Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day morning at Knoxville National Cemetery, which adjoins the historic Old Gray Cemetery in downtown Knoxville. I had to go into work for a couple of hours, but did so early enough that by the time I got off the sun was clear up and beautifully bright, and before the arrival of the daily haze we've had in the heat this past week. This monument is known as The Tennessee Monument, The Wilder Monument, or the Union Soldier Monument -- depending on what source you use.

Note: For more information about the monument at the Knoxville National Cemetery, click HERE for a rather interesting history, and, amazingly, the only photograph of the monument I could find on line. I think I'm going to fix that problem, and will be posting a photo soon! If you read the information, you'll note that I took a bit of artistic license with the monument, shortening the tower by about the height of the figure, in order to get the bits I wanted to fit on the page. I wanted to get the top against the sky -- the arches with the door and wreath -- and, most importantly, the nearby bright red, white, and blue flag.

And here are some Canadian geese along with their latest addition at Norris Lake on Sunday. There were several families with baby geese, and they were so cute! Ma and Pa Goose stayed close by, and didn't hesitate to take turns hissing at anyone or anything that came too close to Baby Goose. Since it was a holiday weekend the lake was MUCH too crowded for our taste. Still, we went out to do some start-of-season cleaning and maintenance on the boat and had to take just a short run up the lake and back. NEXT weekend, if the weather holds, we'll be out on the water playing! I do love summer ...

The technical bits: I did this with 2B and 6B pencils in my new Raffine sketchbook -- the very large one (10.4 " x 15.2"). There's not been enough time yet to pass judgement on this sketchbook -- the paper seems a bit more textured than what I'm used to, but I do love the size! However, it doesn't fit onto the scanner, so I had to use the camera, and found that it's much easier to photograph a watercolor than a graphite drawing. I had to adjust the contrast some to get these to look right, and this is as close as I could get it!

After the Art Show

Diahn and I are left standing happy! The art show last night went just wonderfully, with a tremendous amount of fantastic 2-D and 3-D art to be seen. There was a total of 140 pieces, approximately 110 of which were 2-dimensional. The weather was clear, the food was tasty, the flowers were beautiful, the crowd was elbow to elbow, and everyone seemed agree that it was one of the best shows the Art Center had ever had. And, when it came time to announce the awards, Diahn and I were especially honored and thrilled to each receive an award!

I received an honorable mention for my little watercolor "Other People's Stuff":

And Diahn received a third place prize for her fabulous mixed media painting, "Contemplation #5: Fear ":

(note: We both forgot to bring cameras last night, so we came back this morning to take pictures. We really looked much dressier for the real event....)

My little magnolia painting hangs under a beautiful portrait by John Houglam:

Diahn's painting with beautiful blue background was my secret favorite of all the paintings in the show -- yep, a real big secret! (Contemplation #6: Value)

But I think she thinks her self portrait is the best of the three she submitted. I think it's pretty GREAT, too!

I wonder what's next for us? Now that we're "award winning" (okay, we say that phrase to each other now just so we can roll around on the floor laughing until we cry, while spouses, family, and friends just stand around looking bemused...) what shall we do? We have to set the bar up a little higher now! We'll see -- for now, we're just having fun!!!

If you haven't already, go visit Diahn and tell her congratulations!

May Goal Update and NEWS!

Mayapple from an old art journal in ?2004?

I just started playing with watercolors then -- doing them only occasionally in my journal, and then abandoning them for months and months at a time.

(**NOTE: BIG NEWS AT THE END...)

Diahn and I met the other day to go over our 2007 Art Goals and were both pleasantly surprised to find how much we had accomplished in a relatively short period of time. We even had to UPDATE them ...

(1) PROJECT -- 500 Objects. I'm still working on this, and gave myself the task of doing 5 in May, 7 in June, and 10 in July. Seems like I'm having a hard time with this, and needed to "chunk it down" a bit.

