The insomnias guide to insomnia.

Ok this isn't actually a guide, but I liked that title. It is however a short article on something that creative people often complain about. I decided to do a little google research (i.e. not real research) on insomnia and particularly getting up in the morning when the previous night didn't go well. I found a lot of bad articles. Particularly, I could tell within the first few sentences whether or not the person was an insomniac.

For instance, one article written by a writer, one oddly who wasn't an insomniac himself, had all sorts of "advice". I looked around to see what kind of expertise he had. Was he a scientist? No. A nurse? No. What was he? He was a writer, and by the picture looked to be younger than I am. Hmmm. But I read it. What did it say? The opposite of what most insomniacs know. It said to stay in bed, keep your eyes closed, and keep the lights off. Don't get up, it said. Now I know his advice SOUNDS logical, but it isn't really. Because usually, and I will just speak for myself, it is my MIND that keeps me awake. Not books, not music, not doing things. Doing things gives me a calming satisfaction, reading distracts my mind from whatever it is thinking about. Just lying there? Well to be honest, that is what I do 99% of the time, and I can tell you definitively IT DOES NOT HELP!

On the other hand, the worst thing I can do is get on the computer... the light of the screen has been shown in studies to disrupt sleep patterns. So I should get on the computer when I'm trying to get up in the morning. See, I know there are insomniacs out there who just get up early, that's the symptom. Mine is the opposite, I can't go to sleep, when I do I wake about 4 hours later. Another article, one I actually liked, was called "10 Geeky Tricks for Getting Out of Bed in the Morning" and hell I'll go ahead and give you the link http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/02/10-tricks-to-ge/

I read another similar article that said something to the degree that if you don't go to sleep within 5 minutes of going to bed, then you aren't tired enough. What?!?! First of all, I feel bad for this guy's sex life. I mean, I don't have one myself right now, but if you wait until you are that tired and you have a significant other waiting for you, well, yeah.... we can see where that will go. Second of all, I don't think I have ever in my entire life gone to sleep that soon. Ever. Which means that, basically, if I wait for that moment, I won't sleep. Like at all. It takes me that long just to get sort of comfortable.

I have a theory about sleep and tiredness. I think that my insomnia really is in my mind, my habits of thought, and is connected to many things, as much as in my body. One of the mind traps is a kind of lack of faith. Not necessarily religious faith, but just a feeling of comfort and safety. I CAN'T go to sleep, I tell myself, what if something happens? What if I have things I needed to do? Only it isn't this coherent. I think that I can't sleep because I can't trust the universe to keep me safe while I sleep. I feel responsible for the house, for myself, for my pets, etc. I can't go to sleep, what if something happens? This is silly of course, but it also explains why I have trouble getting up in the morning. My mind has finally abandoned that train of thought, and besides, it is morning... I made it through the night. I was a sentinel. The sun has risen. All is well. I can rest now....

The worst part is that I do best doing my art in the morning before work. I have to start getting ready to go to work at 11 AM. Since I have been trying every single day to get up early, and failing almost every day, my art time is being whittled away, hour by hour, day by day. If I could just convince my sleepy headed morning mind that yes, it is important to get up, and not only is it important, but it is enjoyable. Believe it or not, I like mornings. I like being up, having coffee, the cold morning air... I just don't like getting up. Somehow I have to do this though, I have to get up... preferably by 7:30. I need that quiet time alone in my studio, while everyone else is asleep and nothing else is expected of me.... I need it. I wish I could do it.... Cross your fingers and wish me luck, because I'm going to try again tomorrow.

Something for me to color! There is a whole side of my work that doesn't get much attention, and lately it's been the thing I do when I'm sick or bored or just want to mess around. I don't have to do much research on images, it's all drawn from my imagination, and I can do it while lying propped up in bed. I know I need to work on some things that require me being up in my studio, but really, I have to give myself a little room for play!

Death

That's quite a title isn't it? Sorry, no photos at the moment. I have ten minutes before I start getting ready to go to my office job, that every day I am surprised I still have.

