Better Days...

Better Days 11x14 watercolor on Yupo - $80.00

I finished "Better Days" this weekend. I loved this car because she looked like she was grimacing. She's a memory of better days and she's seen better days. Nothing much else going on at present all is quiet on the homefront and it's back to work tomorrow.

Taking the Plunge or Pure Joy by the Square Foot

I am so excited. I mailed out my reservation for Nick Simmons workshop at Sandy Maudlin's for 2010. I know it sounds like a long way away but it's a big deal for me.

Now I have a problem....I can't decide which is the bigger news for me today because I also finally stepped off the edge and decided to get an art studio. I move in next Friday!! It's on the third floor of Sugar Creek Arts Center and I'll be sharing a large open floor plan studio that can actually house 3 artists but has only been used by one artist for a little while. I will be moving in with Lynn Dugan which is probably what is most exciting about it. I could have had another studio up on the same floor that was just mine but I think I actually like the idea of being in the room with another artist. Her style is vibrant and expressive and we are very different and that is probably the whole point of getting a studio at the center. The possibility of being around all types of art.

I might also be giving flute/beginning music lesson's...not sure yet we'll see. I don't have a golden flute like James Galway but I did manage to teach my own daughter how to read music and how to play flute. Maybe I can spread the music and the art at the same time.

I am near giddy over finally deciding to do some things to take my art further. So happy in fact that I went out for dinner and actually had some fine malt beverages. For those who know me well, they know I am not really a person who drinks often, so the fact I've had the equivalent of too many beers tonights means I am apologizing now for any typo's now.

Cheers and G'nite!

Hi my name is Lori and I'm a Junkie...

Well an art junkie anyway. I finally got to paint for a couple of hours today and I feel SO MUCH better. Less cranky, more even keel, I got my fix for the day, and sadly probably for the week because tomorrow starts ...LET THE PARENTHOOD GAMES BEGIN. Dances, and basketball practice and work and meetings and graduations this weekend and I volunteer Friday afternoon at the Sugar Creek Art Center

I haven't gotten to work on Lili's pictures anymore as of yet(soon Dave I promise) but I did work on the old Junk car today...(see previous post for sketch) It's on Yupo and it's been fun working on it so far.

I also bought a copy of "Art and Fear" as suggested by Sandy Maudlin.

Thanks Sandy, I'll be reading that this week!

If your reading this Tom or Amy of the Dream Catcher I haven't forgotten all the pictures you so generously let me swipe. I have a few planned once I get caught up and will let you know as soon as some of them are finished.

Sketches of Lili ...Time for a real Studio?

Recently it seems everytime I sit to work I get interrupted by one thing or another. I've been toying with the idea of getting a "real" studio but the monthly cost has always stopped me. There's so much more I could use that money for (supplies/workshops/BILLS). I only managed to get a couple of sketches done this weekend and still have the one completed sketch transferred and ready to paint for over a week now. 

So when is it time to just bite the bullet and invest in a "real" studio? I enjoy the ease of being able to just work whenever, but whenever seems to be few and far between the longer time goes on. At least with a studio (and a payment going out for that) I would need to get up and "go to work" on my two weekdays that I have off at least. 

On a positive note, I did manage to do a couple of sketches for a commisioned piece of Dave M.'s little girl Lili. The reference photo's he sent were gorgeous and she is such a pretty little girl. 

  

I need to do some more work on the first sketch (it's off a little) but I think the second one is ready to transfer to watercolor paper. Here are the photo's I am working with as a comparison

  

And here's the sketch of the car...

It's already been transferred to yupo and is waiting for me to start work on it. I have some fabulous metallic watercolor's that I am interested in trying for this. 

Side note..the art show artist reception was this past Friday night in Martinsville, IN. They did a lovely job and the show was nice. 

I'm off to have brunch with my mother (yet another interruption LOL) so hopefully I will be able to work on some things after lunch. 

Dive bombing Robins and syphilis

I fed the chickens this morning and was getting dive bombed by a pair of robins as I was trying to get waters cleaned and refilled. Guess the resident pair decided to nest attached to my coop and fence. So I clicked a couple of pictures of the charming little brood (all the while frantic screeching parents were trying to scare me off)

Spring has sprung and the sun is out...at least for today. We've tilled the garden and bought the tomato plants and seed corn and I am setting a batch of eggs in the incubator today. (If my hens didn't hide their eggs I might not need more layers but such is the life of free range chickens.) 

I also delivered two paintings to a juried art show this weekend. Artists reception is this Friday, May 15th. The show is in Martinsville, IN and is at the Art Sanctuary.

 

I hope all the mothers out there had a lovely mothers day! I got pancakes and flowers (live ones to plant..somehow a gift that involves work is ironically suitable for mothers day.)

I am working on a couple of things right now. The last project I completed did not turn out well and has made its way to the trash pile to be recycled or recropped or something.

I have nothing to add to my blog that would assist too many people with techniques or educate them in some way. I guess my contribution to the art world would be just to say ....just do it. Just create something. I constantly fight down the fear that what I am doing isn't good enough to be viewed by anyone other than myself. It's not uncommon I suppose, to feel somewhat inadequate, but fight the urge to compare yourself to someone else. 

If Van Gogh or Gaugin or others had given up because they were told they weren't good enough we wouldn't have many of what the world now considers to be the most progressive, insightful paintings in history. Of course I have decided there are a few reasons why I could never be as famous as the above mentioned artists....

1. I don't drink nearly enough

2. I am not even close to being crazy enough.

3. I don't have syphilis (which probably contributed to #2)

The impressionists and post-impressionists were truly an interesting bunch!

Bottom line I'm not educated, I'm not wordly, but I do love to paint. There is a fear and excitement that comes with each new painting. It's a feeling comparable to stage fright and much like stage fright the show must go on!

BTW...it's really too bad the habit of the rich becoming patrons of fledgling artist and supporting them fell out of practice LOL