(1.a.) NEW drawing related goal -- I will be doing value studies before any new painting and really studying composition. Composition, value, and temperature seem to be going awry lately, and I think it's because I've gotten sloppy.

(2) I will be working more in pastels. Well, I've been doing that! A more specific and updated goal NOW is:

(2.a.) I will be doing one pastel landscape a week. (Maybe I'll do Landscape Thursday, like Teri does Cactus Monday and Wild Wisconsin Wednesday!) :-) It's doubtful that I'll be posting all of them... I'm still at the stage of putting out some serious FLOPS!

(2.b.) I will set my sights on having at least one piece that I'm willing to enter into Pastel Journal's Pastel 100 Competition in September. We'll call this a tentative goal, okay? If not this year, NEXT year, if pastel still feels good!

(3) I'd like to take an art workshop sometime this year ... I got to do that! And I'm hoping that Paul will be coming back to town to give another workshop, which I will take. What a wonderful teacher he is, too -- he's graciously given me some very helpful, positive, and HONEST critiques of a couple of pieces that I sent him via e-mail. How many workshop instructors have that kind of follow up?!

(4) I WILL be hanging art for sale at the gallery at the art center. Ahem. See BIG NEWS below. :-)

ACCOUNTABILITY -- Diahn and I decided that we are going to review our 2007 goals with each other on the 17th of every month. We've done exactly that! And folks, I highly recommend that you have a buddy to meet with regularly to help keep you on track. You DON'T both have to be artists -- maybe your friend has goals of another type entirely. You will STILL help each other more than you can imagine!

We are also working on studying marketing, since we really need to do something to help support our art habits!

NOW for the BIG NEWS!
Last week I submitted three pieces for a juried show at Fountain City Art Center -- a BIG first for me! This morning I heard that ALL THREE were juried in ... :-)
Diahn entered three awesome pieces, too, and they were ALSO all juried in ... we are flying today!

I entered: Gossip, Other People's Stuff (listed for sale!)and, Magnolia Bud
Go visit Diahn and let her show you what she entered! It will rock your socks off!

The reception will be Friday night ... and I believe we will have treated ourselves to new clothes by then...

Double Tag

I'm posting this depressingly overworked bit of pastel because this is an art blog and I feel obligated to post a picture. Don't worry, I'm working on it. Newbies take heart! A new medium is TOUGH!!!

WHY I POSTED -- because I got tagged. Double tagged, actually, by Janey and by Jan, both wonderful art bloggers!

So, the tag is to tell 7 little known or odd facts about yourself (as I recall), and then tag 7 other bloggers to do the same. Since I don't very often say things like, "bah, humbug," and because I like games and never get to play them because SOMEBODY else around here does not ... somebody who shall go unnamed but who I married anyway... since I think this is really kind of fun, I'm going to play along.
;-) If I tag you, I hope you play along, too! (hmmm... now I have to think of seven interesting things...)

1) I once spent a week alone camping along the Gulf coast of Texas on up into the Louisiana coast, with no itinerary other than starting out in Port Aransas searching out whooping cranes. I wonder if it looked to some people like I kind of ran away from home, since I left my husband and daughter behind (although I called every single day -- and this was before cell phones.) It was one of the greatest trips of my life, and I'm really glad I adventured solo! Everybody should do that once in their life. (I was also very glad to get home!)

2) I'm addicted to Sudoku. I tried not to get addicted, but it happened. I even have a small Sudoku book stashed in the back seat of my car , just in case. I'm also addicted to books on tape...

3) Speaking of addictions, I smoked for about 33 years and quit a little over a year ago. (Specifically, 1 year, 3 months, 12 days, and about 3 hours ago...) I still have a half pack of cigarettes in my drawer, and will keep them. I'm allowed to start back anytime I want, but I have to start with THOSE. (They are pretty nasty by now, wouldn't you imagine?) I truly believe I will never smoke another cigarette again.

