That's Intense

 

My Inktense came today!  This is the first time I have ever bought a complete set of ANYTHING art related so I am super excited.  I have the full set of blocks and the full set of pencils in their dreamy fancy wooden box.  So I stole a little Art Time and made myself some swatch cards (very important when starting out with a new set of anything).  

 

I didn't have time for much other than that, so I just made this little mushroom doodle from a photo I took a couple of years ago.  I REALLY like them.  They fill in the gaps where I was struggling with watercolor, and I love the texture that the pencils can add to the mix.

 

Yesterday Bran came by to work for me in my day job business, and I taught him to do henna.  This is the first time I've been on this end of a henna cone in years.  Then we went to Sparta Green Market, where he did henna for free so he could practice.  Didn't take him any time at all to get the hang of it.

He starts class again next week, his official senior year as an art major, so he'll be working on his thesis.  But he's recently made the decision to try to make a living from his art, which is always a big step.  My friend Janin is doing the same... she said, "Two weeks ago today, I left the steady no future/ no appreciation/ no benefits day job I'd had for three years...In that two weeks, I've been cleaning up my arts and trying to help turn them from a hobby into a life (with various results); I'm at that stage where I'm scared to fail...and equally scared to succeed."

I know it well.  I'm at a similar crossroads myself, trying to figure out where my passion is.  But then again, I always seem to circle around to that crossroads and the ground here is well worn.

You can check out Brandon's art HERE, and Janin's art HERE.

Back To The Muse

I took on too much, and the muse fled. For over a year. She wanted nothing to do with me. Then, at the beginning of the year, she came in flutters and teases. 

While she was gone, I played mostly with photography. I figured, when the time to paint again came, I'd have plenty of my own reference material. And so I do. 

It never ceases to amaze me how just a few hours spent in the company of other artists can spark the creative flame that calls the muse back. This week I had an art date with my son, now converted from an Engineering major to Fine Art and doing an internship in 3D virtual reality modeling, and Karen, our painting teacher who inspired us both so much.  I worked on my years-old painting of my sister-in-law's dog Sam, and Karen was doing an eagle, and Bran was doing an under painting for a dramatic sky with fighter planes (something I've said for years he should do). 

Still a work in progress, but the timing is perfect since Felicia's birthday was this week and we are going to celebrate tomorrow, so hopefully he will be done if not dry. 

I've also been painting pewter gaming miniatures, which is sort of my guilty nerd pleasure, but I really enjoy all the fiddly detail painting. 

These figures are 1" tall. 

And yesterday my project was a logo for our guild in our Savage Worlds RPG (tabletop). Okay, fine, I have more than one guilty nerd pleasure. 

It's almost done. The moon will be red, and it will say Night Owls on the scroll. Which is supposed to be silver but not sure I'll do that. Yeah, it's nerdy as hell but hey, I arted, and I'm pretty proud of it. One of the things I want to work on is new henna designs and honestly, this could be one. And I have some confidence to do more but I definitely need new micron pens. They wear out too fast. 

So yay, I think I'm back! 

Henna!

Is this cheating on my 30 paintings?  I don't know but it needs to count or I'll have a five-day catch-up :)

Yesterday and today I'm at Cookeville Fall FunFest selling my chainmaille and wire jewelry and doing henna body art (also known as mehndi).  I've been doing henna about as long as I've been painting and I've discovered that I really have a talent for it.  As a result, the techniques I use in mehndi have sneaked into my art in a lot of ways, and probably will sneak in more ways.

So there's no way I'm going to get a painting done these two days, so here you have it:  the art I'm doing.  

There's a henna page on my website if you'd like to check out more.

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Wish I'd gotten a better picture of this one.

Don't Wanna...

Busy day... Work to do, horses to play with, allergy shots to get stuck with. Finally had some quiet time this evening and then I didn't wanna paint!

So I worked on this.

It's not done yet, but it's time consuming. The black is all watercolor except those tiny spirals, which had to be inked.

