Landscape ACEOs

Skyline Watertowers, or Constellate
28/100 in 100 creative challenge, 6/28/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic and paint pen on linen finish paper, 2.5"x3.5" ACEO

You'll have to forgive me. My challenge numbers are getting out of order. But I am behind in posting and still have 2 or 3 paintings to put up here... and I am not quite caught up to paintings. Oh, those lazy days will get you.

So when I went to the art store to pick up new brushes, I got a little pack of ACEO blanks. I figured, why not? And then, when I had mixed up too much of a gorgeous blue color for a flying girl, and I didn't want to waste all that paint, I grabbed one of the ACEOs and painted the whole thing. Then I found one of my lost inspiration tiles randomly on the floor, and it said "skyline." I thought, hey, why not? I'd also been seeing city skylines, and watertowers, so I thought I'd go for it. I like it.
Passing Landscape 1
29/100 in 100 Creative Challenge, 6/30/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on linen finish paper, 2.5x3.5" ACEO

This too started as the leftover paint of a painting I was (still am) doing this morning. The color and image is no doubt inspired by what I was doing yesterday.

I've been going through all the photos on my computer, in anticipation of getting a new computer, and getting rid of anything I wouldn't send, post, paint or print. The problem with digital is that it is so easy to take as many photos as you want. But what do you do with them then? Best to get rid of all but the best.

I came upon a series that I took last year while on a road trip. I took the photos out of the back car window as the sun slowly rose. When I went through my photos, which I'd never touched since I uploaded them, I lightened them and heightened the contrast on the predawn, too dark pictures and gasped at what came out. Some of them were so lovely. Some of them looked like paintings. They are smudged and blurred and random and shadowed, and they probably show what a bad photographer I really am-- I have zero technical skills, but I still love them.

Road Trip
7/08

This is one of them. It's the one that most reminds me of the ACEO. I have the feeling that I will be doing more of these paintings. I don't feel that I really captured what I wanted to... although I do like the little painting, I'd just like to work a little more on the possibilities.

I did the painting after looking at the photos yesterday, but I did not use any paintings as sources. I kind of think I should, but maybe I would feel too stuck to the photo?

I also noticed that with the 100 in 100 project, I am almost forced to try new things. I simply run out of ideas. I have to experiment or take a side path. One might look at my Flying Girls and wonder why I would do landscapes, but this new series of Flying Girls doesn't have the landscape background that many of the old Flying Girls did. In fact, both of these ACEO's could have been the background for a flying girl.

So even if a painting or a topic or a technique seems like it's a departure, maybe it's just a little return to something you once loved.

I think the past is such a rich vein to mine.

Flying Girl and the Break of Dawn, or I Hold The Night Within (and wreckage)

Flying Girl and the Break of Dawn, or I Hold The Night Within
25/100 in 100 creative project, 6/26/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic, white ink pen on paper, 5x8"

This is what the dawn looked like from my window as I lay in my bed with a child who had been woken by lightning in the middle of the night and refused to go back to sleep. More or less, my eyes were bleary.

But also, here is the internal landscape. In the dawn, we carry the night inside of us.... and in the night, we carry the dawn. The bird? Well... I guess there's something inside of her that keeps her flying, no matter the night, no matter the dawn.

For this week's book club entry, I took my Wreck This Journal for a walk with the family. We fixed the double stroller, now they only want to ride.

But the journal went on it's own two feet... er... multiple pages. The edges wore off a bit and the cover got smudged, but I was not as wreckeriffic as some of the hikers WTJ hikers I've seen. I'm okay with that. The leash is a nifty woven leather belt I found at a thrift store for a buck.
This is actually the second time I decorated my cover. The first time, which looked much like this but with a purple milk pen, got completely smudged and wiped out when I took the book for a walk. So I redid it in white. I like white on black. It probably reminds me of chalk boards, and all those years of being either a teacher or a student. Sometimes both at the same time.
Here is some more purple milk pen... covered by blue milk pen when the purple alone wasn't opaque enough to cover the letters. I like the way this looks. It took forever and my hand cramped up, but I still like it. This might be my favorite page. It makes me smile. Why? I don't know. I'm weird. I also like that I didn't follow the directions to the letter. Notice there is not one jot in the margins. I like the written page too much. Perhaps this is an ode to books. You can't read it anymore, although it didn't matter to begin with, but it still looks like language. It's still familiar and comforting. And the only word left un covered is "yes."
Here's my ugly page. It started when I realized how much I was yelling at the poor kids. Yes, they were ignoring me and making messes and fighting and all that, but still. Ugly mommy. G said it didn't look like me, but oh well. There's also scared/overwhelmed me... which is perhaps where the yelling me came from. On the same page is G's prompt of ugly things having a hundred legs. Then he said it looked like a centipede. And then there are the cockroaches... palmetto bugs, that are huge and fly... both dead and alive. The dead ones don't fly, but they lay on their back and occasionally kick their legs and grab onto the broom when you try to sweep them out the door. *shudder* Also the little poop in the potty. Yuck. The ripped screen window, which lets in evil mosquitos. The dirty foot prints from walking around barefoot on top of scattered cheerios and bananas and whatever else my children shed every minute of their beings. The cheerios and dust underneath the sofa. Oh yes, and little kids waking in the dark of night and not going back to sleep. Ugh. This is all in shades of black, dark gray, dark brown, with a smidgeon of stale pee yellow and oh yeah... a touch of red for the burn of a mosquito bite that has been scratched too much.

