Painting and Chewing Gum

...is apparently something I can't do.

I painted in the morning, working on this blue face.

Blocking in Blue Face. Acrylic.

After lunch, I was chewing a piece of gum, and spent 30 minutes trying to get back into the swing of things. It had all been going to well before lunch! I spit out my gum because it was tasteless and hard anyway, and.. voila! I could paint again!

Further Progress on Blue Face (not finished). Acrylic.

So now I know! I will avoid chewing gum and painting (or drawing) in the future. My brain just can't take so much stimulation all at once.

Scanography!

Oh my goodness. I struggle so much to keep up with this blog, even though I keep thinking I should... and even that I want to. I just don't prioritize it. But I was overcome with the need to share this!

This afternoon, in the lazy part of "how are we going to entertain ourselves without vegging out?," I decided to jump into scanography.

I had never heard the term scanography until this last weekend, when my mom mentioned an artist friend of hers used to do scanography, but now does encaustic; I now think may have more of a connection than I would have thought. It's all about the surprise of what turns out after some not-super-specific set-up. Scanography, of course, is putting stuff on a scanner bed, arranging it artfully, pressing the scan button and seeing what happens. I have been wanting desperately to do it for days, now.

I engaged my daughter for a session, and 6 scans and some digital editing later, I got this, which I absolutely LOVE!

The upshot is anyone with a scanner and computer can do this. I printed it on my fancy schmancy photo printer on matte art paper, which gave it an almost sepia finish, which I love even more. I'm working on a frame right now.

And I'm figuring out who else I can convince to come smoosh their face on my scanner bed.... Interested?

The 100 Day Project: Clouds

Wooo hooo! Another project to start! Except this one is doable, different, and so far (three days into it- ha!), exciting.

Day1

Like everyone else, I had a list of "resolutions" that I thought really hard about around New Years. As if that list is ever completed... One nagging "resolution" for me was to Take More Photographs. But that sort of statement is too large, too vague, too unwieldy to be manageable. Photographs of what? Could I close my eyes, point the lens at something, take the shot, and call it photography? All year long? What would I do with 365 random and mediocre photos? Etc., etc.  Not surprisingly, 3 days into it, I was done. I think I kind of knew I was going to fail from the beginning, because honestly, I didn't really try very hard, either. 

Day 2

January marches on in its persistent way, and three weeks into it I heard about The 100 Day Project. My new favorite podcast, Art for Your Ear, produced by The Jealous Curator, interviewed Lisa Congdon and she talked about the Project. Approximately 72 hours later, I couldn't help myself: I finally got myself on Instagram and posted my Day 1 Cloud. 

Day 3: I couldn't find any photogenic clouds, so I drew my own.

Here's to new projects! (And the number 3, apparently. Maybe that's one of my lucky numbers in the upcoming year of the Monkey? Must look into that...)

This post is dedicated to Zen Habits and Leo's post on Unconventional Productivity that was in my inbox yesterday – so here's also to a new blog post after such a long practice of active avoidance!

Seven Tiny Faces

What to do when you have a collection of tiny frames with no art work in them? Make faces!

Faceless

Faceless. Slightly modified digital photo. 2015

Something a little different this week- a faceless face!

Climbing Out (II)

After finishing the colorful painting Climbing Out, I was on a roll, and did another. This time I focused on the graphic nature of the picture, but since I love pen and ink drawing, completed it in black and white.

Climbing Out II. 4" x 4". Pen and ink on Bristol. 2015

They work as a pair, so I plan to mount them together for hanging. I found this cool metal sign thing at the craft store, so I'll be putting them together on that- once I figure out how to without potentially damaging the surfaces of the paintings/drawing. Hmmm. Need to do some research!

Climbing Out

As I've been creating more faces for my gallery show next summer at Fuller Lodge Art Center, I've been going through many photos from my stash (it's also been an excellent chance to get rid of lots of really bad ones!). I love the facial expression on this guy's face and the perspective was very intriguing– he was climbing out of a hole in some rocks, likely in Wyoming or Colorado, though time does funny things to the clarity of memories...

Climbing Out (Color). Watercolor. 4" x 4" 2015

I cropped the original photo quite a bit and did several prep sketches to decide how exactly I wanted to go about the presentation since the photo wasn't really good enough to try to capture any realism (and who wants to do that all the time anyway?). I chose to go bold and bright, with shadows reduced to graphic shapes.

Behind the Scenes of Climbing Out (Color)

I really enjoyed having to think differently about this one, and about how best to get a sense of depth with a limited palette and shading. And it led to the next face (next week!).