When Art Invites You In

I have been either a very bad girl or a very good girl, depending on your point of view. I have been making much art and traveling as well, but I have gotten out of the habit of writing about them. You see, I have lately been overtaken to the extreme by my new found love of drawing. They say that to get better at something you need to do it every day, make time for it just like a job, just do it. I guess I took that to heart this spring, because this "Mermaid Circus" class seems to have taken a turn for the obsessive. I draw and paint and letter and cut collage materials. I shop for new art supplies and make room for them in carts and boxes and closets and piles. I try them out in new combinations and make lists of even more colors to own. I post photos to my class group, and friend my classmates on Facebook. The photos show up on Flickr too, but because the class is not centered there, that venue has taken a back seat for now. I am, in short, in the hackneyed phrase and with no irony, living the dream!

The sketch on the right was done while watching a video lesson, then used as the basis for a painting in acrylics and colored pencil.

It all started with that first face drawing lesson (see the April 29 entry) in which I drew and painted along with my teacher Jane Davenport. I was hooked! I realized that I don't have to draw "real" people if I don't want to, I can learn to work first with stylized faces and character creation. Bingo! I am learning to love storytelling, and I really want to be able to draw a face with consistency and personal style. This second face, "The Upturned Face" lesson, was the start of a series of three successful journal story pages based on the same initial sketch.

Adding the first shadows and highlights, bringing it to life.

Portrait of a sweet young mermaid, later to be called Cecelia.

Now it was time to reuse the art. This is the crazy looking but well conceived beginning to a story of Cecelia and her goldfish. The face would be color copied but painted over, and the fish, also an enhanced version of a piece of journal art from three years ago.

Practicing mixed media tricks: the luminescent sea is created by painting  Golden Fluid Acrylic over the red/orange base, spraying with water and blotting. The hair has quite a bit of florescent orange and red paint. The mermaid's tail end is a piece of batik fabric collaged with gel medium. Matte, shine, glow, texture.

A second use of the painted face was made with a tissue transfer of the original: color copying direction on (supported) white artist's tissue to make a sheer version, which was matte medium applied over a copy of a (real) tattoo pattern (meant for an arm). Finally, paint and pencil enhanced to change the coloration and character of the girl.

This became "A True Tale of Caution" about a mermaid who went  "bad".

Meanwhile, it was time for Teesha Moore's sixteen page journal to take center ring. I decided to dedicate the whole thing to one story, the actual "Mermaid Circus," styled a bit after impressions received while reading the novel "The Night Circus." 

Learning about (and liking) folded small flaps as extra pages.

I had a mammoth collaging session during this week and painted and prepared the collaged story on all sixteen pages. It will probably take me months more to get the time to finish them all, but now the story is set for me with a trajectory and a style that will add consistency to the finished book.

Be sure to click on the images to see them larger and check out some of the pen work and shading.

Meanwhile back at the zoo, I was neglecting my original 2013 muse, the giraffe. In preparation for "Paint the Giraffe" month in June, May was a time to explore color, consider our preferences, analyze a bit, get to know something about pleasing palettes. The next three images are collaged pages from an inspiration journal I had begun about ten years ago. Strangely enough, they still inspired. Now that I am learning about mixing collage with pen work, I look forward to returning to these at some point to develop them further.

Purple and more purple for me, but deepened.

My favorite for many years, purple and green, but ethereal.

And yet again, with an interesting image of "art clothing".

Sometimes the man has a day free to spend with me that coincides with great weather and a peaceful place. Before the heat of summer, we enjoyed a hike on the beach of Lake Michigan and up to the summit of "Mount Baldy" one of the high points in the Indiana Dunes National Park.

Because the normal route up the side of the hill is being recovered from erosion, we were forced to hike all the way down to the beach, along the shore and then straight up the hill. It was a fabulous workout and proof that keeping fit makes life more fun.

Nearing the top and where, on a clearer day, you would have a view of Chicago fifty miles to the west across the lake.

Feeling happy, but with about a pound of sand inside each sneaker. Soon we were off the the outlet stores to find me a pair without holes.

Trying to establish a daily drawing routine in a journal, I prepped a number of pages in my Moleskine with acrylic paint, then started using them to inspire complex doodles or simple themed drawings. This one was about keeping occupied during a yard sale, but ended up looking like fireworks over New York City.

This one was full of affirmations to just draw what was in my heart, Teesha style.

This "fat mermaid" was a Jane Davenport drawing lesson that felt not quite ready for my "prime time" journal, until it was complete, and then I realized: I am ready for prime time, this is it. I'm doing good work and so proud of how far I've come in just a few years. Art has made me its friend I have bonded with it. I think we will be traveling companions for a long time to come.

A New Muse

How did it get to be almost the middle of January? I guess I've been too busy to notice the time whizzing by. The last week of the year is always a favorite for me: celebration season coming to an end and everything calming down, exercise classes on hiatus. Fewer social expectations means time to clean up the house and clean up my to-do pile in a more relaxed way, and always, make plans for a new season of learning and excitement.

As the light of day materializes, I contemplate my creative life.

