Studio Corner as Sanctuary

As I fire up this long neglected blog site, I have faced some serious questions about how I want to proceed with my life.

In January I was stuck with SSHL - Sudden Sensorial Hearing Loss. Within four hours I was permanently deaf in my left ear, and have had months of balance issues to deal with, starting with vertigo so bad I couldn't stand up, to now, months later, I am finally able to drive my truck and ride my horse. Lingering problems with balance still plague me, but according to my GP, and the ENT specialist, my brain will eventually completely adjust...with time.

In April I turned 70. I was left wondering "How the hell did that happen?"

Then in May I had to have a chunk taken out of my right upper arm to remove pre-melanoma cells.

Warning lights started to blink. Sirens went off. Not so much a panic, but defiantly a wakeup call to reassess what is important in my life, and what is not. I  asked myself,  "What do I want to concentrate on, and what do I want to eliminate?" Some of those decisions were easy, some very hard, but necessary.

To that end, I am cutting my time on FB way, way back. It has become inundated with anger, politics, false memes, pleas for donations, requests to take surveys, and in some cases really vulgar comments on threads. Who needs it? Not me. Trolling trough all that negativity searching for the positive, fun posts by my friends started to depress me. The world is in enough chaos, and I know that, but I don't want to be assaulted by it all while drinking my first cup of tea in the morning.  I felt I needed to pressure-wash all that darkness out of my brain, and bring in some light. 

The remedy? Say bye-bye to FB, or severely limit my time there. Concentrate on my painting, beading, and jewelry making. Now that the weather is getting better, spend more time in my garden and working with my horse, Regala. Walk more, listen to music, read (I do that a lot already), spend more time with family and friends. 

Does this mean I intend to stick my head in the sand and ignore what is happening in the world? No, of course not. I want a certain amount of peace, but I don't want to be ignorant of what is going on everywhere else. That would be stupid. But wow, it is so easy to get sucked into all that chaos and forget to enjoy life. 

I have reclaimed my studio corner in the garage. It got buried during a kitchen remodel during which we lived out of the garage, and the whole place was a staging area for appliances, hardware, paint, etc. My corner is just that, a small space next to a window, wedged in-between the wall the the chest freezer. My big drafting table takes up most of the space. An inexpensive utility table holds my paints and brushes. There is a small alter made up of animal skulls I have found on our property, a big candle, a very special box made for me by a good friend, and a Halloween decoration skull I bought on sale. There is also a small greenhouse full of birds nests and feathers. This is my small sanctuary where I can create without interruption, open the window so I can hear the water fountain which is just outside, and look over and see the birds taking bathes and flinging water everywhere. 

My other "studio" is in what I call the Multi-purpose room. It holds the computer, my sewing supplies, and my beading and jewelry making supplies. It is where I do most of my winter work, as the garage corner eventually gets too cold. My sewing work gets transplanted to the dinning room table, and I have a big work table in the garage for laying out material and patterns. With only a two bedroom house, I have to make due where I can, and I am lucky in that my husband takes it all in stride. We have been married for 27 years, so he's used to it by now. 

So, that is the plan. Less darkness, more light. Less negativity, more creativity. 

Here is my little corner...it may not look very impressive, but it is mine, and I can play there to my heart's content. 

The inspiration board, decorated with a crochet piece done by the same good friend who made the special box. She is very talented and has her own blog site, https://onthehook.home.blog/?fbclid=IwAR3atfOq0ERmfLIUlGIR372zkgKD2XV5vvAQx0QPWTKLbmujX7Le5Z8M6G8

Drawing on the table is a work still in progress. Watercolor pencil on illustration board. 

Motivational Slump

I admit, for the last month and especially after Tuesday's election, I have been pretty depressed. For lack of a better term, my "muse" has gone into hiding. I don't blame her.

There were two projects started.

 Back in September/October it was the cropped jacket experiment, the inspiration for which I found on Pinterest. I got as far customizing and futzing with making the pattern, getting the material, and cutting out the outer layer, which will eventually be stenciled and beaded. Part of the delay with this was the stencil I had intended to use just didn't work, so I will have to drive into the next county, hit the Michael's over there, and try to find one that works. The other setback was the work table I use for cutting out cloth and stenciling got buried under...stuff. So I had to clear that off...again. It seems to attract "stuff" like honey attracts bees. Then the election became utterly terrifying, and my worst nightmares came horrifyingly true. I cried! I actually cried over the results of an election! Unfortunately, I am still depressed. I decided to give myself time to grieve before attempting anything creative. I am afraid it would color in a negative way whatever I tried to do.