4) I've been the bride more times than I've been the bridesmaid -- that sounds really tacky, but I've only been a bridesmaid once (about 20 years ago), and I still have the blue dress with the big bow on the butt. Seems like I have one of the other bridesmaid's dresses, too. Up until a little over a year ago I could still fit into my dress. Now I can't. (see item #3)

5) So, Jan's afraid of grasshoppers; Janey loves grasshoppers, but doesn't care at all for ants... along the same line of conversation, I'm 100 percent terrified -- horrified -- mortified -- phobic!!!! --- about slugs. I shudder to type the vile word! YUK! I am, however, not at all afraid of snakes.

6) So, here I am not afraid of snakes, yet I'm the only person I know who's been bit by a snake not once, not twice, but three times. All three times the snakes were in the right, I was in the wrong, and they were just looking out for themselves! Fortunately none of the three were poisonous, or snakes might have moved down on my list of tolerable animals.

7) I'm blind in one eye. (Stick with me here -- there's a moral to the story) It happened suddenly some 18 or 19 years ago. I noticed a small grey fuzzy bit in my vision that didn't go away. That afternoon I went to a walk in clinic, thinking that maybe my contact lens had scratched my eye, and the doctor prescribed neosporin ointment to put in my eye, even though he didn't see any kind of scratch. This was on Friday. By Sunday morning I had NO vision in my eye -- total darkness -- and went into the hospital where I was diagnosed by an ophthalmologist with acute retinal necrosis (the retina just started dying -- they never found a reason!) With treatment, the necrosis stopped, and in time reversed. For a bit there I didn't have any color vision in that eye -- everything was really and truly black and white. Then one afternoon I caught a flash of something from that side, and turned to realize that I could see the color orange in a bowl of fruit on the table -- it looked like someone had colored over a black and white photo -- cool, huh! Eventually I got most of my vision back, but several years later some of the scar tissue began to contract and pull up and cause problems again. I ended up having to have laser surgery, which basically wiped out my central vision. Now, if I look straight at you with that eye, I'll see your shoulders and maybe your hair, but not your face. I have terrible depth perception in certain ranges, but since I'm fortunate enough to have peripheral vision so I'm good to go with distances. Still -- the moral of the story is -- TAKE CARE OF YOUR EYES! Don't trust them to anyone other than an eye doctor! Don't fiddle around and be afraid to have any change of vision checked -- if your vision changes, you need to consider it AN EMERGENCY!!! If I had gone to an eye doctor the day I first noticed the problem, I would have been treated so quickly that the whole incident would probably have been forgotten by now. Trust me.

Now -- let's think of who to tag next ... some are well known to EDM'ers (this meme is going around EDM pretty fast) but some may be new to you. If they are, stop by and say hello!

1) Diahn , mi amiga, who puts up with me in person on occasion, and who also happens to be an awesome artist! I went to her house the other day and was stunned to finally see her original paintings in person ... wow! (She's also one heck of a decorator.)

2) Lynne ,whose gorgeous pastel work just blows me away. I go look at her stuff regularly, and look at it REALLY closely so I can try to see how she does it! Lynne is Wally's sister, and I'd bet she could come up with seven very interesting things to say, if she decides to play!

3) Joey, who not only knows what the word quotidian means, but actually POSTS daily. I love visiting his blog!

4) Bonny, who has travelled a lot lately and told us a lot about it. I wonder if she can come up with seven odd things she's seen or done in her travels??? ;-D

5) Annie, who was one of my earliest visitors and is always supportive. She is a great photographer and writer!

