anatomy

the third assignment from the first (yes, the FIRST) day of class (she gave us like 8 that day, ok?! ;) it was way harder than i expected. i think mostly the ribcage, because a) i was drawing from a preserved skeleton, but the cartilage had all turned black, so it was hard to interpret where the ribs were, and b) the background was black (mine was white, you may have noticed ;) and there were almost ZERO shadows on this guy (in my human anatomy book from freshman year in college), so i kind of felt like i was making it up. that was a way longer apology explanation than this 10-minute drawing deserved.

looking at the anatomy book, though, inspired me to think about incorporating more anatomical drawings into my work. this has been something i've considered before, since i'm a nurse, and so have a little bit of an inside look to the human body.

also, i LOVE the opening credits on the show, House - have you seen them? anatomical drawings, text, MRI's, textures...LOVE. side note: i also love all the drawing in the sherlock holmes movies (especially the credits ... i just start smiling when they come on :).

this week...

 don't worry - i've still been making art and being creative this week... just haven't also had time to post about it (i've had a cold, and joey hasn't been napping much, so i'm pretty exhausted, among other things ;)... so here was basically my week (i've taken sundays off thus far):

Monday: finished painting this lady... i'm still not happy with it, but it's way better than it was! she went through phases of being pasty-white-sickly-looking, little-miss-sunburned-pinky, and fake-tan-orange girl before finally ending up like this :)

as i went through the stages of making her, my two-year-old kept eyeing my progress with his usual running commentary: "mommy, is that your playdough? what you making?" and then, "you made a person, mommy? i like it. :)" and the best "what's she doing, mommy? praying?" yep, buddy, that's exactly what she's doing: praying.

 tuesday: ok, this was the craft at MOPS, but i'm counting it as being creative... i did come home and paint the frame white ;) it's dry-erase - cute, right?

wednesday: pencil drawing of an animal (leopard? ocelot? cheetah? my son assures me it's a cheetah) my husband photographed on our trip to israel a few years ago... i chose it because i identified with the pose ;)

 thursday: got out and made some "art in nature". i had picked all these hollowed-out, almost petrified pomegranates off my sister's tree last weekend before i even saw the assignment this week, and i was like "perfect! i actually have a use for them, besides just enjoying them myself!" :) took joey to run around at the park while i arranged and rearranged dried pomegranates ("you touching the ew, mommy?"). it was great. now i want to draw some of these combinations :D

 friday: a journal page assignment. wrote a bunch of stuff down and then painted over it :) it was supposed to be about the "season" we're in (eg, winter)... since we don't exactly have distinguishable seasons around here, i thought about what DOES happen only at certain times of year... the migration of the monarch butterflies ends with them wintering in southern california - perfect! in pismo beach, near where i grew up, there's this grove of eucalyptus trees by the beach that is currently (probably - i'm not there right now to check) covered in these orange beauties!

and today, saturday... we shall see!

day 5 of the class: journaling. i think this is basically "putting it all together".
for this assignment, we journaled about what we've learned so far, and then drew, colored, and painted over it. this was the first portrait i've done without using a person or photo for reference. just made it up {intuitive, they call it}. i thought it was done when i took this first photo, but then it seemed garishly bright when i looked at it on the computer screen. so i added some white, and it turned into the piece below. i think this one looks more like me (or, at least, like a person in general), but i miss the colors of the first draft, especially in the neck area... all part of the process...!

sculpted

 i've never sculpted before yesterday (besides the occasional playdough veggietales character for my son ;)... watched a couple of videos from my class, and it looked super-easy... 

yeah, not so much... especially faces. 

i do love this simple little worshiper-woman...

 especially the little crown of rosetted bedecking her crown...

 but this is what she looks like today - somehow her lips disappeared, and her entire bottom half is cracked. guess i have some things to learn ;) i was hoping she'd dry by today so i could paint her... but i guess i'll be filling in cracks and letting those dry first! and making some lips?

expressive

this was a very quickly done "expressive" portrait (meaning it's not meant to be representational - not meant to look exactly like the subject in real life - it's supposed to express an emotion by the use of different marks and colors...) - i love it :) 

i started with a ten-minute sketch (with shading) using vine charcoal, and then i added color using water-soluble artist crayons. instead of wetting them with water afterwards, i just went straight over it with a layer of creamy white paint. i'll definitely be trying this set of techniques again! :)

what emotion do you see? just curious :)

and today i drew him ;)

this class i'm taking is awesome. and insane ;) at least if you were actually expecting to complete it in the allotted 5 weeks - but she leaves it all up for a year, so there's not a huge time crunch! good thing, since the first DAY had like 8 assignments and this is the second one (draw someone you feel deeply connected to - my two-year-old, joey!)! and, yes, this is all instagram-filtered up ;)

today i drew me...

