i'm "published"!!

O...M...G...!!! i have been waiting every day for this to come and it finally arrived today in my mailbox... my march/april issue of cloth paper scissors... that has an article I WROTE in it!!! they requested a write-up for this piece after i submitted it for the artisan 2012 contest - here is the first page of it (it's not legal for me to publish any more of it - take it as a "teaser" to go buy a copy... if you ask me nicely, i'll order it wholesale for you ;) i seriously have every issue of this magazine ever made, and it is so amazing to me to be featured in it! it's been on my "dream" to-do list for the last two years "write an article for CPS" and now i finally had the honor. 

AAAAAHHHHHH!!! so crazy! :D thanks for letting me celebrate here! :)

and THIS weekend...

jason took joey to sea world yesterday afternoon! and i stayed home, but wasn't feeling awful most of the time, so i got to draw... worked on some more portraits and figures, drawing from photos of people i know (mostly). before i started, i planned to have you guys see if you recognized yourselves in any of these drawings (i stole half of them from your facebook albums ;). but once i got into them, and saw how much i was butchering any resemblance to the beautiful women (and one handsome man ;) i was drawing, i decided to plead instead: DON'T see yourself in these! any apparent likeness to a known photograph is incidental and unintentional ;) i promise - you're all way cuter than i made you (these were each 10-15 minute drawings, so i guess if i'd put more time, i could've pulled it off... but i do not have that kind of patience ;)

this last one, i really don't know - i took her from the "secret museum of mankind"... her posture is totally different in the original - not all hunched-over - looks more free and strong... oh well. getting lots of good practice!

i heart unisom

i do. love unisom sleeptabs. i'm pretty much their spokeswoman. they worked like magic with my first pregnancy when i finally tried them at like 21 weeks. this time i started MUCH sooner - trying to keep up with a 2-year-old while feeling like that... was impossible. and since i knew of this magic drug... i started at like 7 weeks (i braved a whole week and a half of morning sickness without it). don't get me wrong - i'm still sick. just WAY LESS SICK than before. 

so, with my newfound ability to do (some) things (occasionally), jason graciously took joey to a museum last weekend & then to papi & nona's house (jason's parents)... so i got some "art time" all to myself!

and, as planned, i restarted my art class! reread from the beginning and rewatched Misty's videos, this time drawing along with her... so fun & relaxing!

week 1, day 1: drawing portraits & figures (these were all drawn following along with a video of Misty Mawn drawing - makes it much easier, seeing what marks go down where, when... although i am surprised how little they look like hers as a finished drawing...)

 i found portraits super-fun and addictive... and figure drawing much harder. getting all the proportions right...

reasons...

so... i didn't just give up. well, i kind of gave up. but it was for good reasons... i'm pregnant!!! found out on the second day of my art class, and started with "morning" sickness about a week later. i find it hard, if not impossible to be creative when i'm feeling awful. plus so exhausted. so i decided to just keep up with the info for each day of my 5-week class (the only thing besides SLEEP i could force myself to do during normally bliss-time: joey's nap). and then start over with week 1, day 1 after the class was over. 

i did end up finding time/space/non-sickyness in little bits and pieces, so here are a few things i made during the course of the class...

a journal assignment: we were supposed to draw as many "tree rings" as years of our lives. imagine my surprise when i was at 16, 17, and really thought i was almost "there", only to discover that was about HALF my life so far! i suddenly felt very old ;) so then i journaled, one line(ish) per year. later, i painted over the rings in colors corresponding to the general "mood" of my life at the time...

an assignment to find textures around the house - loved finding some of these things! and made me more aware of my world around me - more "present": an ongoing life goal for me...

another art journal assignment involving collage and paint...

step 1: collaged on the background, using interesting textures & colors (when i originally planned this spread, i had no intention of a figure in it, but then i found this one in a Butterick fashion guide from 1970 and had to use it :)

step 2: chose a color scheme and add a layer of paint. i don't usually try complementary colors, so i wanted to experiment with it in this assignment... i went with red & green! oh, and i did a little "finger" painting :)

step 3: collaged on some imagery (in this case different anatomical hearts) to be used as a base, and covered with paint for my final look.

step 4: painted... i intended these hearts to be an image of my heart and those i'm most closely connected to: my family... my husband, jason's, being on the right; joey, our 2-year-old below and between us, and the new little tiny one still connected to MY circulatory system (it was also hard to blog during this time because everything i was creating had something to do with this new little life growing inside me, and we hadn't officially widely announced it yet, so i couldn't post stuff!! so nice to feel free to do that now :)

i used a cross-section for my own heart to signify that in all this, i'm desiring to open my heart. let it be seen, give freely... 

the assignment was actually based around a journaling prompt: "i am...(color)". i looked up the meaning of the colors on a webpage misty had linked to, and immediately identified with red standing for courage and sacrifice, especially embarking on this new journey of bringing a second child into our family, and all that entails...

the piece turned out very... bright. :) and where it says "red" looks a little too superman-emblem-y to me, but it was definitely fun experimenting with color & texture!!