6) and 7) good grief. I think everybody who might have time to play has already been hit. If you haven't yet, stick your name in here and get writing! :-D

One Evening in Gulfport

I know -- it's been a while since I've posted! We've had loads of fun company (my parents passed through and D's parents came last weekend) and some not so fun company (corporate types invaded us several times the past two weeks at work...) I'm way behind on e-mail, too -- so if you've had some big news, and I haven't responded, that's why. There's no way I'll catch up with all the EDM e-mails -- whew -- so I'll just be reading the past three digests or so. I'll try to catch up with everybody's blogs over this week as I can! :-)

So, this is the start of a pastel piece that has been in my head for a few weeks. It is based on a photo of a palm tree shadow against a white building taken one evening when we were in Gulfport (or it may have been in Bay St. Louis?) -- anyway -- southern Mississippi. It's the kind of thing that really catches your eye, but makes a lousy photo -- exactly the kind of thing I'm thinking pastel is probably perfect for.

I didn't think to take a photo until about stage three -- I'd already sketched it out, done a pretty good layer of color, and then gone over it all with acrylic medium and more grit. I don't know why I did that -- I'm overusing that technique, I think!

The next step, after everything had dried, was to add some good color. Here I have the sky blocked in and some nice bright blues... (I think I was also at this point wondering what the heck I was getting myself into???? )

Here I've blocked in even more... This is the best part, because I get to add all kinds of reds and weird stuff in that area behind the trees. It's really a hotel or something totally boring in the photo. In the painting, it doesn't have to be anything but the right value, I hope!

Still work to go, but wow -- have I learned a lot on this one so far! I just have to let it rest for a couple of days - I tend to overwork really quickly with pastel. Pastel artist friends -- I'm having a hard time getting the space behind the trees without having all those obviously jagged-y MARKS. I've followed the rules of using my softest pastels last, but that's messing up my detail. Any suggestions? I'm thinking of using pastel pencil last to tighten it up, but wonder if that isn't going to be too much. I like the almost abstract quality of the left side ...

Wonder what it would look like as a watercolor?

And here's something fun to do when a work looks iffy big, but looks pretty good small -- take a photo of it with your camera phone and use it as your wallpaper. This one works great! ;-)

( "One Evening in Gulfport" work in progress - pastel on sanded multimedia board)

Just Waiting On A Friend

One evening, as I was sitting down to dinner, this little chickadee came to the feeder outside the window and perched. He ate only a few bites, and then just sat on the perch, looking around for well over twenty minutes. It reminded me of the Rolling Stones song ... "I'm not waiting on a lady.... I'm just waiting on a friend..."

Anyway, I'm trying to see if this one is finished. Getting the foreground yellow flowers to stand out has been tricky -- too much "fiddling" and they blend into the background. What do you guys think? What and where would it benefit from a dab more work?

My original idea for this, by the way, was to have a very solid gradiated wash background. Yep, solid -- I wanted to empty space to emphasize the feeling of waiting. And I planned on a very neutral and light space, too! Unfortunately, I messed up the wash (experimenting with a pour -- sigh) and then created some SHAPES in the background when I tried to fix it. I was going to abandon the whole thing, but my WC instructor convinced me to carry on along this new direction. (Truthfully, I think she PREFERS this direction to the one I was planning! :-D

OTHER exciting news of the day ...

I got to spend the morning helping to judge and elementary & middle school art show. Our very own Diahn was the Art Fair Chair Person (hereafter known as the AFCP) and she did a fantastic job of organizing and pulling off what had to be a really really tough job. I got to help judge the older grades, so I wasn't forced to avoid bias for Derek's and Josh's work, which was great -- be sure to go see it!

I LEARNED so much from helping with this show! I'm entering my own first juried show in a couple of weeks, and now I know a little tiny bit about what judges look for. I know that it is tiring work. I know that it can be hard. I know that you have to do something that really stands out in the end! Hmmmm... means I need to really think about what I'm entering, doesn't it!

("Just Waiting on a Friend" approx 11" x 21", watercolor on 300# Arches hot press)

DeMarrais Pastel Workshop

I've just spent the past two days at a wonderful pastel workshop given by Paul DeMarrais -- a FANTASTIC pastel artist, who truly paints like one of the old French Impressionists. What fun. He stresses value value value -- you can use any color as long as it is the correct value. With pastels he was able to demonstrate value lessons and principles easily, much more quickly and with less fuss than with paint. We learned to make our own surface, using aluminum oxide and acrylic medium on multimedia art board -- and this surface is amazing. It holds an incredible amount of pastel and makes working fun. (This little piece, still in progress and done this afternoon after I got home, is on Colorfix -- which is a nice surface, but doesn't measure up to what we were working on with Paul.)
Best of all -- Paul loves what he is doing -- the workshop was pure FUN and felt like playtime.