This year the Strathmore workshops aren't scheduled to begin until March, but I had an alternate New Year's Day creative jolt: after starting the day with a very "rah! rah!" Weight Watchers meeting I came home to begin, in earnest, "2013, The Year of the Giraffe, An Experiment in Creativity" with the most excellent of creative cheerleaders, Carla Sonheim. I have taken numerous online workshops with Carla over the last two years, as have others of the giraffe class, and we were so ready for this new concept. Rather than being an actual drawing class, we are expanding our vision about the meaning of creativity by having one basic muse, the giraffe, and twelve monthly assignments in various forms of creative expression. We will design assignments of our own choosing, we will communicate through word and image, we will talk on the phone, we will create a group e-zine, we will make friends around the world, and best of all, we will share an understanding of what it is to be a person who needs to, who must, create as a part and parcel of daily life. Rather than have a goal of finished product, the goal is to be present for the process.

January's assignment is to draw the giraffe, in any manner, as few or as many as we choose, largely from life or from photo reference, and then some from imagination. I began with three "realistic" portraits in conte crayon, and have moved on to ink and warm-up exercise type drawing. This week I hope to go back to portraits in pencil and maybe charcoal. I am not adding color yet. I want to study features and lines for a while.

A classmate's husband took the photo reference for this drawing while on safari.

This is a new baby and mom who live at Chicago's Brookfield zoo (drawn from a photo.)

Inaugurating my new journal with three versions of each animal (drawn while looking at the reference photo, but not the journal page.)

These "cool dudes" were the happy accident of drawing with water soluble marker with my eyes closed entirely, then adding water to spread the ink with my eyes open.

It occurs to me, faithful readers, that for a bit of a while now, even though I have been quite busy with classes and learning and trying many new things, what I have been sharing with you are photos and tales of my recent travels (still more installments to come!), and that I have quite a backup of this and that to show you. After two and a half years with my very first artist's journal, more of a practice book, plus some coffeehouse doodling, some travel drawing and a few "good" pages, I have come to the end of it, and chosen two others in my possession with which to move forward. One I bought as a lovely souvenir of Spain, which will suffice for my year of the giraffe, and for mixed media I am finally committing myself to my first Moleskine from Melanie Testa's class in 2012, and I think I will need to buy a new "everyday" book for scratching in.

This is one of my proudest doodle sketches in the old journal because I did an interesting piece based on a real art drawing strictly from memory. The two drawings are very different, but related, and I like how one begot the other. (I don't think I ever showed you the more formal one, and I will try to do that next time.)

This highlights my love of lettering and trying to develop ways to fill space with meaningful texture that is not a standardized doodle.

Many times in this short journey, partly due to excitement with learning, and partly due to the reality of the scheduling of online offerings, I have had to take classes at less than optimal times or overlapping with others, so that I may not have finished all the assignments or lessons. I have decided that the exposure to what I do have time for is better than not taking them at all. In most cases there is printed material to return to later, or even archived video lessons to use at my leisure. Such was the case these last six months, too much, too complex, but what would I be willing to lose? None, really. In some cases, I will return to finish these classes on my own, in others just the exposure to new ideas is welcome and will carry over to other activities.

In November, I had the opportunity to take a six week introductory class in the use of a FREE digital editing and drawing program called GIMP. It is something like Photoshop, quite complex, and will take much more study and practice, but it was a revelation to begin to understand "layers" and "brushes," and other tools of the trade.

I enjoy photographing the flowers in my summer garden, so it was fun to work a little color magic on this clematis, and the iris below.

My favorite garden ornament becomes ethereal with a color punch.

I started to learn about the ability to "capture" areas of the image (here a part of a garden pot,) and then layer them on interesting backgrounds.

Capturing areas, adding filters, emphasising parts. The artistic choices are endless.

Learning to "cut" a piece of a photo and make a frame for it.

Drawing by creating shaped areas to fill will color gradations, using brushes to make patterned lines (or stamp with) to add or erase color.

These are basically doodles with brushes drawn or stamped through defined areas. So much fun, and you can create your own from any cropped bit of a photo or drawing.

 I continued my Alabama Chanin wardrobe with a long sleeve bolero with bead and sequin embellished cuffs. Although I am generally not a "sparkly" kind of dresser, this piece works well with jeans, and will be a versatile cover up for cool times or just for adding a little special kick to a simple outfit.

This is my fabric and bead choice showing the instructions page in the book  "Alabama Studio Sewing and Design."

The finished cuffs, and the garment below. (Of course, there are pants involved when I wear it!)

 I had to try a pair of the hand warmers. They were a bit difficult to sew with the two layers creating eight in the flat felled seams in tight places. Not sure if I'll make them again.

My first journal page spread of the new year summed up the completion of my biggest goal for 2012: being able to have clothes shopping be a fun experience again, and giving me a reason to put all that time and effort into making artistic handsewn garments.

My favorite blogging artist at "Smallest Forrest" gave me a wonderful idea for capturing creative ideas before they flee in a small (this is really small) journal called a "Seed Book", named for the seeds of ideas.

 And finally, after months of it sitting idle on a shelf, I decided to get out my hand-me-down iPad and use it for:

       1. a Weight Watchers online cookbook source,

       2. a (Pandora) radio on my kitchen island, and

       3. an electronic sketchpad from the inspiration of another favorite blogging artist, Pat, at "Reclinerart's Posterous".

Here I am playing with brushes for the first time (in a controlled manner.)

Here I am playing with brushes like a kid (or someone who doesn't mind calling the giraffe her muse.)

And here I am actually attempting to draw with it . (The program is "Sketch Club".) Let's just say there is going to be room for improvement, but I do expect to have some fun trying.