Flying Girl All to Pieces, or Discombobulated

Flying Girl All to Pieces, or Discombobulated
024/100 in 100
Golden Fluid Acrylic and Prismacolor Watercolor pencils, 5x8"

This is what I felt like when I sat down to paint. All to pieces. Confused. Overwhelmed. But still knowing, somehow, that there was a pattern in it all. Just hard to see from the inside.

PS I'd like to say that I got two orders in the mailbox only moments before the mail man came to my door. And it was not easy to get them together while I had two little munchkins demanding my attention every 5 seconds. Feeding them didn't help. Turning on the television didn't help. Sending them to the garden to play didn't help. Yelling didn't help. Got to figure out a better system. Grumble.

Flying Girl and Her Interior Landscape, or Can't Take the Bronx out of the Girl

Flying Girl and Her Interior Landscape, or Can't Take the Bronx out of the Girl
23/100 in 100 creative challenge, 6/25/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic, Prismacolor watercolor pencils, Pitt Artist Pens, and gel pens

Trying to catch up to my 100 in 100 posts. I still have two more to post, but I want to give them their own posts. Phew. This is a lot of work.

I would like to say though, the it seems this painting is also part of this poem/post inspired by Marta.

Flying Girl and the Bears, or The Storyteller

Flying Girl and the Bears, or The Storyteller
021/100 in 100 creative challenge, 6/21/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic, watercolor pencil, Pitt artist pen on watercolor paper, 5x8"

This painting is mainly inspired by a story my son told. The story is the text behind the girl.

He dictated it to me and I wrote it out as a gift to papa for Father's Day.

Here is the story.

One day, Gabriel and Ivy were walking with mommy and WaWa and Papa. Grandma and Grandpa and Kevin were driving.

Then everybody came to the house.

There was a bear. The bear said go away.

Then Grandma and Grandpa and Kevin and WaWa and Mama and Papa and Gabriel and Ivy went away.

The bear was still in the cave.

Everybody went to Grandma's house. Then Grandma and Grandpa and Kevin came to our house.

Three bears were in the house. The bears said go away. Everybody went away.

There was another bear at grandma's. The bears took over the houses.

Everyone went to a faraway place where there were no bears!

They found a new house. A cozy house with kitties and dogs and everybody lived happily ever after. Everybody loved all day.

THE END

If you'll notice, this painting is out of order, and delayed. Life has been a little topsy turvy lately here.

S went out to California to get us all set up out there. The plans are afoot for our move at the end of the summer... hopefully. This is big news but still in the distance.

You get the theme of moving in G's story, right? And the new house with no bears where everybody loved all day? And puppies and kittens? So apparently it's on every one's mind.

When I painted this, I didn't really have time or energy or ideas, so I just went with G's story, which had just been created that day.

I'm still learning how to balance this art stuff with this mothering stuff and all the other stuff of being alive. It's kind of complicated and kind of overwhelming. But I'm working on it.

If I'm a little off with posting or painting, it's because I am trying to create a new routine for myself that with smooth out my rough edges. I'm trying to recommit to my projects and business and movement forward. I'm trying to figure out my goals and break them down into baby steps and set up a schedule for myself.

You see, my brain is pretty organic and messy, but in order to move forward, I need to have mental order. So I do a lot of lists and writing and thinking and pile making.

I first started writing a journal, actually, at the age of 12 because I knew I had a messy mind and I wanted to remember things.

Flying Girl Remembers Nights of Grass and Sky, or Markings

Flying Girl Remembers Nights of Grass and Sky, or Markings
022/100 in 100 Creative Challenge, 6/23/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic, watercolor pencil, pitt artist pen on watercolor paper, 5"x8"

Where are you and your crazy stories from, anyway? asks my friend Marta.

Such a long story.

I am from a city of cement and flame. The Bronx is burning in abandoned tenements and poetry.

I am from the pictures that won't stay in my head, won't stay in my father's head and need to come out on the page.