Mind

I'm no comic book artist, but last night I got a chance to hang out with four of them:  my friend Joe Emery,Matt Knieling, Kevin Steward and.... sorry, fourth guy, Matt botched the intro so badly that I can't remember your name!

I discovered that I'm definitely not keen on drawing in front of people... I really need to brush up on my drawing skills.

Instead, I watercolored another henna-esque sketchbook page (and made a chainmaille hackey sack).

Do  you dig these?  Should I do them as bigger paintings?

Today I didn't have a lot of art time ... my creativity time slot was taken up with finishing up and mailing out some jewelry orders.  But I stole about 40 minutes to work on the yin/yang piece.

Have you ever tried to draw Vitruvian Man.  Trust me, it sucks.

The green side in this piece (as yet untitled) is meant to represent Body.  Vitruvian man was an obvious choice.   The blue side was supposed to be Mind.  What to use for that?

Ultimately I decided on a Phrenology map.  It's a good bit later than DaVinci but still has that "ancient science" feel, and the 19th century's best efforts to figure out how the mind works.

I had enough time to ink Phrenology Man in on the painting but I decided to leave Vitruvian Man for another day. 

(Particle man, Particle man

I'm reading a book called The Divided Mind that talks about the relationship between Conscious and Unconscious, and their effect on psychosomatic disorders, which it says are FAR more common than contemporary medicine acknowledges.  I was diagnosed with Tension Myositis Syndrome.... my brain is causing all sorts of havoc, symptoms of neck pain, and fibromyalgia-like symptoms.  The good news is, it's not that difficult to cure.  Thus, exploring the Body/Mind relationship in art.  I've come to the conclusion that Mind is not all in your head... we have a sociosensual awareness too with loci throughout the Body.  Did I lose you?  It's cool.  You can read whatever you want into the art, that's the point of it.

Still not sure what I want to do with the space outside the little circles... I thought maybe some Zentangle-y type stuff, but I dunno yet. 

The good news is, I'm back in Art Mode.  Thanks, comic guys!   Looking forward to next time.

New Challenges

I kind of lost focus during April.... I've hardly been to the studio at all.  Time to get back on track.  I almost had to force myself today.

And as you can see I didn't get a lot done, BUT I did go, and that counts for something.  It's not for lack of ideas.  I'm not sure what the issue is.

But, I've decided to do another Leslie Saeta challenge, this time 30 Marketing Ideas in 30 Days.  And of course, if I don't paint anything there's nothing to market, so I'll need to show up at the easel, too.  I'm hoping for a little inspiration on both fronts.

A couple of weeks ago my husband went to a Windows on the World international festival and at one of the booths there I saw this awesome flag with the symbols for the chakras on it.  I loved it but I didn't want to drop $30 on it, so I decided to do this series of mini-paintings.  It will be a series of seven, obviously, for the seven main chakras in seven colors.

More to come on what chakras are and what the symbols for them mean!

The Jewel in the Lotus

Om mani padme hum.

I had the urge this morning to Zentangle.  This is what I came up with.

From there I went to my new henna impasto technique on some of the mini canvases I base coated yesterday.  I have my paint mixture a little too thick, so that needs some tweaking, but they came out pretty cool. 

I think it's kind of nifty the way the design goes off the edge of the canvas.

I had this green one since a couple of weeks ago - the base coat on it is also impasto (textured).

Finally, I painted the lotus that is the first painting in this post.  Beneath it in Sanskrit it says "Om mani padme hum," which is a mantra meaning "jewel in the lotus."    It is meant to help the meditator focus on compassion, wisdom, and indivisibility (we are all One), and it is associated with Quan Yin, a bodhisattva/goddess of compassion. 

I'll have these posted on the For Sale pages on my website, and also possibly on my Daily Paintworks gallery and/or Etsy (need to get my Etsy shop fully operational this week!)

