawing on... if you look closely, you'll see the outline of a hand and a few words within the petals that have been circled. I drew my Mother's Day flowers on the page and fussed and fussed with it until I found it was acceptable.

So here's what I made within my constraints. Something loose. Something that wasn't defined before I went in, but was allowed to grow of it's own accord. I let myself mess up and just painted on another layer.

Sometimes, I think dealing with our constraints as they are helps us to be more creative. We have to search for new avenues to take, new uses of old things, ways to make our limits into freedom.

I have no answer for getting out of constraints that are too tight. I only have ways of making the constraints not feel quite so constraining.

ps This also fits the "Petal" prompt for Inspire Me Thursday.

Flying Girl and the Umbrella, or Learning the Dance of the Balance

Flying Girl and the Umbrella, or Learning the Dance of the Balance
Golden Acrylics on paper 6x9"

It is quite a struggle lately for me to put up my posts, I'm finding. I'm still painting, but all the computer stuff is not getting done quite as thoroughly.

Sometimes I get frustrated and think there is something wrong.

But sometimes I realize that there is a reason for not being as on top of things as I have been in the past.

First of all, the economy has hit us rather hard. And it's not the end of the world, but it does make things difficult and the mood can take a hit.

But beyond that, I'm realizing that I actually have less time to work than I used to. I don't have as much computer time, because I am sharing time with S. (I don't mention him much, because the blog isn't really about him.) And the children are changing their habits. G is getting ready to drop his nap. Horrors! And Ivy likes to keep his wakefulness company. Plus, there are a few other things that have taken my attention.

This is a new movement to the dance that I have been trying to balance and sometimes we need to recognize our own need to step back and learn the steps a little better before diving back in to just boogie away.

All right. I don't know if that metaphor makes sense, but I have to go because my various responsibilities call to me.

Someday I'll be more present, I think. Until then, I'm just going to have to pop in now and again, drop my posts, and pop back out. I have faith that this is just part of the process.

Oh yeah, this is a prompt from Inspiremethursday, and is "Umbrella."

Hello Ladies! Winter Spring Summer and Fall

acrylic on 140lb watercolor paper 2.5"x3.5" ACEOs
clockwise from top right
Girl of the Blooming Sun
Girl of the Bold Path
Girl of the Falling Leaves
Girl of the Bees

Funny how when I put these girls together, I realized that they were the four seasons.

I had mean Blooming Sun to be summer, but she could just as easily be late Spring when the flowers are in bloom. Isn't she gorgeous? She reminds me of an old time Hollywood movie star. When they wore emu mules and chiffon and full face make up to lounge around the house. Of course she would have a crown of flowers.

And Bold Path came out of the Inspire Me Thursday prompt for "key." I drew a girl, I drew a key, I asked myself..."what is this the key to?" And as she appeared, I realized it was the key to living a life outside of the box, going for dreams no matter what everyone else is doing. Thus the magenta hair, I suppose. But the whole key is that she is bold and she is brave, and she carries on although she is afraid.

Falling Leaves? Well. I was outside in the garden, watching the gold and brown leaves fall off the trees while the Spring green ones grew in. Spring in Florida is weird. Everything is yellowed and heavy. The weather is stunning, but there is no clear blue, crisp white, pale green, blushing pink of Spring in New York. I miss the Spring there, the renewal. But it's also lovely. I mean, I've been hanging out in the garden steadily for the last month, and I know the northerners have been fighting snow, still.

Ahh... see... there it is. When I painted her, Falling Leaves was about learning to let go of things and enjoying the beauty that is there. A tree doesn't hang on to her leaves when they turn bronze? She revels in the blaze of color and then releases them so she can move on to the next stage of life. I should take the lesson from this girl.

And Bees. Oh Bees. I love Bees. I love her serene face. I love the little buzzers crowning her head. I love the blue background and how she seems to emanate light. I love the ovals of face and hair and hive. She is not stung by those bees. How? Is she the Queen? Is she the one that cares for them. She's no flower, she's golden and calm.

So here are my latest goddess girls. Sorry that they are late. I had a very full day yesterday and couldn't get to the whole process of photo/edit/upload/write/post.

I will be putting the original ACEOs up in my shop as the day goes on. Come see!

Flying Girl Remembers her Courage, or I Am the Adventure

Flying Girl Remembers her Courage, or I Am the Adventure
3/25/09
Golden Fluid Acrylics, Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens, and white gel pens on paper, 7"x10"

Sometimes I forget that this is all about the adventure. It's not about getting things right or being rich or even being productive. I forget that I am not just a person on this journey of life, but I am constantly in flux myself. I am not a thing, I am a being. I am the living. I am the adventure.

So I drew myself a hippie chick on a safari. Or maybe she's on a walkabout. Or maybe she's just hiking into the landscape. It really doesn't matter where she is or what she's doing on this trek, or where she's going to end up. What matters is that she continues on, like the light, like the sky, like an adventure.