He makes his own pastels (which he sells) and we were able to go through and get a set if we wanted. They are big and bulky and soft and lay down like buttah .... even Senneliers feel hard next to them. Of course I had to get a set. I'm going to save them for when I get some big sheets of paper made up, though, so I can really lay 'em down!
I've walked away from this workshop inspired, and able to see a potential painting everywhere I turn. If you ever get the chance to meet Paul or see any of his work, be sure to take advantage of the opportunity -- you won't regret it!

Now, I have to take care of my assignment and get my pastels out of their nice little compartments, organize them by value, and let 'em get a little bit messy. Pastels just aren't happy being kept cooped up like that ...

Wishful Thinking

"Other People's Stuff"
(watercolor on 300# hot pressed Arches)**

From a snapshot taken on our quick trip to Destin to visit the Dear Daughter a couple of months ago. The weather was warm and beautifully sunny, and we got to spend about an hour on the beach. Oh, to be there now! The cold spell that came through our area two days ago (and is expected to last for another couple of days) has destroyed the blossoms on the dogwoods and azaleas, which were both reaching a fantastic peak. Crepe myrtle bushes had begun to put out leaves, which now look like wilted salad that has been slung into the branches. Most of the trees that had begun to leaf out look okay -- I think it was just the very tenderest leaves that were so badly hurt.

Thankfully, I had taken a few photos of the dogwoods the day before the weather turned so cold...

The pink dogwood flowers were intense this year, not at all pale and washed out. Until now, at least.

The white ones, of course, were at that particular stage of perfection that makes EVERYONE break out their cameras and start taking photos!

**Now that I see the watercolor painting on screen, I see that I need to darken some areas in the water, at the base of the central wave. The yellow towel probably needs to have a nice highlight scrubbed out, too. Originally, the far left beach chair was one of those short, "down on the ground" chairs, and was navy blue (based on the photo). I painted it that way, and then realized that the smaller chair just looked like I drew it wrong. I was all for tossing the painting and starting over, but my WC instructor insisted that I scrub out waves and just make the chair larger -- changing the color from dark blue to pink was my idea -- the towel changed from a dull red to yellow. Really, it's amazing what you can do with the right paper. This is just a small painting, and I think I'm going to do it, or something like it, again larger.

By the way, right now I'm working on this, which is not turning out like I'd originally envisioned -- not at all! It may be a do-over, too.

Rushing

Spring has arrived in Tennessee in a great rush!

I've also been rushing along -- busy busy busy at work the past couple of weeks, but still painting (just nothing ready to really show.)

It is time for a self report on how I'm doing with my New Year's resolutions, though. Do you realize that the first quarter of the year is now gone?

(1) PROJECT -- 500 Objects. I don't know why 500, it just sounded like a good number. I will be drawing 500 objects over the next year and a half or so.
Gulp. Blush. Sigh. Well, I'll work harder at this one.


(2) I will be working more in pastels.
See small creek study above. See Item #3 below, too! Woo hoo! And for all you shoppers out there -- I bought some new pastels at the amazing April Blowout Sale at Jerry's. Yep. Sometimes it really IS all about the art supplies.


(3) I'd like to take an art workshop sometime this year ... I don't know where or in what...
Friday (yes, THIS week!) afternoon I attend a workshop by Jon Houglam on portrait and figure drawing. AND ... drum roll please ... the weekend of the 20th and 21st of April, a two-day pastel workshop with Paul deMarrais ... an artist whose work I've watched for several years now. I'm VERY excited!

