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!

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!!

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?

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!