I also am incorporating the prompt for Inspire Me Thursday, late though I am. Well, the prompt it "I am."

Flying Girl On Her Way to the Moon, or Take The Leap

Flying Girl On Her Way to the Moon, or Take The Leap
3/1/09
Golden Fluid Acrylics on Paper, 5x8"

Moon is the prompt for this week's Inspire Me Thursday. Dreams is the totally optional theme for this month's Creative Everyday. Karen at Beelieve painted a flying girl and my flying girl followed hers into space. Plus I had a new violet paint color that I wanted to try out. It seemed appropriate for space, because I didn't really want it to be a dark painting, but a dreamy one.

I love it when you pull on various threads for your inspiration and something unforeseen appears. Reach for the moon. Follow your dreams.

This is also about fears, which I wrote about in the Instinct FG post, and which I just read about over on Havi's blog. Fears and dreams. Taking the leap. Letting the fears be acknowledged... and taking the leap anyway and going for those dreams, because it's that important.

She's not wearing a space suit... although I like to think her dress has a metallic protective kind of shimmer about it. Okay, it's just gray. No helmet. No jet pack or space shuttle for that matter. This journey is under her own power. And I don't think purple heels offer much in the way of defense against the void.

She's not prepared for space... but look at that, she's almost reached her destination.

The Long Journey

Flying Girl Receives Assistance on the Long Journey, or Elephant Spirit
1/14/09
White Gel Pen, Golden Fluid Acrylic, Prismacolor Watercolor Pencils.

This painting is about all the helpful spirits we encounter on our journey to ourselves. There really is no reason to do it alone. Help comes from everywhere if you are looking for it and allowing yourself to receive it.

It might come from the inside, your own ancient wisdom, that you so frequently ignore. It might come from words that you read, here or there, and that give you that frisson of understanding, connection. It might come from those real live people around you, the ones who give you a hug when you need it, or a home, or take the kids so you can do your work. It might be a question placed before you, which, when you search for the answer, gives you the key to your path. It might be someone's painting, or challenge, or prompt, that allows the soul to come out and see the light, see that the path is still there, and you are moving forward, and in the right direction.

I don't really want to explain the meaning behind this painting anymore than that, because, well, there's so much in it, I don't really know where to start, and I'd like you to take your own meaning from it.(detail) Flying Girl Receives Assistance on the Long Journey, or Elephant Spirit

But I will explain how I did it. Because I had fun.

It started with a blue watercolor pencil, as I sketched in the elephant. I didn't have a photo or a model, and relied upon my memory. I kind of think I did a good job. I like my elephant, even if the details aren't there. She's more the idea of an elephant anyway. I sketched her, and FG, and added swirls to her. I've been enjoying letting my sketch show through, so my choice of paint depended on how it would interact with the blue. I did the blue and cream the day before and was getting tired of that, so I picked purple, since it was transparent and I hadn't used it in a while. And then I thought I'd try some pale yellow to contrast the purple, and then thought, hey, why not try that old Quinadcridone gold in my bag that is always too bright for my needs. So I did, and while I enjoyed leaving the painterly brush marks, the contrast was too jarring, so, you know what I did? Tried to fix it with white, but that just, yuck, so... I glazed over all of it with the quinadcridone gold, purple, yellow, gold, white. And it all just mellowed out into a nice orange. I really like this orange. The heat of it, the depth of it. The brown/yellow that happened when it went over the purple. Surprising and satisfying. Ah, adventure.

Then I put it away and this morning, looked at it.

I still liked it, liked the overall orangeness. Like that I could still see the spirals of the blue sketch underneath and the layers of color and the brushmarks, but I could tell that it needed definition. How to get it?

As I sorted through the options in my mind, I knew I didn't want to cover the elephant or take away from the feel of her. I knew I wanted her to stand out, too. I thought about adding words, and then I decided the white gel pen was the best way to go. I never got around to adding words, as the patterns... the swirls echoing the elephant spirals, and the dots that remind me of aboriginal paintings, which I've always loved, they all took over. Now I love it.

The detail above is my favorite part. I like the water and the way it interacts with the spiral pattern and the dot pattern of the sand, and the shape the elephant's upturned (for luck) trunk makes.

This painting was created out of gathered inspiration, a growing love for elephants, experimentation and play.

I want to do more like that.

The Dress

Last night, in the midst of sewing my almost 2 year old's Christmas doll, I said, "I hate sewing. I like painting much better." It might have been because I do all my sewing by hand, and my fingers were ouchie and probably growing needle calluses.

Painting is much quicker. And I have a better facility. Give me a pen and I can whip up an idea, lickety splickety. See? Look at the sketch I have above for my idea of what the dolly's dress would look like.

However, sewing, I'm working on the idea for a week. Hagrumph.

Let me give you a little background.