 it was during joey's nap, and my only two mirrors in the house are in wake-him-up-if-you-walk-by-on-the-squeaky-hardwood-floor territory. so i grabbed a vintage handheld mirror that was decorating my desk, and drew what i could see! :) not so sure about the yellow oil pastels... i've never really worked with them before, and am not really sure how to move them successfully... so three self-portraits in 24 hours, and my nose still looks deformed, and it doesn't quite look like me (although, this is the most attractive one of the three, so you can think i look like this if you want ;) but i am so inspired to keep drawing and practicing! the self-portrait was only ONE of the assignments for the first day, so i'll definitely be continuing to work in drawing in the days & weeks to come! :)
however, mondays are for drawing. tuesdays are writing! so i'm about to start the lesson for today (i have been looking forward to this all day! :) and do a little creative writing, sipping vanilla rooibos tea at starbucks :)

class has begun!

first assignment is a self-portrait... i only watched a third of the videos misty posted for today, and after the first one on portrait drawing, i knew i had to stop and play with that technique before moving onto another (and hopefully finding a "favorite" way of expressing :)

 this was my first attempt (my first graphite portrait ever, i think! i did draw my face one other time a few years ago, but it was with charcoal - these are pencil). i was having a hard time seeing lights & darks so i turned off all the lights save one spotlight. this ended up complicating things, but i was glad to have the core shadows to highlights to practice with. this turned out looking NOTHING like me. i felt like it was because i started with the wrong proportions (eyes too big, too far apart, too low). so instead of using like a "universal" grid to shape my self-portrait, i made my own of my actual face (below) by placing a transparency on the bathroom mirror and drawing the grid (plus a few features) with a sharpie.

 so this second attempt at a portrait definitely turned out looking more like me. but they are both pretty angular, and the proportions still aren't quite right. but i'm going to bed, and i plan to try a more "expressive" one tomorrow (read: not a sour expression like these ones. guess i need more practice to get my emotions into the expressiveness of the portrait - cause i was super-happy when i was drawing both of these... can't you tell???  ;)

i made: a journal!

 i've always wanted to try bookbinding, but it always looked so intimidating as i tried to read two-dimensional words to describe the process of coptic binding... not what i ended up doing here.
my 5-week online art class with misty mawn starts tomorrow! and we're supposed to have a journal to work in. so, along with most of the other participants, i made one! she showed us this easy way to sew your pages directly into the cover to make a spine. i used watercolor paper so i can paint in it! the cover is a piece of a dropcloth i had used for practice when i was brainstorming for this project. it's part of the word "beauty". i love that it's abstract ;) and i can't wait to use it :) good thing class starts tomorrow!

 ps. i made this journal over the last two days. not today. i didn't do anything creative today. literally. i laid around on the couch and tried to get up - all. day. at least i'm finally blogging!
pps. i also forgot to journal one day this week. other than that, i have kept all my resolutions so far this year! uh, maybe i forgot to floss last night. ;) how are yours going?

i am my beloved's

i've been wanting to get a tattoo for over a year. one that says "i am my beloved's and he is mine" on my foot (picture it running in a v shape just inside where flip flops sit). jason and i keep going back and forth about its permanence. still haven't come to a decision, so today, i decided to paint some shoes with that same phrase (a lot less permanent ;). 

i started with these shoes that i never really wore, and painted all the fabric with fabric paint! after removing the ribbon, of course :) sanded them, and wrote the script with a sharpie :) they might get another makeover tomorrow... i can't tell until i see them in the daylight ;)

 the meaning behind this is twofold: it is sort of a "remembrance marker" for both my relationship with jason and with God. we came out of a super-hard time together with a renewed commitment to our relationship (and while some people might just renew their vows, i want a tattoo - more permanent ;) also, i had just come out of a really long time of darkness, doubt, and despair, and feel like this would be sort of an ebenezer to God's faithfulness... i once was lost, but now am found. 

