This cupcake card might be my favorite card to date! I definitely want to do more of these! I think I learned from this that I really do like to work from photographs and I can alter and make a photo my own. I used one of Martha Stewart's cupcakes as inspiration, but it really took on its own look and that's cool!
I have so so much to write about to catch up, but for now I'll just say that I have moved to a new house and, after about a month of furniture moving, laminate floor destruction, decorating, and (yay!) picture hanging, I am back to being able to work on hobbies, especially painting and reading, again. I am reading a book called Seven Days in the Art World and it has really reenergized me and made me start thinking again about what the heck I'm going to do with myself. I enjoyed having my own business and think about doing something like that again. The book also made me seriously consider going back to school, but my indecisiveness hurts me again. What school? What program? MFA? What in? Creative Writing? Fine Art? PhD track in Literature or Humanities? Should I go back to museum work? Should I really make myself focus in on art and try to be an artist? Should I really make myself focus on writing and try to be a writer? Would I rather just have writing and art be more of hobbies and have more kids? Sigh.
In any case, my brain is back in overdrive and I am busy thinking up projects and, again, hoping I come across a project that sticks...something that works...like Julius's 365 Bears project. He just focused in on something that he really likes and that he's good at and that represents him and people are responding to it. My goal is to come up with my own project like that. Reading to Jhonen takes up about a quarter of each day as he continuously pulls book after book off the shelf for me to read to him and I've realized that, despite my desire to come up with a brilliant, innovative children's book idea/gimmick, I probably don't need to to get published because, geesh, there are some terrible children's books out there. However, there are some awesome ones and I would love to have created one of them. While putting him to sleep just now I thought of an idea that I'll write down here to remember it and ruminate on it a bit. I thought it would be fun to have a metafictional kids book (because I LOVE metafiction) talking about a character loving books. Something like this: Janie loves books. She loves to pull books off the shelf. She loves to flip their pages. She loves books about dinosaurs and books about dogs. She loves books about trains and planes and cars. She loves books with numbers. She loves books that rhyme. She loves her Mommy and Daddy to read her books before bed. She loves books with bright colors with pretty pictures. She loves books that are big and books that are small. Books that are long and books that are short. She loves all books, but this one is her favorite of all.
I also had an idea of a raccoon character who is walking on a nature hike in the woods and about all the things that he sees, hears, touches, tastes, smells like pinecones, flowers, birds, the food in his picnic basket, the crunchy leaves under his feet, etc.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Painting of Tom and Lori's Backyard
My first art gift bestowed to Tom and Lori for Christmas. I had been thinking about painting their prized backyard for a while and thought Christmas might be an appropriate occasion. I will never forget Lori's beautiful sunflowers and decided to add it into the picture, too.
The new year has arrived. It is 1:30am on January 1st and, looking back, painting was one of the very best things about this year. That and my new camera. I got a telephoto lens for Christmas and it has made such an amazing difference in the quality of shots I can take. This was the year of the hobby and I had such a fun time painting, cooking, reading, writing, and taking pictures. I didn't accomplish my 50 books in a year goal, but I got reasonably close. I didn't accomplish my goal of consistently healthy dinner fare for the family, but I got reasonably close. I didn't accomplish my goal of writing a novel, but I did write more than I had since I lived in Chicago. I didn't reach my goal of being an artist, but I made some pretty pictures and some great strides in my watercolor technique. So no, I'm not nearly as perfect as I would ever wish myself to be and certainly not focused enough to accomplish all I'd like to, but I take pride in the this year's creative progress and process and look forward to more in the year to come!
The new year has arrived. It is 1:30am on January 1st and, looking back, painting was one of the very best things about this year. That and my new camera. I got a telephoto lens for Christmas and it has made such an amazing difference in the quality of shots I can take. This was the year of the hobby and I had such a fun time painting, cooking, reading, writing, and taking pictures. I didn't accomplish my 50 books in a year goal, but I got reasonably close. I didn't accomplish my goal of consistently healthy dinner fare for the family, but I got reasonably close. I didn't accomplish my goal of writing a novel, but I did write more than I had since I lived in Chicago. I didn't reach my goal of being an artist, but I made some pretty pictures and some great strides in my watercolor technique. So no, I'm not nearly as perfect as I would ever wish myself to be and certainly not focused enough to accomplish all I'd like to, but I take pride in the this year's creative progress and process and look forward to more in the year to come!