I've been thinking about death, because I just experienced it. Death, loss, and the ephemerality (Is that a word? Probably not, my spell check is telling me it isn't) of everything we have and hold dear. My cat died.... painfully, after licking a rock we believe was radioactive. It was awful.

Then, as I was preparing to figure out a way to back up my computer with little money, the hard drive just suddenly went poof. It's dead, and I didn't save anything. At the moment the most heartbreaking part is losing all the photos of the cat that just died!!! I was pleased to find just 6 photos of her on my mom's computer, which is what I am using now.

It's hard to suddenly have things... GONE... and living beings that you love. It's like a hole. I mean it is one of those things we all experience. We'll lose everything completely at some point. I don't know what happens when we die, but whatever happens, as they say, "you can't take it with you". Which means if we are somehow conscious, we lose all of it. I guess being a painter is somehow comforting, because an oil painting can last for generations after I am gone. But that same oil painting too will go some day, whether it is 50 years or 5000, it will go, too. Woah, what a thought, in all the changes in the last, oh, 2000 years, what will things be like in 5000 years? We can't even fathom it!!!

Well, this was a pointless rant, and there goes my alarm telling me it's time to go get ready for my stupid job. Pray he fires me amiably, so I can get unemployment and get some art done. And soon, the sooner the better. If I go to work today and he tells me I'm fired, and I get to come right back home, what a celebration that will be!!!

As much as I would like to sit here and blog about the new layer to this painting, I have to go to my office job now....

I was on TV!

Oregon Art Beat had a special on collecting art... I remember them filming the show I was in, but I hadn't noticed that I was IN the filming. http://www.opb.org/programs/artbeat/videos/view/269-The-Art-of-Collecting. I'm at 7:47 if you don't feel like watching the whole thing... though I recommend watching the whole thing, it's actually very interesting.

It was an "Artists for the Community" show at the Albina Community Bank during First Thursday... I want to say maybe April? I think I price my stuff a bit high for those shows.... because I feel like my work is worth more than $100 a painting. Actually it's worth talking about pricing. People wonder why paintings "cost so much". I have actually had people ask me this question, people who seemed to think that spending $50 on a painting was a lot!

Lets break it down: One painting is not made out of thin air. It has within it years of training, practice, unsuccessful works, sketches, and lets not forget about school (I owe over 50 grand in student loans. If I sell my paintings at $5o a pop, how fast will I pay that back?)

The next thing to consider is that when an artist is doing relatively well, maybe 1 out of 10 pieces actually sell. So I wouldn't make $50 per painting. I would make $50 per 10 paintings. That's $5 a painting, which is about a third of what the materials cost, and that's only because I know how to get my materials cheap and I stretch my own canvas.

In order to quit one of my 3 day jobs and just focus on my art, let's say the real time waster... I need to make at least $1200 a month. How many paintings at $50 is that? I would have to sell 24 paintings a month. I'm lucky if I even finish half that many. If my paintings sold at $1200 a piece, they would likely be selling in a gallery, which would take half. Which means I have to sell 2 per month. And have a show every single month (which in most galleries, that's not the way it works.) I have been thinking about that actually, if you are in a major gallery, you usually sign papers that say you won't show anywhere else in town. Which means you get to show your work once a year in one city. (Which is why a lot of artists travel, or refuse to sign contracts) So I would have to make about $14,400 in one sale to live meagerly for a year. Only famous artists sell their work in the tens of thousands. (This is only because I have other income. If art is my ONLY income, well we get into a bit of trouble then don't we?)

And last but not least, we are talking about a completely unique object that will last longer than you do. It is something you can pass on to your grandchildren, and may actually be worth quite a bit more some day. You are buying a piece of contemporary history, a part of a whole paradigm. People pay a lot more for a mattress, a pair of shoes, or a nice dinner for two. It's all about what is valued.