I don't sew. Or I haven't since I was 13 and trying to make a night gown with my grandfather's sewing machine. It was hard and I gave up. But my grandfather was the kind of person who rescued abandoned chairs, stripped, stained, recaned and reupholstered them. He was the kind of guy who built a sailboat from scratch in his boat barn and sailed down the Mississippi into Tampa bay. If you gave him some fiber glass, some bits of wood and a bolt of fabric, he could make you boyfriend. Well, okay, not really, but he could make you a boat.

My grandmother, on the other hand. The grandma on the other side of the family, really could sew. In fact, she was a seamstress in a sweat shop in what, 30 years later, would turn into the hip and trendy neighborhood where I lived. My grandmother used to sew my dolls dresses all the time. Whip whip whip. There was a dress. I believe I probably tried to sew some of them, too. And I distinctly remember creating a stuffed thing with my sister. We named it Shmoo. My grandmother also taught me how to crochet and embroider.

I never really took to any of the needle crafts. I'd fuss around with a cross stitch and then drop it. Same for sewing, crochet, embroidery, macrame, knitting, etc.

So I have a broad and beginners base of knowledge about sewing dolls and their doll dresses, a DIY ancestral attitude, and a year of HS fashion design where we learned the (very) basics of dress construction.
And this is what I came up with. My little girl's dolly's dress... how lucky that the prompt for Inspire Me Thursday is Dress?

Doesn't look much like the sketch, does it? And yes, it stands up on its own.

Well, I realized my sewing skills and my fingers couldn't handle the gathering of the fabric. And then I remembered that I wanted to make her a fairy doll, anyway. So I went back to the tulle I had leftover from Ivy's tutu, and made that into a skirt. Doing it reminded me of when I made my sister's veil from her wedding. I made a crystal bead and silver wire tiara, too. See, there's that inherited DIY thing again.
Here's a teaser of what the doll looks like, unfinished. Hair, still unbraided. Without a face or flowers.

I'm kind of pleased with the way she turned out. I combined a couple of different patterns and took what I learned from making the robot, and let myself be inspired by my Flying Girls.

And just so you know, I tried the dress on her, and she looks FABULOUS. But I'm saving that picture until I get all the ribbons and details on her.

So there you go. You don't actually have to be good at something in order to create something awesome.

You learn as you go. You make mistakes and fix them and change your mind and discover something better and then... then you get proud of yourself.

Make a Robot Gift

Robot with 8 Arms, 8 Legs and 8 Antennae
12/5/08
pen on paper

Where have I been? What have I been up to?

I've been taking a break from Flying Girls and Oracles and Painting, but I have been crazy creative.

As soon as AEDM and Nano ended, I remembered about Christmas.

I switched over from my personal art to gift making. And also making things with and for my kids.

So far this month, I have made play clay, made play clay snowmen with the kids, and a Santa Hat, and a Christmas tree. I have made a crown... which was supposed to be for the girl, but she didn't like it, so it became an evil robot king crown. I love duct tape, styrofoam and cardboard. And a Halloween cape.

I made some softies for the kids presents, I made chicken soup from scratch, I made snowflakes with the kids. Lots of making, many things that I am still working on.

And I also made a song with the melody from "Silent Night" but the words altered to be about children sleeping through the night until 8am. That morning they actually slept until 8am? Coincidence or the magic of the Christmas Season? You decide.

Oh, and I designed the above Robot... destined, with his fellows, to become a Christmas gift painting for the boy-- which is why I'm using this for Inspire Me Thursday's prompt of "Make a Gift". This is his Robot Christmas. Ask him what he wants, and he says "Robot!" In fact, he helped me design the above robot. He drew a sketch and told me how many arms, legs, eyes and antennae it should have. I complied. I'd show you the sketch, but it got colored in. The complete painting is still under wraps. Hmm. And I'm going to make a softie robot, based on Martha's doll (Ivy will get a doll softie) and I think I need to design that robot before I start on it. Hmm. Much more gift making to do.

I don't know how much personal painting I will get to do this month. And I haven't even touched my novel. For shame.

Well, it's okay to take a step back now and again... although I did want to keep up my noveling. Hm. Grump.

Flying Girl Will Make It Through, or Believe

Flying Girl Will Make It Through, or Believe
11/8/08 AEDM #8
Golden Fluid Acrylics

Nanowrimo grand total 21,227 (3362 words yesterday)


Been thinking about change, lately. And how scary it can be to change. We are creatures of habit and we like to know how things work. Like my routine, for instance. I have created my routine around me so that I can keep track of my work, my life, my kids, my brain.

But perhaps it is good to shake things up a bit sometimes.

Yesterday, instead of putting the kids to bed right at noon, I let them play in their room. Now G always plays in his room, while Ivy sleeps in her crib, but yesterday, I brought up some of the playroom toys and put them in their room. The new set up gave the toys a new light, and they were fun again, after languishing in the corner. They played together, creating a choo choo train out of a play mat and who know what else they did, since they waved bye bye to me and shut the door whenever I came to check on them. Finally, we get to a place where they can entertain each other.