(4) I WILL be hanging art for sale at the gallery at the art center. Period. I'm running out of room here...
I'm planning on entering a couple of paintings into a juried show at the Art Center in May -- we'll see how that one goes! There will also be a student show in July. I need to work on something else, too ... I guess this one is still an EARLY work in progress!

EXTRA -- GALAPAGOS in 5 years --
I've started to teach myself Spanish. Well, it's a start!


How are YOUR plans for the year coming along? I'd love to hear about them!

Consumed

Okay. Some of you are able to buy delicious looking food and paint it beautifully. I now have a strong suspicion that you actually buy TWO of said delicious and beautiful food items, thus allowing you to eat one and paint the other. Unfortunately, I didn't think that far in advance. This strawberry tall cake portrait is unfinished, while the strawberry tall cake itself is no more. Maybe the painting will get finished sans reference. Maybe I'll just have to go to the bakery and get another! Ha!

So, what would you do with the background? I tend to want to leave it white... Would you indicate a horizontal line, so it feels more like it is on the table, rather than floating in mid air? (It WAS light, but not THAT light!) The plate and fork need to be finished, and some texture needs to be added to the cake layers -- what do you think about finishing it with colored pencil, or would I then need to go over the whole thing with CP layers? (note -- it is done with watercolor on 300# hot pressed Arches, so it is just smooth enough for colored pencil touches...)

I think I'm going to do more of this kind of thing. It was very relaxing. You might even say it was fulfilling...

Slap Dash Bayou

Jambalaya and a crawfish pie...
Slap dashing wet paint on 300 # COLD press paper -- a new surface for me. I like the weight, and that I don't have to stretch it -- I like having a bit more control than on the hot press -- I like it so much that I went and bought 2 more pieces of the stuff as soon as I finished this little painting!


Big news of the day -- I signed up for a 4 hour portrait and figure drawing class given by a most excellent oil painter, Jon Houglam, which will take place the first week of April. Nothing like a different perspective to give a little kick in the seat of the pants, or so I've been told!

Next weekend is the world wide sketch crawl, and Diahn and I have plans to meet up for that -- hopefully we'll have awesome weather! If you don't hear from me before then, well, I'm probably painting beach scenes on my new watercolor paper...

And if YOU are in the Knoxville area, and are interested in sketchcrawl day, just let us know!

(The technical bit: Watercolor on Arches 300# cold pressed paper -- painted area approx 13"x9", and the colors are a bit richer in real life. The boat looks much more anchored in the real thing -- it looks a bit airborn here in the photo!)

Skooshing Up a Storm

... honestly ... I have no idea what I'm doing with acrylics, but this was kind of fun anyway. I mixed all those greys all by myself. And one would THINK that waves would be kind of easy -- just skooshing them on there, but obviously they are not. Still, the skooshing bit was nearly as fun as mixing all those greys. In the future the stormy seas can be left to the the experts!

More about ruts later -- tonight I'm playing!

(The technical bits: Okaloosa Island fishing pier, Ft. Walton Beach Florida -- from a photo taken on a very stormy morning in January. Painted with Golden Acrylics on an actual 16" x 20" CANVAS. Yep. A real canvas. Colors used to make those lover-ly stormy greys were Winsor Blue Red Shade, Cobalt Teal, A Tiny Bit of Hansa Yellow Medium, Much More Nickel Azo Yellow, and Naphthol Red Light -- all with a Dab of Titanium White. I could have just done canvases of streaks of greys, it was so much fun ... )

How to Get Into a Rut (And Back Out Again) part 2

(Feelin' Loon-ey -- colored pencil on color fix paper)

If I were a flower, I'd be a biennial.

Really. It seems like every two years or so, dissatisfaction sets in and I become very self critical. In the process, I will often quit whatever "arty" mode I'm in, not do ANYTHING for quite a while, then slowly start back.

TWO years are here now.