The quality of my work suffers because I have to spend my time elsewhere to pay my bills. If I wanted to REALLY focus on my work, I would spend at LEAST 5 hours a day in the studio. But I simply don't have that kind of time. I have been doing good compared to how I usually do, which means I spend about 3 hours every other day in the studio. But what that amounts to is about one finished piece every month and a half, not including small drawings and sketches and stuff ( I may need to do another 100 drawings project, just to feel a sense of accomplishment)

Well, I gotta get off this computer. I have to start getting ready for my day job.... sigh.

Slug Painting... New Layer

Now it's starting to look like something. I still remember a dream from when I was a kid of mountains that seemed impossibly steep, and waking up and thinking: Those were not like real mountains. But I found some mountains that are impossibly steep:

I'm not sure, but I think these might be the Dolomites in Italy, which is part of the Alps. Looking at this picture makes me think the mountains in the painting maybe should be a little steeper - impossibly steep. It is those impossible things that I like, just subtle enough to be plausible but strange enough to evoke mystery and a surreal feeling. Though I could go the other direction and make things in my paintings that are completely implausible, like the classical surrealists often did. I think I should accept that if there is an "ism" that my work continues to come around to, it would be surrealism. Even my abstracts are a little surreal.

I am thinking about putting her in water too, as if in a flood, maybe ankle deep. How strange that would be! It is an accident that I hope to accentuate that her dress echoes the mountain. The shape and the folds, even the intended color (you can't see that yet, but you will when it is done). The square of light is a new thought, and not one I am entirely sure of. It implies that the light is coming from outside, but the quality of the light is different from the outside, so I might need to do some push and pull to get it to harmonize. There are better words for all this but it's almost 2:30 in the morning, so my brain isn't thinking of clever ways to explain things.

A thought I did want to address in this blog though: How much should I use source material and how much should I paint out of my head? It's a hard one to figure out. The girl, believe it or not, was sketched in pencil out of my head. It took many tries, and a lot of looking at vaguely related source photos from the internet, but in the end, I put all the photos away and just drew her as I felt she needed to be. Knowing anatomy a little bit helps. But would the painting be better if I had a model do exactly what I need her to do? I don't know... in some ways learning to actually perfectly paint the interior images bouncing around in my brain is an interesting challenge, on the other hand I am incredibly good at painting from life and from photos (As some of you may know from a few of my portraits). Also, painting from life makes it ten times easier to paint out of my head, so I really have to do both. Maybe I need to do more practice images: Meaningless still lifes, figure studies and landscapes. People like those things too anyway. I just need more time to work. I end up working on my art about 8 hours a week on a good week, and that simply isn't enough! It takes me 4 months to finish a painting, that really only took about 15 hours! Thats less than one weeks work at my law office job! Well, if I can get my work selling, maybe I can quit. In the mean time, I like having money.

If I only use source material, I am only limited to what I can get my hands on. What is in my head is totally unique, so I have to get people to model, and find landscapes to photo, and then guess at the rest. Its a weird process, but I think some day I will find the right balance, and actually get around to getting people to model for me (Ok I'm shy about it, several people had said they would... now I just have to take them up on it.)

Beet Gallery http://beetgallery.com/ is doing a call for artists that I want to try to get into. Actually, I want to submit my work to the gallery regardless of whether I aim for that particular show or not, because the gallery is awesome and I think my work would go well there.

The show is a textile show with the theme "Pocket". Thus, inspiration for making a marsupial like humanoid woman with babies in a pouch. I just thought it would be fun if she had 4 boobs and 3 fingers, and incredibly large feet.... we will see how she actually comes out.

Slug

One of my favorite ideas can be found in a previous post. A woman in a fine black gown in a dark room against a wall with a slug crawling up her arm. There is a feeling of being trapped, almost like the mythical princess in the tower. On the right, I want to add some kind of beautiful vista. On the left a dusty light floating through a window. The wall itself will be painted with a cross section, sort of like an x-ray, so you see into it as if you are inside it. Perhaps there will be mice in the walls. Will there be other additions of symbolism perhaps? We shall see. The starkness and simplicity might be best for it.