The same day, we decided to rearrange the house, moving the playroom to a smaller, enclosed porch, with more light and air. The boy loved it right away, seeming to feel a sense of ownership over "his" room. The girl needed some adjustment, feeling uncomfortable until she realized she could pull the little side table up to her little chair and eat or draw or whatever. Now they love it.

I have to say I feel a little disoriented. I may be more like Ivy in needing to adjust and find my way in the new situation, but at the same time, it feels like air has been let into even more areas of life. I know it will take me a few days to adjust, to rearrange my space, my day and my habits, but otherwise, I feel as if there is room now for some new paths. Wait until I fix it up and show you my new "office." I never would have shown you my previous one. This is my working station when the kids are awake, where I can research and plan and list, before I get to the real work when the kids go down. New play space, new work space.

Yes. More change. Life, not political slogan.

What does this have to do with my FG today? Maybe I'm wondering about the constraints of the FG project. I mean, how long will I continue? I enjoy FG, but day in and day out for almost two months now? I'm getting a little bit tired.

I don't really want to give up painting every day... but sometimes our routines benefit by being shaken up, just witness changing the playroom around. The kids have more independence in their new space and I feel as if there's a little less clutter in my head and it allowed my new work area. A place where I can still supervise the littles, but not be stuck into a little cluttered corner.

I have an idea for the FG project that I have been kicking around in my head for years. I've always been a little too frightened to start it, because it's a big project that is a bit demanding. But after doing FG all this time, I've begun to believe that I am actually fully capable of doing this new project. I don't know if it will all work out, but all of my FG pictures didn't work out, either. Some of them, though, I just adore and succeeded beyond my expectations. The project itself, the whole of it, succeeded beyond anything I thought would happen.

So that brings me back to today's FG. It's very simple. I did that on purpose. It's a return to the beginning of FG, silhouettes and horizon. But I added a word. "Believe." Because, really it's about faith. You have to have faith in yourself, so that you can move forward and reach your dreams. Even if you are frightened by the scope of a project, or by the unknown, or the possibility of failure, you have to believe that you can handle whatever comes your way.

All you warriors out there... are you listening to me?

You gots to believe in YOU.

PS Kate, I am going to respond to your wonderful award, but I have to find a time when I don't have writing and/or painting on my agenda, and this has been an upside down weekend.

PPS This is actually after the fact, but I have decided to post this entry to Inspire Me Thursday. It's an open topic, and I think this is the one that I would like to share with the Inspire Me community, because so many people are on their own warrior type creative adventure.

Flying Girl Sometimes Suffers from Anxiety, or Nervous

Flying Girl Sometimes Suffers from Anxiety, or Nervous
10/18/08
Golden Fluid Acrylic and Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens.

This was the Inspire Me Thursday prompt, Nervous. I actually wanted to make her much less nervous, inside of a calm bubble, in that chaotic world. It didn't work out. Flying Girl is nervous, there is no way to pretend serenity.

Maybe that's okay. There is nothing wrong with the various states of being. No one is bad for feeling anxiety. Maybe if we can admit to our own anxiety (depression, neurosis, egotism, obsessiveness or whatever imbalance we have), then we can get closer to balance.


Striped Flying Girl Grins 10/18/08
The Big Draw #18
Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens

For instance, this grinning flying girl fully accepts her own uglies. She embraces them and in the face of them, is beautiful. Watch out if she asks you to dance, though... you might be in for a wild ride.

Interestingly, Ivy was watching me while I drew her. If I went too near the stripes, to try to fix them or add a detail, she would cry, "noooo." Hm. I think she liked the stripes. I might be raising me a little baby fashionista. She does love her accessories.Jarett Monster and the Cupcake, 10/18/08
The Big Draw 18
Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen.

This is Striped Flying Girl's little brother. He was actually the first striped monster to be drawn, before stripey FG. He was inspired by an old student of mine, who used to draw these monsters with barred teeth. Years later, I would find graffiti scattered about NYC of his monsters and I knew the Jarrett Monster had been there.

My Jarrett monster is not quite at ease with his uglies... as he hasn't quite learned to understand them, yet. But if you give him a cupcake, he will be very happy.

Sometimes all we need is a cupcake.

What is your cupcake of choice that helps you through your uglies? I think mine is fun tv. So You Think You Can Dance, or Heroes, or America's Next Top Model... escapist stuff. Maybe I shouldn't paint during those shows, multi tasking my night into anxiety, but just have a cupcake, and enjoy.

Flying Girl Out Beyond Ideas, or Field

Flying Girl Out Beyond Ideas, or Field
Golden Fluid Acrylics. Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens, Prismacolor Watercolor Pencils

Out beyond ideas
of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.

I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down
in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language
- even the phrase “each other” -
do not make any sense.

-Rumi

This painting was inspired by the above poem, the prompt for InspireMeThursday this week. I think it's a pretty literal interpretation of the poem, actually and not much is needed for interpretation.