Painted Christmas Cards
I thought it would be fun to paint my own Christmas cards this year. I liked the ones best whose ideas I got from the internet, but that's ok. I learned some fun techniques from the practice and had fun doing it!
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Too Many Projects!
I have had way too many projects to work on lately and I keep coming up with more! Lately my efforts to read fifty books this year has been consuming a bunch of time, but I'm not going to make it. I will be lucky to make it to 40! I'm going to try, though. I enjoyed the latest book I read about Caravaggio. The book makes me think about the term genius and what it means to be an artistic genius and whether or not it is worth living the turbulent, passionate,crazed existence so many of these artists lived in order to be considered a genius and live on with this sort of immortality. I also began to realize that I have never stuck with anything long enough to get to a point where I'm not just blatantly copying other people's ideas and techniques.
I've also restarted my research on Gabriele Munter and Wassily Kandinsky. My hope is that I can research all this year and then take part in November's Novel Writing Month next year. I waver on how seriously I want to take this project. If I don't do it I'll be disappointed in myself. But there's a part of me that feels like a beginning piano student who wants to play Rachmaninoff but hasn't learned my note names yet. It's technically possible to go note by note and learn it, but is that the best way to proceed? For someone who has never even written a short story I care for, how can I think I could just sit down and write a novel. Then I see an interview on the woman who wrote Twilight and it makes me think, what the heck! WHo cares what anyone thinks and just write however I want!
We went to Festival of Trees for Melinda's birthday and had a good time. It has definitely gotten me in the Christmasy spirit. We even went out and got a Christmas tree and it's not even Thanksgiving yet! I want to try and paint my Christmas cards this year! We'll see....there I go making new projects for myself again. Ugh!
I've also restarted my research on Gabriele Munter and Wassily Kandinsky. My hope is that I can research all this year and then take part in November's Novel Writing Month next year. I waver on how seriously I want to take this project. If I don't do it I'll be disappointed in myself. But there's a part of me that feels like a beginning piano student who wants to play Rachmaninoff but hasn't learned my note names yet. It's technically possible to go note by note and learn it, but is that the best way to proceed? For someone who has never even written a short story I care for, how can I think I could just sit down and write a novel. Then I see an interview on the woman who wrote Twilight and it makes me think, what the heck! WHo cares what anyone thinks and just write however I want!
We went to Festival of Trees for Melinda's birthday and had a good time. It has definitely gotten me in the Christmasy spirit. We even went out and got a Christmas tree and it's not even Thanksgiving yet! I want to try and paint my Christmas cards this year! We'll see....there I go making new projects for myself again. Ugh!
Lake Noodle
I love this one! It makes me very excited about painting more. I really like how the water and the sky turned out. I am going to try and paint Tom and Lori's backyard next for a Christmas gift. I hope that's not too much pressure on me.
First Painting From Life
I'm reading several watercolor instruction books. One of them was specifically geared towards painting by photograph. Another was saying how important it was not to paint from photographs. That book guilted me into trying to paint outside. The first two attempts in my backyard (it's much harder, by the way, to get all the equipment and find the nap time to get some painting done outside) were pitiful. The photograph of this painting makes it look better than it does in real life. This was a pot of lantana that's growing over in our backyard. It got me a bit discouraged about painting for a couple days, but then Ben bought me new watercolor brushes and it sort of gave me my second wind and I was able to paint this next one that I really like!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Shadows on a Wekiva Springs Trail
This was one of the first pictures I took with my new camera when Ben took me to Wekiva Springs for practice. I wanted to try to recreate the shadows that zig-zagged across the white sandy trail. I'd like to try it again someday, even though I'm reasonably satisfied with this experiment. I think I learned some important things from this first effort that I could improve upon in a second try. The foliage, especially, was not what I would have liked and I wish I'd used more of a yellow green than a blue green. The shadows taught me about how much water to use to make the gray light enough but also smooth enough to make the steady line across the sheet of paper.
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