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Artist Perpetually in Progress: Volume One

The first few years of my journey towards the complex, layered work I dream of making.

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Monday
Jun082009

The Blog is Dead (but, wait...)

DateMonday, June 8, 2009 at 09:00AM in

I don't think of myself as an artist anymore.

I realized this unexpectedly the other day, but I think it started sometime in April.

Somehow I expected that I'd be able to earn my degree and have a child, then just be able to pick up where I left off once I had more time

It doesn't feel that way now.

I turned in the last part of our final project for my last class yesterday. Unless they give us a zero it's not possible for me to not graduate at this point. So I'm happy to announce that I have my MBA. Yay!

My next step (well, after a break) is to start a copywriting business to get experience in marketing and customer contact, things that will help me move on to the next goal of my career - becoming a product manager. And I'm considering some information product businesses as well. I've had a couple lay-off scares and having extra streams of income seems like an amazing idea. 

But that's where my attention has been - on learning to write in a way that attracts business and sales - not on dreams of picking up needle or brush or glue again.

Of course, the less attention you pay to something, the farther away from you it feels, especially when you're doing something else instead. And I think that's what happened to the way I thought about myself. Writer, yes, but artist feels very far away.

I'm going to shut this blog down. I'm going to tuck everything I'd been working on over to the side and do a major clean out of my art and needlework supplies.

BUT

This is because I'm determined to start crafting and creating again, one way or another...

Jump over to my new blog - still on this site - but on a bright, new, web address.

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Monday
Feb162009

Verbal vs. Visual Art

DateMonday, February 16, 2009 at 07:37AM in

The more I concentrate on writing the less I feel the drive to do visual art. I still want to stitch, but it's easier to let that slide as well.

It's not even pure creative writing. I would never present it to anyone as verbal art, despite the title of this post. It's writing to inform and intrigue others about particular ideas.

Part of it is what it's currently easier to make time for. Part of it is the results I expect from the one process or the other. Part of it is focus and what I think about frequently.

I wonder if ten years from now I will view my forays into visual and tactile art as a sidepath - a necessary and stimulating and wonderful trip, but still a diversion - or if I will have integrated my various activities better, or if I will swing back and forth between them.

I do have a small embroidered collage and a piece of pattern evolution improvisational cross-stitch in progress, but devote little time to them or to thinking about art. I still miss it, but I'm not sure what I want to do about that once my time opens up a bit after graduation in June. Am I going to choose to write more or art more or do some combination or something else entirely?

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Monday
Jan262009

Indulgence

DateMonday, January 26, 2009 at 07:16PM in

I really have no reason to be doing this. But I want to anyway.

I was given a book about Drawing Fantasy Figures and I started one of the dragons from it.

This is how far I got...

You can see the penciled in skeleton if you look closely, then some pen lines, then a bit of coloring. I got impatient...

This kind of drawing - working outwards from a set of lines - doesn't feel real somehow. Probably because it's not using the pen to SEE but rather to BUILD. Not that I'm particularly good at either. I still could have used a better feel for proportion when setting the original structure and extending the curves.

I'm tempted to play a little more. Could I make this dragon mine? Could I alter the stance and do something different? Could I do it on watercolor paper and make it more abstract? Then could I take it another step beyond that and throw it into embroidered collage?

Most of the art on our walls is fantasy art. And part of me has always wondered if I could do it. It's still a diversion from the type of work I want to do, but then, this is a hobby right now after all... I can have a bit of off-topic fun.

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Monday
Jan192009

Watercolors for What If...

DateMonday, January 19, 2009 at 06:00PM in

After my last post some questions seeped up from the depths of my mind.

Why was I doing a watercolor anyway? Could I go upstairs to the guest room where my paper is and build collages instead? If I want to use materials that are stored in the bedroom with my sleeping husband could I pull them out the night before? Why not build up a larger piece bit by bit?

I'm beginning to think of more possibilities with this waking up a bit early concept.

If I do make bigger pieces I need them to be something that I can go to and work on without having to do a lot of agonizing over the decisions. I'm still attracted to stripes and strata, so why not continue that?

I want to work on canvas. Could I simplify my life for now and work on pre-stretched canvas? I wouldn't be able to take embroidery all the way to the edge of the design. What layouts would look good with that restriction?

I decided to try out a couple of design options on paper first, using the backgrounds I developed a couple months ago.

I drew two options on 5x7 watercolor paper.

 

And then added water.

 

These gave me hope for the direction I'm considering so I decided to do a little line work for a more finished image.

I'm not happy with the blue one. It's overdone and looks off to me.

But the lines really made the orange one pop. I also added a bit of pattering to the stacked pieces. I think this would make a nice larger collage piece with the contrast between the relatively simple background and the asymmetrically placed more detailed areas.

I'd rather come up with some more layouts before I start a larger one though.

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Monday
Dec292008

Doorway in Watercolor

DateMonday, December 29, 2008 at 06:32PM in

This piece was part of an exercise to gain more time for creative endeavors - both writing and art. I enjoy silence for certain things and lack of small grabby hands for other things, so I've started getting up a little earlier in the morning and making myself spend the time not surfing the internet but creating something.

I skimmed Wetcanvas for a photo reference and began to draw with my watercolor crayons on a 5"x7" paper, deliberately making the piece more colorful and more abstracted than the original.

The next day I added water. I wanted a bit of overflow and a liquid feel to add some irregularity to the image. I achieved what I was after, but also had some colors change on me. While this wasn't important in this piece, it could be something to keep in mind in the future. I liked it, but it definitely didn't look done to me.

A few days later I decided to add perceived texture using pattern in colored pencil. Then added a bit of pen work to extend some lines and break up other patterns. Now it looks overdone. The detail and the casualness aren't balanced right. I'm not sure whether to continue by building it up with collage or just move on to something else.

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Saturday
Dec132008

Nifty New Journal from Etsy

DateSaturday, December 13, 2008 at 08:00AM in

  It looks like one of the books I would check out of the Virginia Tech library. No flashy covers, no real indication of what's inside, just that plain cover with an imprinted title and library number on the side. But this one has been repurposed - it's a journal.

I had hearted one of TylerBender's hand-bound journals a while ago, but when I made the decision to go back and buy it, not only was it sold but the whole store was empty. Ack! I happened to check back a couple weeks ago and when I realized he had new stock I pounced and bought my favorite within the hour.

  I was especially amused by the title of the one I ended up choosing, "World of My Own." I've only drawn on one page so far, just some circles touching in colored pencil, but it was fun, which is what's motivating me with art nowadays. All the learning and self-improvement has pretty much been redirected. This isn't a good or bad thing, it's just the way it is. When I do more pages, whether sooner or later, I'll post them too.

It's really nifty to be handling what feels like a real bound book. It's not really suitable for altered book techniques, because of the binding method, but I'll be able to try out various drawing techniques and the different papers are a bit of a creativity spark and add to the "fun" factor.

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