But it was not easy to paint. I wanted it to feel kind of dreamy, because it is about a concept, not about an actuality, but I also didn't want it to be too vague. Plus, I had issues with the male figure. For a while, it just looked like a chalk outline at a murder scene. Not really the idea I was going for. And of course, a little house was added in last. I have houses on the brain, I guess. It asked to be put there, though. When I was almost done, that blank hill wanted a house, so I obliged.

Here, FG is wearing a white sundress and leather wrap sandals and red beads. I wonder if the way FG is dressing up is a reflection of my returning attention to style? I don't dress like that, it's far too unpractical with peanut butter smeared hands about, but I wouldn't mind playing with clothes and shoes and jewelry again. I think I am beginning to. I guess FG is too. It makes her less conceptual, I think, and more real. That's not a bad thing. But I'm not bound to the idea of fashion Flying Girl. Sometimes it's okay to just be a shadow, or an aura, and not wear a flower in your hair.

Flying Girl in the Tree Tops, or Silhouette
The Big Draw #11
Black Pen, Golden Fluid Acrylics

And here she is, back to a shadow. I like this one. I have always loved silhouettes, the way branches or lamp posts or buildings are shadowed against a sky. This drawing is a conglomeration of many ideas. First of all, the background is from days ago, when I had mixed too much paint for another FG and didn't want to waste it, because I'm cheap... uh, thrifty. So I covered a blank page with what was left, figuring I could come back and fill it in. Even though I often don't come back to an old page in my journal. I am always going forward.

But then, my kids were watching the Disney version of Robin Hood (with the foxes as Robin and Maid Marian) and for one shot, they were in the woods, and all you could see was this pattern of silhouetted leaves behind them. I gasped. How lovely. And filed the idea away in my brain for a time when I needed something to do. Then, as I was flipping around in my journal, there was my sky, painted already for my branches to be outlined against, and I just started drawing.

It's kind of shaky and smudgy. I did most of it while watching the kids, so I was often interrupted and sometimes being climbed upon. My hand picked up the wet ink and transferred it to the clean page. The lines wiggled about and there often spaces where there shouldn't be.

But you know what? That imperfection really goes with who I am. Not only am I a recovering perfectionist who needs to remember that nothing is perfect and good enough is often just dandy, but I also really like the lived in and loved in look. I like battered things. Things thrown out to be salvaged by someone else. Things bent and aged with finger prints. Not fixer uppers, things with character and personality.

This is a drawing that could not have been done by Disney's studios. Too messy. It could not have been done by a computer. This is done by an imperfect hand with much else to do. If I left a fingerprint on it, it's because it is who I am.

Flying Girl and the Big Wave, or Tsunami AND Flying Girl Follows Her Teachers, or Fish

Flying Girl and the Big Wave, or Tsunami 10/8/08
Golden Liquid Acrylics, Prismacolor Watercolor Pencil

Unlike the night before, where I had no ideas for a painting but jumped anyway, last night, I was flooded with ideas. I had no less than THREE sketches before I sat down with my paint.

Which to choose? The more challenging one, with more details, and a newer style, which was, however, slightly undefined? This one, with the wave, that was slightly scary? Or the final one, a simple idea based on some newspaper clippings with an idea I had been thinking about for days?

In the end, I went with the one that gave me that squoonch in my stomach. I happen to be afraid of tsunamis. Even large surf at a beach makes me dizzy. And yet, I've had the metaphor of "riding the wave" for many months to help me through all sorts of struggles and triumphs.

This was a pretty easy painting. I did an underdrawing with the watercolor pencils, and it led me to the blue sky. I wanted the green water, but I actually had a lighter color in mind that I just didn't have anymore. (Have to put in an order to Dick Blick.) So I treated the acrylic more like watercolor, with a thin wash over green watercolor pencil. I am okay with the effect, although it wasn't really what I was going for. It is interesting enough.

I did struggle with the land image for a while, originally drawing in a boat without land. But before I painted it, I switched to a little house. Perhaps I was influenced by the previous houses I'd drawn. Perhaps by this house,
that I created yesterday on a whim from a Cheerios box. Which was a prompt for Inspire Me Thursday. The paperbag tree was inspired by maya*made's mushrooms. I just thought I needed a tree more than a mushroom for my little diorama. And I get a kick out of the bookshelf setting. Sorry about the dark picture. It was late when I took it and I hate flash. Back to the story.

I'm not sure what made me switch from the boat to the house, but I liked the switch. Maybe it is my fear of tsunamis that makes me feel a little house on the coast is vulnerable. It doesn't even have to be a tsunami, just a big storm. My friend used to have a little beach cottage in Montauk, Long Island and I was always terrified that the dune would wash away and the house would fall into the sea. It wasn't even my house.

I like to think of Flying Girl as protective in this picture. As warrior-like. In fact, for much of the painting, she wielded a sword, first fire white, then fire red. But neither seemed right for the composition. And I had an issue with the silliness of trying to keep a wave back with a sword. That doesn't even work metaphorically.