The painting is sort of painted on the golden rectangle, although it's a little off now. I might undertake the huge task of painting over it and completely moving the figure over an inch to make it more like that, but I think I will more likely just change the positioning of the wall. So the balance will be not quite as unnerving and disconcerting as I had hoped, but I hope there is enough imbalance to be deliberately effective.

Done!

Here it is, the final layer. Still no digital camera. You can see where the computer screen of my laptop glared onto the body. So the subtleties of detail in that area are washed out by a blue light. That light isn't painted into the painting.

Almost done! The second pic sucks. I'm off to buy a camera today so this stops happening. Can you spot the fly? It's nice to have the composition together, with all the elements and stuff I wanted to put in for meaning. It isn't just a figure anymore, but a painting with (questionable) meaning. No I don't know exactly what it means. That would be too didactic. But I will probably make something up for a statement....

It's hard to see the detail of the necklace in the pic. I think if I show it in a gallery I will show the necklace too, maybe in a shadowbox or something. (If I just hang it on the wall someone might steal it.) If you didn't know from earlier posts, the necklace is made from screws, nuts, washers, bolts and a razor blade, all braided into a string. I wish I could show what a wonderful sound it makes when one wears it. It's lovely coming from something so... industrial. It kind of extends the intention of the whole series... beauty and utilitarian and disposable objects, things that aren't commonly understood as beautiful painted in a way that is. (Cardboard boxes were the first, garbage bags, now flies, slugs, crows, decaying walls, fences, power poles.... I shouldn't give it ALL away, I'll spoil the surprise!)

Yet another layer.

I was feeling a little discouraged. The last layer of the nuts and bolts painting was not so great. You can't tell by the terrible photo, but it looks a LOT better, I would say the figure is good enough that I can finish the rest of the painting.

Sorry, I really need a better camera then the one in my computer. Hopefully next month, if I don't spend all my money fixing my car.

Another layer, painting flesh, and an sketch I dug up

I like this sketch. I probably have around 5 or 6 active sketchbooks. It took me years to overcome the odd feeling of drawing in a sketchbook I had put down for a long time and then picking it up again and drawing in it again. The feeling of having a drawing that was from, say 2007 next to a drawing that was done in 2009. But I decided, a: it is wasteful to do that because I only fill them about halfway before they get buried in the clutter somewhere, and b: it's actually kinda cool to see things next to each other and how they evolved. Well, I don't know how old this sketch is. Maybe 6 months? I kinda like it. It might become a painting, I don't know.

The painting is coming along, but I really need to put it aside for awhile. I think I obsessed over it, and overworked it. It's a matter of figuring out just what technique to use to paint the skin, and since I don't have a model, making the figure look somewhat believable and interesting, not just awkward. Flesh is notoriously difficult to paint, and the medium I mix with my paint is particularly difficult to work with as it gets sticky. Did I mention it before? It's called Venice Turpentine, and it's really just sap. It comes in a jar and appears to be the color and consistency of honey, but it kind of thickens really fast, so I mix linseed oil and turpentine with it. It still gets sticky. It's a glazing medium. What it does is suspend the particles of color in the clear goo so light goes past them, and comes bouncing back. That kind of glazing is why so many old masters paintings have that "glow".

Now, I don't have a teacher to teach me how to use this stuff, so I have been trying to just experiment with it. So far I have had some beautiful results, but it takes so long. I think eventually I will have a method that I can keep using and it won't be so hard just to finish one painting. Unlike drawing, which is so automatic to me I don;'t even think about technique much, even when I experiment. Sorry the image is bad, I still don't have a digital camera. Anyone want to trade me one for a painting??? I need a fairly good one, it can be used, just decent. My old one had poor image quality. Ooh... my co-worker wants to buy my "God Cart" painting, (http://willowdarcy.deviantart.com/art/God-Cart-98620070) maybe she has a camera she can trade...

Which makes me also wonder if I shouldn't just frame and show a series of pen drawings. There is sometimes nothing more satisfying than drawing with a plain bic ballpoint pen. Actually I'm not picky about brand, I just have a bunch of bics lying around.

