The Big Tree Painting

Today, Jennifer and I went to a community art project called The Big Tree Painting with Jeff Soto, a local artist. Participants were able to paint wood blocks that make up the Big Tree in Jeff's signature edgy style.

All the paintings will then be assembled and exhibited this summer at the museum. It was so much fun to see the community come together and just paint whatever they wanted on their blocks. I will be excited to see the exhibit when they all come together. Jenn worked on smaller blocks and gave them to the boys. As we were walking away from the painting tables we were immediately distracted by the flying antics of lots of some birds, as we looked up we spotted the mud nests of swallows. It was fun to watch them but I am glad I don't have eaves on my house anymore.

         

 It was back to the house for a day outside with the boys! Counting my blessing today!

Cuddling with Aunt Jen Jen

Things that inspire- what does that mean to you?

What inspires you? I am often asked that question. The " normal" response would be nature, the people around me and my life situations and those things are all true, but there is also something that keeps me going, that keeps me excited to keep doing it again. There is something that is stirred deep inside that makes creating art so satisfying.  It's more than the painting itself, the paint to paper is only a small part of the magic.

I put together a few questions that I think might help you zero in on what inspires you and what takes your inspiration away.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself. There are no right or wrong answers.

1. Is it the planning or the finishing of a piece that is most exciting?

2. What makes you happier, giving something away to a grateful receiver, selling something or doing something for yourself ?

3. What excites you to action, a scene, a color, the lighting, a subject, make a short list of things that have excited you into creating art in the past few months.

4. What things steal your groove, zap your creative energy and make you feel defeated?

5. What areas of your art leave you frustrated and feeling inadequate?

 

Here are some of my thought about myself.

1. I love the planning or designing phase of art. My mind has so many ideas that for me it's not coming up with a project that is challenging but the execution and completion that is most challenging. 

2. it is the excitement of seeing the face of a client when they buy a piece of my work that thrills them. It is a phone call of thanks from a card I have sent someone or the excitement on the face of my granddaughters when they try on a skirt I have sewn them. So my happiness comes from sharing artwork. Whether that is posting online and reading comments, sending art cards, teaching or exhibiting. For me art is best when shared. When I sell a piece I get a feeling of worth and I feel that my art is valued. When I share my art for art sake I feel blessed and satisfied that I am sharing a gift only I can give.

3. I love color and value! I love extreme lighting that allows for a glow. The subject is secondary, it's capturing something special. I also love to tell a story, the story can be the best part of art for me. For myself I know I also get great joy in having something published and seeing my hard work in print. It can be a painting in a magazine or book or It is handling and feeling the fabric I designed on paper come to life as fabric. It's the excitement of sharing my story with others.

4. For myself I think social media can do two things, it can inspire or create anxiety. I love to see what other artists are doing and creating but with that said I can easily be overwhelmed and start to compare myself and my accomplishments with other artists which is only defeating and feeds that negative voice I fight to keep quiet. I also find that being too isolated can make me unproductive. Keeping a balance of art and work and other outside activities helps me stay energized. I also believe in eating well and pampering myself by indulging in good things for me instead of bad.

5. Frustration comes from over committing and a lack of production. I needn't I make the time to make the art. Filling my day with the sand leaves no room in my day for the big rocks of production. 

So take a minute and ask yourself what is it that lights your creative fire and identify the things that are counterproductive. When we take time to identify the things that make us excited and the things that take away our muse we can better equip ourselves with the tools to combat those dry periods in our life.I would love to hear from you! What is it that makes you excited to do your art? I want to know!

                                     

 

Being who we are meant to be means embracing a title

I think as artists we are blessed with this unsatisfiable need to create beautiful things from simple supplies. Just some blobs of paint and a piece of paper, maybe just a pencil and a napkin. I can't tell you how many times I have grabbed a napkin to do a quick sketch of something that had to be captured at that moment. We often are not understood and thus the crazy artist stigma.

This crazy behavior reminds me of the time a group of us artists were having dinner at a little restaurant in San Clemente. We had all ordered our meals and we were having a glass of wine and laughing when the sun came into the restaurant through a small window during sunset and lit up a shelf full of colored jars. As if we had choreographed it, we all jumped up at the same moment and ran to the shelf to start taking photos, trying to capture the moment, the light.  Well you can only imagine how we scared everyone in the restaurant including the chef and owner as they watched us all jump out of our chairs without a word and stood in a doorway taking tons of pictures. Within minutes the sun was gone and regained our composure and looked around to see everyone staring at us and we couldn't help but laugh. They had no idea what drove us to do that, they didn't understand that need to capture a moment. They were clueless and so we did look like a bunch of crazy people. I have so many of those crazy "artist" moments when I just have to pull over and take in the scene or capture a moment.

 I know that many of you, my artist friends, find it uncomfortable to call yourself an artist. That you can't even say the word, let alone feel like one. But why my friend?

Do you have that desire to create? Do you love to experiment and play with different types of supplies. Do you see a painting in every sunset and sunrise, in every tree, driving down the street or just sitting in a restaurant? Does it feel like you have all these projects or paintings inside of you and you don't have enough time to do it all?