So I painted the sword out, and had to let her stand (or fly) the way she was. Then I was done with my painting, and it was still early, and I still had syndicated sitcoms to watch, so I turned the page to my next Flying Girl idea, still knowing that I needed to do my Big Draw drawing.

I kept the green, because, hey, it was underwater. Painted everything flat colors and then.... wanted more. So I took out my artist pens and drew on it. I drew all over it, although remembering my lessons from my previous two paintings, I wanted to stay away from too much pattern so I left the water flat. Then I realized that this Flying Girl was indeed my Big Draw entry. Because it's all drawn, except for the background color, and that's allowed.
Flying Girl Follows Her Teachers, or Fish
The Big Draw #8
Golden Liquid Acrylic, Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens, Y&C Gel Xtreme Pens.

Then I took out my white gel pen. I love those things, and that added even more texture to the detail in the fish and the coral and the seaweed. In fact, it made them come to life. I added in a few bubbles and some rocks (at the far bottom, that's not a smudge) and voila, done.

Then I looked back at my paintings and I saw that it was indeed, again, like two panels of a story. Here is the wave, threatening. Then apparently, FG has been overwhelmed and drawn below the waves...

But she is not drowning. She is there to learn from the fish.

Here is a lesson: Find the lesson, even in disaster. Learn. Discover. Grow. Become strong.

I wonder where she is going next? Is she still on a water adventure, as she has been for the last few days? Will she step on land? Find fire? Fly in the air once again. I'm seeing an elemental theme here.

You'd think I'd be in control, but it's a mystery to me.

Flying Girl Will No Longer Be Trapped By Other People's Stories, or Alice

Flying Girl Will No Longer Be Trapped By Other People's Stories, or Alice, 10/1/08
Vintage Alice In Wonderland Pages, Golden Fluid Acrylic, Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens.

Ai Dios Mio. Sometimes prompts do NOT help in the execution of an idea. Or perhaps it's trying to take on too many all at once. Inspire Me Thursday's prompt (from last week) was "papercut," which is why I took out my old Alice in Wonderland, partially altered book. I wanted to use the Alice in a Warrior Girl, but then I had the concept that I would integrate The Big Draw in the project too. I don't know. Maybe I was just not in the place last night to paint, feeling low, despite having a good day, maybe I really did take on too much but this is the original painting.
Don't mind the crappy photo... I was in the midst of taking it when I decided I hated this painting and had to fix it. (Ugh I really hate it.)

What does that tell me? Sometimes, when you make a commitment and go down a certain path, the outcome is not that great. Sometimes you try to hard to coddle something worthwhile together and it just does not work. That is fine.

You can change it. There is also the possibility that you can scrap it all together. You aren't chained to any particular path (be it painting or life path). But let's say you don't want to just toss all the effort you put into a thing already. You are not required to stay with what you hate. You are free to adjust your project, shifting focus from one element to another, painting over an element, or adding a new one.

In fact, you can also take what you have learned from your original project... a thing that perhaps did not work out as you thought it might... and create a new piece/project/path that works out much better.

I originally made a papercut of a tree for the Inspire Me Thursday challenge, it nearly crippled my hand, because I did not have the appropriate tools, but I did not end up using it in the Flying Girl. I went with the house/Alice instead (which turned out to be my favorite part of this painting). Then there I was, after what I thought was finishing my Flying Girl, with this papercut tree and a tossed off planning sketch that matched it in shape and idea, differing only in medium. And I thought, "well there's my drawing for the big draw." Unfortunately, I'd done it on a piece of paper that Ivy had scribbled on, because I wasn't planning on using it. Then I got a brainstorm.

There's my drawing. There's my papercut. How interesting they would look together. How interesting to see the different media. Look, they fit on the page together with room for a third. I think green would look nice. Gee, I should use a different medium, how about watercolor pencil? Why don't I cut out the first sketch along it's traced shape, trace it again, and paste everything down on a new page? No more scribbled page!
Three Trees, 10/1/08 The Big Draw, IMT
Prismacolor Watercolor Pencil, Vintage Alice in Wonderland Page, Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen.

I really like how it turned out. This ended up being my favorite piece of the day, and I wouldn't have gotten there if I had not tried all the things that did not work before. If I had been satisfied with the Flying Girl and met my challenges, I don't think I would have seen the possibility in this new piece.

This was a good lesson for me. Something I need to remember as I embark down a scary new path that I had always before shied away from. It's scary to make choices in life. In art, too, but the stakes of a couple hours, a piece of paper and a few supplies are much lower than the stakes of reaching your destiny. Perhaps this is what I have been afraid of. Being a professional artist has always scared the bejeebers out of me, from when I was 16 and decided that I did not want to go to an art college.

But isn't it better to make the commitment, go boldly down that path, and adjust your journey as you go? Perhaps you will end up some place better than you intended, perhaps with even more new and exciting paths stretching out ahead of you. We don't have to know exactly how things are going to turn out when we first step out on our journey. The bad is fixable, temporary, survivable, a learning experience.