I hope I can get some of my art career off the ground. I might have to buy a new car, as the one I just bought seems to have more problems than are worth fixing. Not sure, I might fix it, I might trade it in for something else.... I don't know. If I had a couple thousand dollars I could sell it and get something decent.

Nuts and bolts 2

Second layer of paint. She looks a bit too warm and maybe a bit to tan for my liking. But more paint can always be added. The sun needs to be adjusted. The big white ring around it doesn't look right at all.

I finally am prepared to start another painting...
Doesn't look like much in this form. This is just a line drawing I traced and printed out. The drawing I did was much smaller than it needed to be, so I traced the outlines, scanned and printed larger. I don't know what hairstyle she will have yet. In the drawing she has it down, long and curly. In the original sketches it was up.

Layer one - Nuts and Bolts painting.

I've been doing lots of drawing, sketching, messing around, but it has been maybe 6 months since I have put brush to canvas.

I decided to paint one of the 100 drawings and not worry too much if I had a model. This is the first layer. There will be interesting details and lots of glazing layers added. I think the imperfection of the figure is fine. I did take some pics with my computer camera just to get the angle and anatomy right.

There are only 3 colors of paint in this so far, plus a tiny bit of white. The only yellow is around the sun which you can't see in the crappy photo.

I have some serious complaints about my equipment. My printer keeps telling me it is missing an ink cartridge WHICH IT IS NOT! I fought with it for about half an hour before I gave up and went without printing out some images to help me along.

Complaint 2 is I have no digital camera. This is frustrating. I have a regular camera, but it is doing some strange stuff too.... so I'm kind of without some kind of necessary equipment and it is making my life much more frustrating.

The painting is called Nuts and bolts for a reason... but you can't see that yet. It's only a working title. :) Sure to change.

A totally random rant.

Maybe I fight myself too much. Maybe I should just accept that I do too many forms of work and just do what I feel at the time? I don't know. I don't' have time for all of it. I don't have time to do dolls, paint abstracts, do dream imagery, old master surreal mix, portraits, and all the hobbies that I get myself into (do I really need to spend what little art time I have crocheting socks? I don't know... I think I will make another custom swimsuit... but how many paintings do I intend to do?)

It all comes together I think, but I don't really know where or how. The old masters did it all didn't they? They didn't worry about only doing painting... or architecture. DaVinci did it all... so am I simply a renaissance woman? I'm trying to do what kills all artists in the end, I am trying to conform to an expectation so that I can make money with my art. I don't know if this is even necessary. It's depressing. I mean I do want to create a full body of work... but I also want to create what comes to my mind, and let the learning and growing come from that. I mean, I can do what I can do because of all the experiments with sewing and abstraction and other random hobbies that I get into. It all ties together doesn't it? What would my art be like if I did nothing but let myself create whatever came to me at the time, and had the time to do it all? Well, I would never have the time, but I would, I assure you dear reader, be an incredibly skilled artist with a fluency and fluidity of style that would enable me to do pretty much anything.

But could I sell it? I don't know. I don't know if my dream of making a living on my art alone is feasable but I have to try... I just don't know how to do it with integrity, without getting depressed and sucked into tv.

So tomorrow....I don't know maybe I will finally scrape the dry paint off the palette and clean up the studio some. I have a clean 16" x 20" canvas waiting to be caressed with lovely brushes. I miss the smell of linseed oil and Venice turpentine. I love Venice turp. It is basically tree sap. What it does is suspend the pigment so that light goes through it more freely and bounces back. It is one of the ways oil painters get that amazing glow. It creates a depth that is impossible in a photograph or in watercolor.

See that's why I love painting. I just love the process. I love the smell and the sensuality of a brush loaded with paint smearing on a surface. I love the magic. I've been jaded lately, thinking maybe I should give up on art. There are people who think my dolls are better... "my medium" they say. But they are only one medium and not one that is profitable. I can sell one for maybe $100 max... since they often take 10 hours to do I am back to making $10 an hour. That is only if every single one sells. Which of course is truly unreasonable.

