Carousel

Today, my sister-in-law stopped over, and I also have a bunch of typing work to do, and I decided I'd skip drawing or painting and make some jewelry.  So I did.  And while I was making jewelry, I finally got a chance to listen to AHA's 30 Paintings in 30 Days:  So What Have We Learned? podcast, and in it she read the email I sent her talking about how I would continue on and sketch with a view to painting and I thought:  "What was I thinking!?  I can't not do art today!"

So I headed to the studio and I thought maybe I'd work on a sketch with a view to painting it, and looked over my list of stuff I wanna paint, and a carousel horse was on it.  I think painting a carousel horse in watercolor would be a ton of fun, so, while I looked at several google images of carousel horses to produce this sketch, I'm proud to say I didn't copy one of them... this is a big deal for me.  (his feet gave me fits... they need work).

I don't know if I'll transfer this one to watercolor paper to paint or try another sketch tomorrow, but I think it'd be enormous fun to produce a series of themed carousel horse paintings, probably in watercolor, because it seems like a good medium for it. 

On with the other stuff I MUST do today, but I'm glad to say I showed up in the studio today despite everything :)

Personal Power

Dragons and flame keep coming up in my art and meditation lately... for me these are potent symbols of raw power.

Women often tend to give away their personal power, taught to remain silent when they are in pain.  I certainly tend that way myself.  Whenever they turn up in my psyche, it's a sure sign that I need to reclaim some of that power for myself... and remind myself that I possess it.

This is a 6 x 9 watercolor painting that you can buy on the For Sale page of this site.

Six more hands today for the 50 Hands/Feet challenge.  I had a good bit of difficulty settling in today; I'm still a bit out of sorts.  I almost didn't fill this page but here they are.  They're still a pain in the butt :)

Dreams

Another Dreamscapes exercise. I love the meditative quality of it, and I"m really happy with the way the wings came out.  On the other hand, there's lots of room for improvement in my watercolor technique... it's SO different from oil painting.  In watercolor you have to leave the highlights light and build the shadows, whereas when I oil paint I tend to do the opposite, and build highlights on top of shadows.

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.

Candlemas

I'm out of sorts today.  I had a heck of a time getting out of bed, and then I procrastinated getting into the studio, couldn't decide what I wanted to paint, or even what media I wanted to play with.  I'd decided that I wanted to get rid of the computer-generated Om graphic on my home page so I thought I'd paint a little Om symbol.

I also decided that I wanted to experiment with Liquin paint medium, which is supposed to make the paint dry faster.  That would be a big deal for me, it'd mean I could work on the same painting several days in a row rather than waiting for five days to let the paint dry and losing my momentum.  It increases transparency, which is good in a way and not in a way.  So this was just partly to play with the medium and see what it does.  Pretty much all of these colors are transparent so it thinned them out quite a bit.

The second mini I worked on today was for Imbolc/Candlemas.  It's one of the pagan festivals and since yesterday (the actual day) was jam-packed and I had a lot of work to cram in, I didn't get to do much in observance. 

Candlemas is the festival of Brighid, the Celtic goddess of fire, spring, poetry, smithing, and childbirth.  As a result the festival is usually celebrated with fire.  I'm not really a rolling flaming wheels down a hill kind of person so I usually just observe with a few candles. 

Brighid was later canonized as a Christian saint and her festival day was turned into a Catholic feast day, and the tradition of divining the weather became our Groundhog Day.

Because the Liquin thinned the paint so much and I was working on a black canvas with transparent paints, I didn't get the effect I wanted here, so hopefully this will dry overnight and I can paint on it some more tomorrow. 

Month In Review

I browsed the collages posted at Leslie's blog.  Most of them have some degree of cohesion but mine is all over the place :)  That's cool though, it's honestly what I was going for.  I wanted to try a little bit of everything.Things I learned this month:

• A day is incomplete without art.
• I really like watercolor... for some things.  For others oil seems more appropriate for my style.
• I want to learn to paint with a knife.
• I can play and see where my fancy takes me, and if it turns out like crap, it's okay... tomorrow is another day and another piece of art.
• My calligraphy needs practice.
• I think I'd like to explore combining traditional henna designs with watercolor and oil.
• I'm not as interested in the craftsy stuff (i.e. painting on glass) as I'd have thought.
• It's time to explore making art that doesn't come from photography
• Sketch and draw more
• Pastel... meh.  I think there's something I'm missing.  It's on a back burner.
• People really like dragons.
• Facebook is great for exposure
• Horses are still my best subject.

Unfortunately I have piles of "real" work to do today and probably won't get to paint. 


What now?  I posted yesterday but in case you're visiting from Leslie's blog and didn't see it, Janin at Wise Ramblings is hosting a daily painting challenge focused on One Billion Rising, an event aimed at increasing awareness and preventing violence to women.  Check yesterday's post or Janin's blog for more info... join us!

Happy painting.

New Challenges

I kicked around a few different ideas as to what to do with my art now that the 30/30 Challenge is over.  I thought I wanted to narrow my focus a bit (from completely unfocused to... something, lol).  I find that I don't want to restrict myself to one media... I'm enjoying dabbling in oil here, watercolor there, and a little of this and that in between.

What I DID decide is that I want to focus a bit on my drawing and sketching skills, so I was going to do some of that.

But then my friend Janin who did the 30/30 Challenge with me decided to host this One Billion Rising painting challenge, and, well, I am too intrigued to ignore it.  Here's what she has to say about it:

Thoughts and love have the power to bring about change.  For 14 days, beginning February 1, 2013, I invite every artist who comes across this challenge to make one piece of art per day leading up to V day.  It can be drawing, painting, photography, sculpture-- or any medium you wish-- to create a daily piece of beauty that celebrates femininity, women and dancing, as a way to increase awareness, empower women and girls to break the cycle of violence, demonstrate our global solidarity, and positively shift the world energy.

And I am all about that.

So I am going to use this month to explore femininity, and what it means to me to be a woman, and what it means to be a woman in the world in 2013.  Dancing interests me too..

So I started looking for ideas for paintings of women.  I flipped through my reference photos.

But I found this one, and it was perfect.  This is a Fresian mare and foal engaging in mutual grooming... which is the most friendly and intimate thing two horses do together.  This is about a mom teaching her offspring to relate to the world.  How to love.  I loved the photo... the little filly can barely reach mama's withers and her nose is all wrinkled up with trying :)

And for me this is the function of femininity.  This is our first and truest responsibility in how we relate to the world.  Giving of yourself, loving your children, showing them what it is to love and be loved.  I think that if we can do a better job of that across the world, then the violence against women that One Billion Rising is all about, will naturally be lessened.

If you're an artist, and especially if you've just finished your 30/30 challenge and are wondering what to do next, check out Wise Ramblings (Janin's Blog) and also the One Billion Rising website.