so, we'll see about the tattoo, but for now i still have some memorial shoes :)

so my creative project the last 2 days (i said make art/be creative every day, not finish a project every day ;) has been turning this old t-shirt dress into a studio apron! inspired by watching misty mawn creating in her studio with an apron safely protecting her clothes underneath, i've always wanted to have one specifically to use in art-making... one that doesn't matter if it gets paint all over it because that's its intended use! so here's mine... and i took shots along the way to give you sort of a DIY... :)

i started with this dress, which had been cleaned out of my closet to get rid of. i love the crochet details of it, but it has just never fit right (that i can remember) so i was freeing my closet from it... but what a great way to salvage it! here's how:

step one, CUTTING: i first cut directly down the center of the back of the dress. then, i cut off the sleeves and continued the curve down and back until it was at the same height as the string that would tie around the waist. third, i trimmed a few inches off either edge, making it the right width to wrap around my hips. out of that excess, i cut two long strips for the top straps (mine were about 3 1/2" x 20").

step two, SEWING: i have told you before that i am no seamstress (and if you look close at these, it will prove it.) i left it as simple as possible... you don't get a lot of extra time when you have a two-year-old! first, i sewed the straps, turned them into long tubes, and turned right sides out. then, i made a seam along the unfinished edges. i (lucky for me :) had a tie already attached to this dress, so i just sewed it in a straight line to the edge. last, i sewed on the straps to the top, to be tied behind the neck.

then, my favorite part: i added a row of little rosettes along the seams of the ties

as you can see, i made good use of all the scraps that got cut off in the reconstruction process :)

here's a video tutorial on how i make the rosettes - i'm sure there are lots of ways, and i think i made this one up myself, so if you have more sophisticated knowledge, please ignore my movie ;)

and, voila! a finished apron, ready to get splattered with paint, dotted with beeswax, and otherwise stained with evidence of art-making! (this was the best shot i could get of me wearing it, home alone, and not knowing how to use the timer function on jason's Canon 50D - sorry!

yesterday's art: he has my eyes

this piece started out as a drawing of joey. i actually first tried to do a real-life drawing of him while he watched a movie, but he didn't even stay still enough THEN! this two-year-old is an active kid! ;) so i grabbed an old photo of him and drew from that. i hated it by the time i was done. i need lots of practice drawing faces (guess that's one thing that might come out of the class i'm starting with Misty Mawn next week! so excited!). even though the eyes turned out a little funky, i like them. i think i recognize a little bit of myself in them... i asked joey this morning "who is this?" and he said "it's joey!" so i guess he sees a little of himself in them, too ;) i sort gave the piece a "grid" feel by touching corners of these found objects - two of them were found on our family walk down the railroad tracks on new year's ( and the square nut was from my collection... :)

so far, so good with making art, journaling, and flossing every day - 

how are your resolutions going?

the beginning

before i posted this, i had exactly 67 posts on each of my blogs (which is a little crazy, considering that i started this one 2 1/2 years ago now, and the other one, only this summer!).  for a lot of reasons, my art (and therefore, this blog) has been somewhat neglected the last couple of months.

but, as you may have noticed, it's new year's. january first, 2012 (the last year of our world ;). and i have resolved, among other things, to make art every day. i know, you say, i've made that decision before, and even posted about it) twice: here and here. but it never lasted past a couple of weeks. first of all, i'm going into it with a healthier attitude this time. usually if i miss a day in something like that, it's all over. i've failed at my resolution. but now, for me, although i do plan to make art/do something creative every day, and post about my adventures in creativity, i know (now) that i'm human. and life happens. if i miss a day or week here or there, it's ok. but it has just proven (along with eating well, exercising, resting, etc, also on my list) to help me thrive and live and love better, so i'm choosing life here!

second of all, they say it takes 21 days to make (or break) a habit. in the past, i haven't even lasted that long... but this year, i only need to get through the first EIGHT DAYS on my own - then, i'll be forced to make art every day for 5 weeks, thanks to misty mawn and her open studio workshop jason bought me for christmas! :) i can't wait!!! and so, by the end of february, i will have made art every day for two months, and i'll be good to go! (right?? ;)

 

so, to start it off, i did a "blind contour drawing" (you draw just the outlines of something, looking only at the object/person and not at your paper) of jason, and then turned it into a mixed media piece by attaching it to a canvas board, painting, and texturing, attaching a piece of wood that we found on a family walk down the railroad tracks today, and journaling in some song lyrics... the beginning of a david crowder band song:

Lord, i'm tired
so tired of walking
and Lord, i'm so alone
and Lord, the dark
is creeping in
creeping up to swallow me
i think i'll stop
rest here awhile

like i said, it's the beginning of the song. it gets more hopeful as it goes along, and i trust that's how this story will go, too.