Painting With a Cone

This past weekend I went to ConNooga, which is a "multi-fandom" convention for gamers, trekkers, Star Wars fans, steampunk, anime, etc.  I did henna while I was there and I was very pleased to discover that all the art I've been doing has really increased my confidence with henna, and I had the chance to do some really nice designs.  I thought I'd share a few.   A brief explanation of what mehndi, the art of henna, is.  It is an ancient, mainly women's art, done traditionally in the middle east, India and Africa.  The henna plant (Lawsonia inermis) is dried, ground to a very fine powder, sifted so that it is still more fine, made into a paste with an acidic something (I use lemon juice), then applied in various methods.  I, and a lot of henna artists, roll a cone out of mylar/cellophane, pipe the henna into the cone, and apply it in delicate, fine lines.   When the paste dries, it flakes off, leaving the design stained into the skin.  They last for several weeks.   About a month or so ago I had the idea to mix oil paint with Liquin impasto medium to thicken it, and then put it in a henna cone and pipe it onto a prepainted canvas.  Here is the result of my first go at this:   I played with a few more today.  The one below is prepainted with a typical brush technique and then the impasto "henna" piped onto it, the same as the one above that I did last week.  On the last one I used impasto medium in the base coat as well, giving the canvas a texture.  I think I like the smoothly painted style better.         These are little 3 x 3 mini canvases, and basically experiments, although I kind of like the way they turned out.  It occurs to me that this might work better with a still thicker medium, and acrylic paint rather than oils (plus, I won't worry quite as much if I get paint on my hands while doing it).  Since that would involve an investment in yet another set of paints, I probably won't try it in acrylic for a while.  I also need to see if the paint can be kept if I put the cone in a plastic baggie and freeze it.... that way I could do a cone-palette that I keep in the freezer rather than having to fill cones with all the colors - and color blends, can't wait to try that! - that I want to use.

50 Hands & 50 Feet Challenge

Because one challenge isn't enough this month, (and also because it was my intent to begin with, to improve my drawing skills), I decided to take on a second... SenshiStock's 50 Hands and 50 Feet Challenge.  It's my plan to do 10 hands or feet a day until I make my 100, hopefully by the end of the month, and thereby overcome any hesitance with drawing them, and also the plague of a mind-block I have when it comes to foreshortening (#10, not bad I think, considering I thought it was awful in progress).  I may not get to this every day but I should manage it by March 1.

And today's contribution to One Billion Rising is another henna-inspired watercolor.  At its center is a sort of Triskele.  This particular symbol has a lot of meaning for me; it represents the phases of a woman's life and the maiden, mother and crone aspects.  Juggling these three aspects at any phase of life is part of what it is to be a woman; the maiden represents innocence, the mother nurturing and the crone... well, she can be a bitch sometimes (as is sometimes called for).  Also, as my own life phases out of the motherhood stage -- my son is grown and in college -- there are a lot of lessons for me there, too.  Learning how to be something other than a mom.

Which is kind of what this art thing is all about, when I get right down to it.

Mehndi Inspired

I started doing henna body art in 2010.  Let me explain a little about what it is. 

A paste is made from the plant Lawsonia inermis (henna plant) and an acidic liquid -- I use lemon juice.  The paste is then put into some sort of device for application (mylar cones, in my case), then applied in fine strands to the skin.  Left on the skin for a few hours or overnight, henna will produce a deep chestnut stain, which lasts up to several weeks.

Henna art has a distinctive look; often floral, lots of spirals and swirls, often intricately detailed.  I have wanted to play with henna inspired designs in oils for a while now but I need to order more mylar cones; so I thought I would experiment with watercolor today.  I really like the way the first one turned out.

If you'd like to see some of my henna art on people, you can check out the Henna page on this site. 

I recently discovered that my henna supplier has a new product; a glue that can be applied with a henna cone and then dusted with gilding powder or fine glitter for gorgeous shimmering body art designs that last for 3-10 days.  I have an event coming up the first of March where I will be doing henna so I'm really excited to order some and try it out :)