So until I have a venue or a way of doing the dolls that will break out of the craft fair prices, they will remain mostly a hobby that doesn't even pay for itself. And, besides, I love painting, and I am just as good at it. It's just not as amazing to people because it is more common for people to be good at painting than turning flat pieces of fabric into very specific three dimensional forms. Thats a very particular skill, I know. I love it. I will do more soft sculptures, for those of you that think it is my forte. But it isn't. Not really. My forte hasn't been fully developed yet because I am too lazy or add or busy or overworked or whatever to put the effort into it. Laziness in art is probably the most sinful of laziness.

Sorry no pictures this time. I'm too lazy.

100 drawings in a month part two

I successfully finished 100 drawings in one month - exactly. And at the very last hour. I finished the last one around 11:00 on the 31st. I will scan them and post them soon.

The original idea was to purge my mind some, so that I could see what all was rolling around in there. I have too many directions and I don't have time to do them all at once (damned work-a-day job doesn't help)

Did it work? Not really. Not as I had hoped. I suppose I had wised for some searing inspiration to overwhelm me with a fantastic series that would sustain through the next 5 years and never get old. Honestly I think I'm too ADD for that. And I LIKE having many different directions to go. I just need to spend enough time on at least one of them to put together a solid body of work... and all this self bullying is possibly only making the problem worse.

I bought some sumi-e brushes and have been playing with them using black watercolor. Interesting.

But the theme is still there. I feel very strongly that there is something just at the edge of my consciousness that needs to emerge... and I don't know what angle to pick at to get it out in the open. It's been there for some time, and I see it come out the corners of every piece of art I make. Some more than others. What is it? I don't know. It is like a piece of dreamtime, some part of understanding, some idea. It is plural not singular but probably comes together as a single whole concept. Possibly. I thought maybe this exercise would open that up, but it didn't.

So I have to be drastic. When I have a day on my own that I have nothing expected of me and no plans or chores that are terribly urgent I will do 100 drawings in a day. That will hopefully break this spell of overanalyzing and open up some new doors that will let the work flow and let me free.

We shall see... I love my abstracts the more I look at them, but I also want to paint the surreal images of women and garbage.... and the girl with the slug is a must do. Maybe there is a way to put it all together.... I'll post more pics later, but here is #100- which is different than any of the others but I like something about it, and maybe if I can put my finger on what it is that I like about it I can do something with it... it has the same thread as some of my other work, some energy that I can't quite see consciously but somehow is in all of my work. I hope to bring that out and see it clearly so I know how to do it. That is if it can be done consciously.

100 drawings in a month

The biggest challenge in my work as an artist for all the time I have considered myself such has been to create a consistent body of work. I can hang 10 paintings and they will look like they were done by 3 or 4 different artists. This has hindered me in seeking serious gallery representation, and has tied me up in a peculiar kind of artist's block.













My solution? Purge all the loose ideas in my head, get in some good creation time, and make a record of all the little and not so little inspirations - do 100 drawings in a month. They don't have to be intricate drawings, or full pieces of art, as a matter of fact they don't have to follow any rules at all. 8 drawings occupy one small 6"x9" page. These are simple composition sketches.

The path it has taken me on has proven an interesting journey. Sketches may or may not become paintings. Some of them are composition exercises. Many are experiments with style or medium. One was a little foray into erasure, where I covered the surface with graphite and erased the lighter values out of the background.

Hopefully by the end of this exercise I will have an idea of the "Thread" as my printmaking professor once described it. A friend of mine told me I need to really exhaust a subject and I found that inspiring, except I need first to figure out which subject to exhaust. Hopefully this challenge will get me to that point where I am ready to really commit to something and follow through with it.

These images are of some of the most significant of the first 54 drawings. I will post some of the second half along with an assessment when I am finished with all 100.
When I am done I would like to do 100 drawings in a day. Or maybe considering the business of my schedule, I will do just 50 in a day.