Love Letters

 

The other book I bought yesterday was a lettering book (I don't have the title handy at the moment and the dogs are hungry so I'm rushing!), and I decided to see what I could do with it.  I'm not entirely happy with this but it's a doodle/experiment, and the awesome thing about making art every day is that bad art isn't the end of the world!

I hope to do more ink and wash with calligraphy quotes and borders and such... stuff I've wanted to master for years.

Hey if you're on Instagram, follow me over there!  You'll see ALL the crazy stuff I get up to.

Just For Today

The five principles of Reiki are such a good reminder... I love the "just for today" concept.  Live in the moment, sufficient for each day is it's own worry... just in this moment, I will not worry.  That first one is most certainly the most difficult for me.

I've wanted to create a piece of art with these principles for a while, but oil painting does not lend itself to calligraphy, so this is watercolor and ink.  I hope it's a good reminder for you, too.

I Am

My calligraphy skill are very much out of practice. I transcribed this poem that i wrote in 2003. Interestingly, ten years later I could pretty easily substitute " Artist" for "Poet" and "paint" for "write."

Funny how life changes.

If I write more, I'm sure a lot of it will be about the process of art.

And Now For Something Completely Different

... and completely sappy :)  What the heck, Valentine's Day is coming up, right?  This is watercolor and ink on 5 x 7 Strathmore 140 lb. paper.

I set out this morning to play with some Celtic knotwork, so I got out the graph paper and tinkered, using exercises in my awesome book Great Book of Celtic Patterns by Lora S. Irish.  What I ended up with was a heart knot.  The little doohickey on the inside was purely additive.

Next, I used graphite paper to transfer the design to my watercolor paper, and then I played with a watercolor wash in Cerulean and Ultramarine, darker around the edges and liberally salted.  I painted in the knot, let dry (again... this takes patience, why does it feel like it takes MORE patience than oils?  Maybe because I go into an oil painting knowing it's going to take days to dry, and I won't be able to work on it the same day).

Finally, I hunted for a quote while I was waiting for the paper to dry, and since knotwork symbolizes eternity, and it's a heart, I figured a love quote was appropriate... so this is for my love (love you hon!).  I practiced writing it a few times with a Schaeffer fountain pen and another awesome book (it's been a while since I.. calligraphed?) called The Art of Calligraphy by David Harris.  And... hours later, I'm done.

I'm quite pleased with it, actually.  Definitely my best calligraphy effort, and not a bad first go at watercolor, either.