I am from hard times and walk up flats in soon to be condemned buildings. I am from slums where cats scream in the alley and empty lots grow forests off cool breath. Where grandmothers cook rice and beans and read cards for people who don't pay.

I am from reading at night under the covers and behind curtains and in cars and at the dinner table and beneath the school lockers. From dragons and magic, from universes untold. I am from painting and singing, and the smooth feel of an empty page beneath my fingers.

I am from chanting in Japanese. And rooms full of sound and incense, like blood pulsing through everyone.

I am from summers on the farm and cool hills dusted with buttercups and indian paintbrush and snap dragons. Forests of mint leaves and blackberries and fairy rings.

I am from the crocheted beret my mother wore, and her long long hair, cut short in independence when she finally left my father for his madness.

I am from the subways taking me away and bringing me back and the finding of lessons in the way the tree branches shadowed the hilly street.

I am from still looking for meaning.

I am from penstrokes and brushstrokes like train tracks and ancient calligraphy.

I am from the layers of what has past and from and the destruction of gentrification. The possibility. The dreams.

I am from the words. And the paint. The sound and the dust.

Flying Girl Likes to Wear Flowers When Things Are Tough, or Hot City
20/100 in 100 Creative Challenge.
Golden Fluid Acrylics and watercolor pencil on paper, 5X8"

Flying Girl is Made of Light and Air, or Nothing
19/100 in 100 Creative Challenge
Acrylic and Watercolor Pencil on paper, 5"x8"

Oh I am getting behind.

This is has been a busy and stressful weekend with lots of time that was needed to do family things. Almost harder to post to the blog than it is to paint. Hm.

It's been tough. I'm still going.

I intend to catch up. Now that the weekend is over, I think I'll have a little more time to focus on my work and hopefully I can get back to making it all fit together. A little space.

What do you do when it gets tough to keep on your track?

Wreck This Journal Some More

Fun times with opposite hands. There's a bit of Rightie bias in this book... as the directions didn't take into account that many people are left handed. I took the adaptation into my own, ahem... hands. Left and right. They make a nicely symmetrical drawing.

I love contour drawing. And blind contour can be so much fun and so surprising and such a good test of what we "think" a picture should look like. But this isn't blind. I looked.
One word over and over. "believe." except for the solo circled word over in the top right corner. That was a typo from the repetition. "be live" it says. I found that to be profound. And when I was done, I felt compelled to paste the fern onto the page. so I did.
This is a magnolia leaf, I believe. It is beautifully brown and leathery on one side and suedish on the other. My son gave it to me. I thought it was so attractive that pasted it in the book. Now I don't want to fill the page up with any other botanical specimens, I just want it there, solo. I might paint away the directions and do some patterns to hi light the lonely grace.

I find that I do something to a page, then come back to it much later. I have many half formed pages. I don't know what they are going to end up being.

Our bookclub for Wreck This Journal, by Keri Smith.

Flying Girl Dances or Moving Lines

Flying Girl Dances or Moving Lines
18/100 in 100 Creative Challenge 6/18/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic and watercolor pencil on paper, 5x8"

Houston, we have a problem.

I did two paintings in one day, so that made me feel that I was not required to paint the next day. I also did not post to the blog for that day, and when I sat down to try (ahem, force myself) to paint that night, I was as empty as a blown out Easter egg. I did this painting, but I didn't finish it last night, I barely started that, and it looks quite a bit like the second title should be SYTYCD, which I was watching. I don't particularly like it and I don't have any attachment to it. It was a painting done because I had to paint. Filler, if you will. And posting it to my blog is obligation, and far later than usual. Now I know I have to paint tomorrow's piece and I have no idea what is coming. I'm struggling to maintain my commitment.

When building a routine, I do not think it is effective to blow off the routine. Particularly in the second... oh wait, THIRD week when the doldrums set in. The blush is off the rose, you start to get grumpy about the commitment, you're a little tired, maybe out of fresh ideas.

This is part of the process. I know from doing nanowrimo that a similar thing happens, although if I recall that is usually second week. And I think it may happen at different weeks for different people, at different points.

We all hit resistance.

The question is, do we meet the resistance and push on through, or do we let it stop us.

I would be interested in knowing what kind of resistance you all are confronting in your creative life, whether you are doing the challenge or not. Even if, perhaps especially if you WANT to do the challenge but have not been able to step up into it.

Where do you get held up, what are your reasons/excuses?
What are the stories playing over in your head that convince you not to pick up the brush or the computer or the violin or the stageplay or the clay or the... you get my question?
Why do you think you are not doing what you say you want to do?

Me... I think I'm lazy. I think there's more to it than laziness but I don't know what. If any of you all understand the psychology behind the lazy, I'd appreciate some insight. :)

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.