The Everyday Matters Group has been discussing "slumps" for the past few weeks, and it seems that a lot of people are experiencing the same problem. On the advice of several people, I bought Walking In This World by Julia Cameron (of Artist's Way fame) and am reading it. I've revolted and am NOT doing morning pages -- tried them before and they just don't work for me, but the book itself is a really good read. I've gotten loads of other helpful advice, and it REALLY IS helpful -- work smaller (like the example above, which is maybe 4"x6", or a tad smaller), change up mediums for a bit, try totally different subject matters, etc.

I'm trying all of them, but the best, most straightforward piece of advice may have come from Casey, who wrote:

"... As far as I can tell, there's no miracle cure except to keep slogging away -- one day it's over, and your work has improved all at once. If you stop working the game's over, at least for a while."

I think she's onto something BIG there. Maybe she should write a book, and title it "Slogging Away in This World" ...

:-) Thanks Casey!

And then there's the whole synchronicity thing ...

How to Get Into a Rut (And Back Out Again) part 1

Girl Studying -- pen drawing on legal pad at the coffee shop in February.

So, on the last post I promised to discuss my recent artistic slump and what I planned to do about it. This will probably take several posts. Be Warned...

How it all started -- or at least reached it's deepest low --

Sometime last year, Diahn and I decided that we really should at least TRY entering some work into shows, galleries, etc. We had one major hurdle, though -- no Artist's Statements! Yep. That was our biggest problem at the time. Everybody wants an artist's statement to accompany any work that is submitted. Sounds easy, doesn't it!?

The research began.

We read about how to phrase the artist's statement, happy with the advice that the wording should not be too "artsy" or esoteric, but short, simple, and direct. Later, of course, we were mightily confused when we read actual examples of artist's statements. I'm pretty sure now that we just got a hold of a bad batch of the things to begin with, but quite frankly, folks, some of these statements were just weird. Intimidatingly weird. They were about resolving social issues, political revolt, and dangerous furniture. I kid you not. And these people would never kid you -- they are some Serious Artists.

Diahn finally got hers done -- it is a beautifully crafted straightforward piece of writing. Nothing in it makes me worry that I'm not thinking hard enough about how horrible the world is or how I'm just too blind to see the wretched (and dangerous) inter-connectedness between a tulip dying in a vase, genocide in Africa, and my perilous bedcovers. HER artist's statement is happy. It describes her work. IT works. I would have just plagiarized the darned thing, but we would probably be submitting pieces to the same places, so that simply wouldn't do. For the first time I wished she lived in California -- then maybe I could get away with it ...

After six weeks of agonizing over writing my artist's statement, it became apparent that my lack of direction in this area had colored the rest of my life. Everything I painted or drew, everything I had ever painted or drawn, everything that I even considered painting or drawing seemed trite ... petty ... silly ... goofy ... lame ...

At our mid-February coffee meet-up I told Diahn, "I can't write an artist's statement because I AM NOT AN ARTIST." I meant it. Really. It was making me feel like THAT.

Smart girl that she is -- good friend that she is -- Diahn reached over, pulled the legal pad out of my hands, and said, "STOP."

She officially absolved me from writing an Artist's Statement.

I immediately felt better, and I feel better still.

So, here's my Artist's Statement -- not refined and ready for a gallery application, but it IS the truth:

"If I see something that makes me happy -- I chase it down and I draw it.

"When I see something that makes me smile, or makes me catch my breath for a second -- I sit down and paint it.

"Usually I paint the places, people and things that I know.

"Sometimes I paint the places, people and things that I wished I knew better.

"I do it because it's fun, it makes me happy, and BECAUSE I WANT TO.

"Take it or leave it."

Love,

Linda ;-)

Second Blogiversary

Today is the second anniversary of this blog. Little did I know, when I first started it, how much fun it would turn out to be, and what a wonderful way it was to interact with people of like mind.

Thanks to all of you who visit regularly, despite my erratic posting pattern!

Thanks to all of you who visit only occasionally!