The other project was a painting I started toward the middle of summer. I love the concept, and I am really happy with the drawing. I struggled with the painting, but felt things were moving along okay. Then some outside circumstances put things on hold for a few weeks, then the light fixture over my drafting table wouldn't work, then the weather got cold and rainy (I work in the garage), then the election added to the gloom. For me, it was a no-win situation. Now the garage corner where I paint is cold, and because we get no sun until late in the day, if at all, my corner, even though the light fixture is working again, is still on the dark side. That is something that needs to be addressed. Also, some kind of heater will help with the cold, but it has to be radiant heat, not something with a fan, or the paint will dry too fast.

This probably sounds like a litany of "woe is me" and to a certain extent, I guess that's true. But when your soul is in such despair, it's really hard to get motivated. I look at my poor painting, which is pleading with me to finish it, and I have good intensions, and then...just can't. Until I can reboot myself, I have brought it into the house so it doesn't get dusty. Since it is in the same room as the computer, it also forces me to look at it guiltily every day. Maybe the guilt will eventually overpower the depression, or something will happen to get me fired up again. Or maybe a week or so to do nothing but read, work my horses, and just breath will solve the problem. At this point, I just don't know.

This is the progress/progression on Embrace the Night so far. The last photo was taken in the house today, which is why the colors look darker, although parts of the painting were darkened before I left it. At this stage, I consider the painting about halfway finished.

Hopefully, this artistic funk I am in won't last. Maybe I can entice my muse out of hiding with a nice glass of wine, one of my favorite art books, and a lovely chat about inspiration?

Firing The Old Girl Back Up...With Photos of Projects Past and Present.

Recently I got asked by a Facebook artist friend why I had let this blog site sit silent for so long. I told her it was because I didn't think anyone was really interested, and that most exchanges of info and photos was happening on FB rather than on blog sites. She agreed, but lamented the loss of the way blog sites used to be. I know there was one blog, Notes From the Voodoo Cafe, done by Rice Freeman-Zachary, that I loved to read, and listen to her pod casts, but eventually she dropped it all and went to FB. It made me sad.

So, I thought about it, and decided that I would fire this old girl back up, and do it just for me as a type of diary. I will post a notice on FB when I add something here, and those who are interested can ck it out, and those who aren't can ignore it. I may only post things once a month or so, but if it keeps me connected with a few other people out there, then that is all for the good.

This first post will be photos of projects that have been completed, and projects that are in the works. It would take too long to describe each one in detail, but at least it gives an overview of what I have been doing for the last few months, and what is coming.

Hope you enjoy.

Wedding circlet - commission

Stenciled T-Shirt

Beaded back stitch over stencil

Eco-print experiment

Near completion, The Message

The Message competed

Preliminary drawing for Embrace the Night 

There you have it. A run down of the things I have finished, and the latest painting in progress. There is also a cropped jacket sewing project going on as well, but I don't have photos of that yet. 

If you are so inclined, please leave a comment. It's nice to know there are actually people out there reading this. Thanks!

The Amulet Seller — Progression

In this series of photos you can see the progression of the small painting The Amulet Seller, number four in the Gypsies series. In a previous post, I said that I had trouble with the drawing—didn't like it, but couldn't figure out why I didn't like it. I set it aside for about a month, in a place where I could look at it as I walked by. It slowly grew on me. Once I got paint on it, I liked it even better.

The Amulet Seller — Acrylic and Micron pen on illustration board, 10"x12."

I ended up really liking her narrow-eyed expression, as if she is thinking, "If you don't think my amulets will work, then piss off." I have several other ideas for paintings in this series, and have been doing a bit more research into the history of gypsies, their beliefs, and superstitions. All very interesting. Most of us have a rather romantic view of gypsies, but throughout history, their lifestyle has not been an easy one. In this series of paintings, I did not want to veer too close to a stereotype—you know, like the typical paintings or tinted photographs of smiling gypsy dancing girls with their tambourines. I want to keep the paintings respectful.

Studio Corner - New works In Progress

I must say, I am really enjoying my new little corner of the garage. It is slowly getting organized, and developing a personality. My inspiration board is finally up, with photos of figures and interiors I am using for the two series I am currently working on = Gypsies, and Ghosts in the Ruins.  More and more photos and various pieces of flotsam and jetsam will no doubt be added to the board as time goes on. I have another board in the room where I make my jewelry and do my beading on clothing, which has ideas, colors I like, clothing I would like to try and make, etc. I seem to have always had some kind of inspiration board—or mood board, as they call them these days.