The good can be even more amazing than we dreamed.

Flying Girl Finds Her Voice, or Storyteller

Flying Girl Finds Her Voice, or Storyteller.
text in random order:
no end
of her dreams the girl
there was a girl
as she discovered her powers she
only beginnings
dreams
once upon a time
than she ever thought
and there was
and farther
to fly
and new
she learned how
travelled the world
flew higher
in search
over and

One more Flying Girl, in Golden Fluid Acrylics and Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens.

I had originally meant this to be full of colors, but I didn't have enough of the right colors and I also wanted that pale, limited palette look. Plus, when the clouds appeared (they weren't in the original vision) I liked the idea that the stories told floated off into the world to provide rain or shade, to make the land fertile and soothing, so I wanted to keep the story cloud close to cloud shades.

This was an easeful painting. Not easy, because I had to struggle with the colors of the word cloud a little, but calming. I think the paleness helps. I started the sky with more white than I thought would be good, and it turned out to be easier that way than the multiple layers trying to lighten things up. I guess not everything has to be intense. I'm sure there's no metaphor there.

Also easeful is the inspiration. It's another InspireMeThursday goody. Prompts are nice sometimes. What am I going to paint tonight? My brain is kind of empty. Oh wait, I have the Illustration Friday prompt waiting.

Yellow Sky, Strange Land

This is my entry for Inspire Me Thursday's latest prompt, Yellow.

A toughie for me. Colors are very important to me, and I have always been a blue/purple/black/gray/raspberry, even lime green kinda girl, with a recent fondness for orange. Over time I have moved away from all the bruise colors and into the sunnies, but yellow is really the last hold out. I had a studio/playroom painted the color of Morning Sunshine (Benjamin Moore) and that was great, but I still wince at some of the brighter yellows. Although, I have professed my recent love for gold, and that's just a metallic yellow with a touch of earthiness.

Maybe the real value of these prompts is the way they get you to do things you wouldn't normally do, things that are outside of your zone of comfort.

I had to look through the IMT yellow links to find a bunch of color schemes using yellow before I realized yellow wasn't just bright, traffic sign yellow. The creamy shades caught my attention, particularly when paired with a sky like blue. I like the multiple shades of yellow, from cream to ochre. In fact this painting was done with Naples Yellow, mostly, a bit of ochre, a lot of white and a smidge of cadmium yellow medium. And if you click to enlarge, you might even see the small shot of cadmium red medium in the skyline. The blue is cobalt turquoise. All Golden Fluid Acrylics, which I have loved for a long time.

It's interesting, this going out of your comfort zone. You'll notice I stayed with a comfortable old image (Flying Girl) while being pushed into the yellow colors. And that's a good way to try something new and potentially frightening while still feeling as if you know slightly what you are doing. If you change too many things at once and jump too far into a strange land, you can definitely feel like you are over your head and seize up, unable to go farther. Well. I didn't quite intend for the title of the piece to work its way into my creative lesson for the day, but it did. Maybe next week I will be able to enter a whole new strange yellow land because I have built up a scaffold slowly, getting comfortable with the strangeness?

One thing that I thought was interesting about doing this painting was the process it went through. I started out with just some blue (actually it was left over from a previous attempt at using yellow in a hand painting, which I haven't finished yet) and I thought that would make a good background for flying girl. But I wanted to try a new thing with backgrounds and outlines, too, so I drew her in and then thought, oh, let's use some more yellow, and filled in the sky with yellow. So the flying girl is actually the background, interestingly.

I have also been paying attention to outlines, lately, because I want to use them, but I don't want them to be harsh, sharp outlines. After clicking through so many illustrations lately, I thought I'd try to blend my outlines a bit and I did so here. And then I really liked what I was doing and I felt pleased with the painting. But as I continued on and added more paint and tried more things... well lets just say, I got to the point where I was ready to scrap the thing. Ugh. It was horrible.

But that is precisely where you need to get sometimes.

The point of strangeness. The point of being unsettled and uncomfortable. The point of nothing left to lose.

Because then you are free to say yes. You are free to try something you might have been afraid of before. You are free to make a mess and ruin things and experiment and follow the fleeting ideas that you wouldn't, if you were trying to hold onto something you had.

So that's what I did, and instead of hating the painting, I ended up really loving the result. Rocky journey. Lovely ending.

Breathe/In Breathe/Out

Breathe
Writing Says: IN... this moment I am alive. this moment I am strong. this moment I am growing. this moment I am grateful. this moment I am dreaming. this moment I am in action. this moment I am okay. this moment I am breathing. this moment I am loving. this moment I am perfect. this moment I am feeling. this moment I am loved. this moment I am beautiful. this moment I am moving. this moment I am aware. this moment I am creating. this moment I am getting up and starting again.
OUT.

