Thank God, I thought I had forgotten how to paint!

Well, the Savannah's face is starting to look like her, maybe not perfect, but it's getting there! I had the underpainting in brown and white, and now I'm putting the color in. I guess i see in color so much better that it's easier now. But I like the way a painting looks when it started with monochromatic. Here's the rest of the painting, still monochromatic, still a little awkward, the couch is too big and the shoulder is at an uncomfortable looking angle, but all can be fixed. The couch will be a luxurious looking dark burgundy velvet. I think I will put some kind of subtle 1920's style wallpaper on the background, something that looks like it has textured images rather than colored images, I think. Her hair will also be a bit more strawberry than blond, which is a challenge because the girl used to have light red hair, but it's almost black now! I have to refer to wedding photos.

It's like an old fashioned version of photoshopping.... cut and paste and rearrange. The couch isn't something that either of us were ever near, and the dog was not allowed near the expensive velvet dress, so it's all assembled from different images.

Well, hopefully after this I can get some actual paid commissions... well, to be fair, I think a website is quite a lovely payment. Actually I got quite a deal. I think I came out ahead!

I'm really excited about where this is going!

Etsy is up, the Website is up!

Go to http://willowdarcy.com and check out the new layout. It's a bit simplified. I haven't sold anything on Etsy yet, but hopefully as I put more and more stuff on there and get a handle on it, I can get enough viewers that I will sell something! Just go to my website and click the "Etsy" button on the top. Click on the "Blog" button and it will bring you right back here! Thanks to Legacy Specialties for the design of my lovely site. Such a nice way to navigate. Google sites has limits, so sorry about the white spaces under the thumbnails, I really don't know how to get rid of them!

Savannah's Portrait

Finally worked in the studio today. I had forgotten that when I do a portrait, even if I have a photograph and use a projector, I still need to draw the face with pencil on paper. I won't yet show a photo of the painting itself, as I don't want to create a bias for the viewer, as I am still working on likeness, but I think I did a pretty good job with the pencil sketch of Savannah's face. I transferred the drawing on to the painting by putting a layer of oil pastel on the back of a copy of the drawing and drawing over it on top of the painting. Well, here it is. I am really glad I have a scanner and a printer, it makes these things so much easier. She looks a bit like the Mona Lisa, smile and everything. Wonder if I could get her to pose for me again and do a Mona Lisa update.

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....