In one of my trips to the library I found a wonderful book on painting with acrylics, titled  Capturing Light in Acrylics by John Hammond. He paints in an impressionistic style, which I don't, but he gives great visuals for tone, color, palette, composition, and light. I loved the book so much I ended up buying it through Amazon. One of the techniques he uses that I tried and loved, was mixing gloss medium with the paint rather than water, to make glazes. I also learned, and experienced personally, that if you water acrylics down too much to make a wash, the bonding medium in the paint won't adhere to the paper as well.

There was another book on acrylic painters that I got from the library that I didn't like as well, but did learn a new trick for drawing on paper/canvass and sealing the drawing with gel medium. I had just bought some Krylon sealant for a previous painting where I had used watercolor pencils. It made me wonder if I could use the Krylon, instead of the gel medium,  to seal the pencil drawing onto the illustration board. It worked like a charm. It also sealed the board, so the paint didn't soak into it as much, which had been a problem on Soul Mates.

So, this is what is in the works right now. Another in the Gypsy series titled The Amulet Seller, and the first one, which is VERY experimental at this point, in the Ghosts in the Ruins series. That painting is titled Lost Dances.

Here is the pencil drawing for The Amulet Seller. I loved being able to work from a drawing instead of having to ink over the drawing and erase the pencil lines. Original drawings have way more life in them, and I don't even mind if some of the lines remain in the final painting.

I struggled with this drawing. I did it, didn't like it, but couldn't figure out why I didn't like it. It sat for about two weeks in a place where every time I walked by I could glance at it. The drawing slowly grew on me and I left it alone. Once I started getting paint on it, I liked it a lot better.

This is the painting in progress. Still need lots of work on her hair, and I need to finish her skin tones. The blue shadows will be toned down a little. The amulets, earrings, nose ring, and hair beads will be the last things painted. The size is 10"x12" on illustration board.

The other painting is truly an experiment. I don't usually put a tinted wash down before I do the drawing. This new series is all about decayed buildings, lost memories, and bewildered people. There is going to be a lot of texture in the paintings, so I gessoed a 16"x20" masonite panel, then added this acid green wash, letting it drip and run so it would look like mould and mildew. I used a sepia water color pencil to do the drawing, and wiped off mistakes with a cloth dipped in water. This is where I found out that if you water down the acrylics too much, they don't stick. As I rubbed the pencil off (I make a lot of drawing adjustments, so I did a lot of rubbing!), some of the green paint came off as well. I'm kinda okay with that this time, since the painting will have lots of layers and glazes—all done as a total experiment, which may turn into a disaster. But it will be fun!

The drawing will be sealed with Krylon spray. Right now, I am still working on the drawing, but you can see the wash, and where it has rubbed off where I have done corrections...lots and lots of corrections with, no doubt,  more corrections to come.  It's not clear in the photo, but she is standing in a building, with an archway behind her, where a plant is growing into the room.

Here is one of the photos of abandoned building that I have been collecting as references. Again, Pinterest was where I found most of the resource material.

So, that is what is going on in my little corner studio.With winter coming, I suspect I will have to invest in a small heater. Even though the garage is insulated, it will still get cold out there. I am also going to buy a better supply table, as currently I am using two small folding tables that don't give me much room. They have nice, four-foot plastic portable work tables at Home Depot that aren't very expensive, so that's what I think I will get. Once that is set up, the only thing I still need to do is replace some of my paints. I tossed about five old tubes yesterday, that were so dried up you couldn't get anything out of them. Of course, the fact that they were all about 30 yrs old might have had something to do with it. That means a trip to Central Art Supply in Medford (35 minutes away) is in order before I can do much more painting.

Oh, and after the first of the year, I am going to join the Josephine Country Art Association. I used to be a member when we first moved to Oregon twenty-six years ago, and I had two collage paintings in the member's show one year, but let the membership drop. We were just too busy, and too broke, with getting our new place squared away (it needed LOTS of work)  that I didn't have the time or money for either the membership or paint supplies. Let's just say, for a lot of years, we were REALLY broke. Which makes it all the more wonderful that I have my little corner to play in, and enough cash to actually buy paint and brushes. Right now, it feels good to be me! LOL

Soul Mates

I finally finished the third painting in the Gypsies series. It got put on the back burner for about a month, as I was dealing with other things, including the filly we adopted/saved from a kill yard in Washington. Got back to it yesterday and finished it. I like that both the horse and the woman look so bold, striding across the landscape with confidence—in themselves and each other.

As with all paintings, there are also things I wish had come out better with this one, but I must be doing something right, as at least one person on FB asked me if I was going to make prints of the picture! That made my day, I can tell you!