This is one of the projects I've been doing while I have been without a camera. I've been making hand drawings/paintings/collages/whatever I want to do with them. I like these drawings. It starts with my hand, and outline of it, but my actual hand, and this serves to remind me that my fate does indeed lie in my own hands. It is my action that creates my life. What I do, what I make.

For the drawings, I do an outline in my journal, and then let my intuition take me wherever it needs to go. I am led by my subconscious. By the issues I have been dealing with. By a desire to try something new. By the colors that pop into my head or are in my paint box. I am led by a thought or a word or an image.

This triptych, coincidentally, matched the prompt for Inspire Me Thursday, so yesterday, I finished the paintings. Pink and gold came into my mind... the color of the light I used to visualize when I did yoga meditations. Then the pink and gold painting seemed so out of character for me. I am not a pink and gold kind of person. I couldn't figure out what to do to it to make it feel more "me," so I took a bathroom break and when I was washing my hands, I peeked in the mirror and saw my face. And there was my answer. Dark brown. The color of my hair, eyes, eyebrows. So I finished my painting with the darkness of burnt umber. I like it. It also works with my idea of light and dark being necessary parts of a whole.

I still don't know if this triptych is truly "me," but I do need to remember to breathe. Breathe in the energy, refill the well, release the bad, breathe out, allow my light to be free.

I also don't know if my pictures are all that great. Gold paint does not make for good reproductions, but I do like it.

The Return of Glamour Mama

#1 Out With The Girls Mama: Cotton [pleated] Yoke Dress with Self Tie/[add: Green T-Strap Heels/Floral Cloth Hand Bag w Wooden Handles/Wooden Bangles/Green Multi-Strand Beaded Necklace.
#2 Solo in the Village Mama: Vintage Inspired Cropped [Asymmetrical Boucle] Swing Jacket w 3/4 Sleeve/Ruched Knit Tunic/Tweed Knickers/Calf Boots/Army-Navy Inspired Purse w Wood Handle.
#3 Playground Mama: Fitted Leather Jacket, Empire Tunic, Skinny Jeans, Calf Boots

The prompt for this week's Inspire Me Thursday is Wardrobe.


Bah! I thought, at first, as my mind rifled through my actual wardrobe, looking for inspiration. I have been a pregnant, nursing or the mother of messy and demanding toddlers for much of the last four years. My wardrobe is a mess. What I wear now is for rolling around on the floors and getting covered in peanut butter. When I was a bartender, my clothes were entirely to tight, too low cut and too short for today's needs. And before that, my decent clothes that I wore when I was a teacher... well they are either worn to death, or they were put away and got discovered by moths. I need to get a whole new wardrobe. However, I am not in a buying phase. In fact, I am rather non-materialistic, both out of need and, conveniently, out of conviction.

But that doesn't mean Mama can't dream.

I decided I would design my dream wardrobe. My superhero, rockstar, brave, warriormama wardrobe. It seems to be a Fall wardrobe, because in Summer, you think about the new school year and putting on sweaters.

It makes me happy. I like the way they came out. I love the outfits, especially the middle one. And the dress was totally on the wing and came out better than expected. I even like the color. I did not have the colors that I saw in my head, so I went with the markers I had, which didn't work out the way I thought, but when I messed with them, they came out even better. I look at these drawings and think, damn, I should have done something with my fashion jones.... I coulda been a contenda.

So here is my dream wardrobe, thanks to my year of High School fashion design, (at the High School of Music and Art, I might add.) I would have done more outfits, like "Home with the Kids Mama," and "Writing All Day Mama," and "Papa Watch Out for Sexy Mama," and "Hosting A Party Mama," but the kids woke up from their nap, and Mama also lives in cheerio land and has to get dinner together.

Shrink To Fit

reads: Shrink to fit
my life to yours
find

sideways:
...dreams....
...love...
...a new way to fly...
...joy...


This is the painting I did for Inspire Me Thursday. It's made with acrylic gouache, and a bit of gold pigment ink pen. I am not sure how I feel about the flat quality of gouache. I've only just started experimenting. I may go back to plain ole golden acrylics.

It is odd how this is the image that came to me when I was thinking about the prompt. At first, I was thinking Alice and Wonderland, and how only through shrinking could she go through the tiny door into a new realm. But then, I started thinking of my old series of handprint paintings, and G wanted to play, too, so I decided to go with that, and the shrinking became smaller handprints inside the larger one. I also the ladder image, which is an old theme...it surprised me that it popped up. Sometimes I forget that I have been working on this stuff for years, I am not just starting up.

I like the idea of the painting, although I am not so sure about the outcome. I might try to do a different take on this idea later.

My life has definitely shrunk to fit that of a mother to two small children. I barely leave the house. Most of my brain is taken up with the concerns of feeding, cleaning, sleeping and keeping everyone from crying.

But I am seeing things in a new way. I am living for a new purpose. I am finding more inside of myself. I don't know if I would have found these things without having kids, maybe yes, maybe no, but the truth is I live small now. Smaller than ever before. And it is making me look at life in a different way. I am still figuring it out.