And it this is your first visit, thanks to you, too, and I hope you come back!

Later on, when I get my thoughts together, I plan to discuss my "2-year slump", and how comments from the group at EDM along with conversations with Casey and Diahn have helped me recognize a pattern that I hope to break. There's not time now ... the weekend is upon us! Let's all go do something fun!

Venice

I finally finished the Queen Anne's Lace painting (my WC teacher has it to photograph, so I can't post the end result yet) and I just couldn't deal with any more green. BADLY needing some color, and having some photos with me from Bonny's trip to Italy, I decided to "visit Venice." The whole painting was done really quickly, without any preliminary drawing, using a 1" flat wash brush for all but the final details, which I did with a #16 round. Despite the mudpuddle in the middle, I love making this particular type of mess. Maybe I'll do it again with some proper perspective drawing and better detail. Meanwhile, I had a really good time just splashing around!

(Actually, now that I see it on the monitor, I think I may need to do some tweaking. It isn't for framing, though -- just for fun, so I may leave it alone. Who knows! Who cares! :-)

I've been otherwise quite busy lately, but am nearly caught up and back to normal. We have a vacation in the works, which may mean for some interesting drawing / photography opportunities. We'll see!

Silver and Lace

(Pastel pencil on Mi Tientes paper)
Object 10 -- the top of a silver coffee service from an estate sale.
Seems like I just want to draw this one at about 300% of it's actual size!

I've been up to my elbows in a watercolor of Queen Anne's Lace (the flower -- not a fabric!) that I've done and re-done several times.
This one was started in WC class two Saturdays ago and I worked on it again this past weekend. WHAT A MESS! No middle values at all -- any that you see are the result of heavy scrubbing out. However, I got a much better feel for what I was aiming for and so, when I got home Saturday evening, started another version ...

This is the newest version in progress -- well, a portion of it (it was too big for the scanner). I totally changed the colors, and am trying to keep some middle values. I also made liberal and frequent use of masking fluid. Now, can I nurture this one on all the way to the end? There's still a lot of work to be done on it, so if not, it will just get done again ... and again ... and again ...

Questions and Caveats

Special thanks to R.Chunn, whose still life paintings are one of the special inspirations for the 500 Object Project.

Laura and Mereth both asked if the bottles in the earlier post counted as one object or three, in my quest for 500 objects. (Did I REALLY say FIVE HUNDRED?) I'd already worked out the "rules" for this very event ...

The bottles, being three entirely different types, count as three separate objects (#7, #8, and #9), even though I obviously drew them at the same time.
(By the way, I'll also clarify that I never promised the drawings would be GOOD drawings, either; this was one of those times that I made myself sit down and draw, with gritted teeth and some unrepeatable muttering!)

The candies, however, are identical objects, so they only count as one, even though there are three of them.

The final caveat, though, is that when an object gets re-drawn (as the Buddha surely will be), it STILL only gets to count as one. (!!!WHAT!!!) Yep. Not being at all hung up on any idea that it will only take a year to draw all 500, there are a lot of things that I'll probably draw over and over again. The good thing about this plan is that if I then work the objects all into an actual still life painting, I get to name it something really artsy and obscure, like "Objects 3, 18, and 32 with White Linen" -- which also solves the whole "what the heck do you name this painting" dilemma. (Personally I thought the idea was brilliant until just now, when I'm suddenly feeling a bit iffy ...)

Did I miss anything? And what was I thinking?!?
:-D

This Weeks Drawings

(Sorry if any of you have had problems with this post earlier! Let's try it again now, shall we ... and thanks to Janie and Annie for pointing out the problems!)

Continuing in the 500 Objects Theme:

... a seashell ...
... and three little bottles.

And Little Watercolor Cards

The spring feeling in the air today inspired me to do these quick notecards based on flower photos from last April. Fast and loose, and very relaxing to do.

(Tulip magnolia blossom and White tulips on an white cloth -- watercolor on Canson WC greeting cards.)