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.