Now ask yourself do you feel inadequate, untalented and not worthy of the title "Artist". Do you think people will judge you and you are not good enough? Well then congratulations, POOF, you are an Artist! You need to sign all your work and appreciate your talent now and use it more often. One of the biggest artist stumbling blocks is not practicing your talent! Go forth my artists friends and create! If you haven't viewed the little video on the right side of my blog you should take a few minutes to do so, it is well worth it!

A day, A Moment, A Memory

Today is the day I have the twins, its a fun filled day of activities. I have to plan my whole week around it since it requires my full attention and some thought. I happened to have a moment with Megan today, one on one, her and I. She had gotten up early from her nap and had walked into the kitchen, sucking on her two middle fingers, groggy and wanted me to hold her. I sat down at the breakfast bar with her on my lap and she spied my paints and sketchbook. Well now she wanted to paint so I sat her up at the bar, equipped with a water brush, my watercolors and some paper. As she painted I thought I would take this opportunity to try and capture this ball of energy as she was busy in one spot. As I started to sketch her I thought her head always looks two times too big for her body to me! Its all that hair and the fact that she had just woken up and her hair was a mess didn't help. She seems to sport this look well, that style that so many movie stars pay too much money for, Megan has down to a science. Her hair, once long, now sits on her shoulders, grown out from last years late night scissor episode where she decided to cut her hair to the scalp right before Christmas pictures. It is forever recorded in our family history photo books. But now she has embraced the shorter hair style, I think she prefers the fact that she doesn't have to endure the pain required to comb out longer hair!

My quick painting of Megan, I haven't journaled this page yet.

She is a princess with an attitude, as smart as a whip and loves to help me do everything. I asked her to look at me a few times so I could see her face to paint it but she quickly decided she didn't like that since she was busy painting herself. Here she is, my quick painting of her sitting with me during a few precious moments of quiet painting time together.

This is Megan's painting, I draw some things, per her request, then she paints them.

My sketchbook journaling class

My sketchbook journaling class, a photo by ddhabicht on Flickr.

Today was the first in a series of ongoing sketching classes. Today we discussed the different kinds of journals, styles, text, and layout. Everyone got their brushes wet as we tackled strawberries! We ate our props at the end, well some of us couldn't wait!
I finished my painting and cropped it

Peaches in Crystal

Today was really great. Marta got home and came right over so we could play with our new paints and brushes. We had a wonderful visit, she shared all her wonderful sketches, we had lunch and then after painting we swam. It was wonderful. When Randy got home he played cabana boy and made us martini's and served us at pool side, wow, what a day! This is my painting with my new colors, very clean and transparent colors, I like!

Pool and painting, doesn't get much better than that!!

Today we were being baked alive as the sun heated us into the triple digits. Marta came over and we had lunch, swam and watched my grandkids. It was a much deserved lazy day as we drank sangria and thumbed through magazines. It was so nice to just visit and hang out with a friend. So much is going on in her life, I hope she will start to heal. The pool is staying at about 82 degrees now so its easier to get in and it still feels refreshing. Its funny how much work it is to just lay out by the pool. We have to make sure everything is shaved, pulled up, pulled in and we have to have a cute bathing suit and cover up. Waterproof makeup if you decide to wear it and a cute hat, sunscreen and a recent pedicure. Sunglasses, music, reading material and a towel all just to relax. LOL That calls for a nap! I think Marta headed home to do just that.

I did make myself pull out my much neglected paint brushes and paint and do the Wet Canvas WDE challenge. Here is the girls husband, Duane. He has a great smirk and I loved the picture. Maybe he was checking us out by the pool!! We did look pretty cute.

Mikes Mural as a slide show!

I have added some captions under each picture, just drag your mouse over the picture to read the caption. The photos have some glare from the reflections as I photographed them but I think they turned out pretty good. I am very happy with this mural. The one thing about painting on Travertine is that due to the cost of the material you don't want to make mistakes!

Old world mural

My son and his wife are in the middle of a major remodel on there home. They are adding rooms, redoing their kitchen all new flooring etc. It is a major mess right now. I promised them that I would paint them a mural on the travertine tiles they are using for their backsplash. I have done a sketch that I am happy with and they also like. I will be painting directly onto the tiles in washes so that the beauty of the travertine shows through. I do not want it to have a heavy painted look or resemble a decal stuck onto tile. My goal is for the look to be soft and old looking, almost like it has weathered with age and now is only a hint of a painting. I am happy with mine and I hope they are happy with theirs, the tile layers are waiting for me to paint it so I need to get it done today. I will post it as a WIP or a slide show so you can all see the progression, I will hopefully photograph it up too so we can see the end product all finished. Here is the prelim drawing that was approved. I might make some changes as to spoon placement etc but the composition is there. I am not going to add the "text" on the pot, I was just playing with some ideas. I would love to hide some personal thing in there somewhere, like there name or something special just for them but I don't want it to be too obvious or the next owners will not appreciate it.