So, with this one declared done, it is on to the next ones. Another in the Gypsies series, and the first in the Ghosts in the Ruins series. Should be fun!

Update

This is just an update about what's been going on around the place.

Are blogs dead? Not sure, but there was a short discussion about that on Facebook, and it made me think that maybe they are. I suspect they are being replaced with said FB, and Twitter, Instagram, etc. Instant gratification. Blogs took over from the old My Space, and now blogs, if not linked to some of the instant messaging apps, may not get as much attention. In my own case, this blog has been running for a number of years, and only has 14 followers. My Pinterest site has been up six months, maybe a bit longer, and I already have 92 followers. Yes, Pinterest is all about pictures, but in some respect, they are the same pictures you would probably want to share on a blog if it weren't so time-consuming. For those who use their blogs as a personal diary, like I do, then I guess it doesn't matter if no one else reads it but me. But it does make me pause, and wonder if it is worth my time, when maybe that time could be better spent on projects or painting.

Speaking of painting...which I haven't done much of lately because the garage got so hot (daytime temps got up to 113) I just couldn't work...I am fired back up to start a new series. It will run concurrently with the series I've  already been working on, Gypsies, which has one drawing, a finished painting, a painting still in progress (the one I had to set aside due to the heat), and many ideas for future paintings. The new series will be called Ghosts in the Ruins. Figures in decayed rooms. Lots of mould, peeling wallpaper, chipped paint, and plants reclaiming the space that used to be theirs. People looking lost, wondering what happened to the place that they knew, wondering why they are there again, and wondering if they can get back. Back to what? Back to a life before the decay? I want the painting to express a sense of bewilderment. A sense of "Why did we abandon this place, or let things get so bad?"

Since the new series will involve lots of texture in the paintings, I started thinking about how I would get that decayed, crumbling look. As I was sitting out on the deck the other day, it got a bit warm, so I peeled off the sweatshirt I was wearing, only to discover that a dryer sheet had been stuck inside. I looked at the dryer sheet, and thought, "Wow, what a great texture. Wonder if I could use these things in my paintings?" So I am going to experiment with them, glueing them down with matt medium then painting over them to see what kinds of surface textures I can get. And you know, it's always good when you can repurpose something rather than throw it away.

On my reading table is my Big Red Boxed Edition of Lord of the Rings. I hadn't read the book in over ten years, and wanted to go back to the source after having seen the Peter Jackson version so many times. It reinforces just how much the movie veered away from the book, and in some places abandoned it all together.

I have put up four tubs of tomato, pepper, basil soup base. They are now in my freezer, waiting for those cold winter evenings when hot soup tastes so good. I may have enough tomatoes left on the vine to make one more tub. I know I have enough peppers! The peppers went crazy this summer.

Lastly, a quick word about the horse we adopted in July from a kill yard in Washington. After a month and a half, she is finally out of quarantine and in her permeant turnout. She has been such a good girl, very level-headed...until the farrier showed up. She took one look at him and every alarm bell in her body went off. We managed to get her front hooves done, but it was pretty traumatic. She was literally shaking with fear and refusing to let him touch her. So, I have no idea what was done to put the fear of the world into her when it comes to farriers (she has never reacted to anyone like that before, not even the vet), but we will have to figure out something, as her back hooves were in worse shape than the fronts. Might have to give her a sedative for the next few sessions, to get her calmed down and over the fear.

That's about it. The days are getting shorter, nighttime temps are dropping into the 60s, the air is crisper and smells of fall, and we even had a rain/hail system blow through, that washed all the dust and ash from the trees. You could almost hear them sigh with contentment.

Word for the Week = HOT

For the last week it has been swelteringly hot. Between 95 and 110 degrees. I love summer, but trying to get anything done in that kind of heat just makes people and animals wilt. I have to do things either early in the morning, or later in the evening. However, that doesn't always work, as the day it hit 110, at 7:00 at night it was still 95. Usually, this kind of heat wave in our area doesn't last long. Maybe two weeks, on average. However "They" say this year it could last, on and off, all summer. With this being the fourth year in a row of drought, our biggest fear is fire.

The heat also affects the plants in the gardens. The squash and pumpkin leaves collapse in self defense, the basil wilts, the flowers fade out, and leaves get crispy around the edges. The potted flowers on the deck must get watered every night, or within hours they are wilting. But, some plants, like the peppers and tomatoes, love the heat and thrive.

Last evening I picked our first tomato of the season. Kinda cute, doncha think?

Even though I really liked this photo, and thought is very zen-like, it didn't show how tiny the little guy was, so I stood a wine cork next to it to show scale, and took another photo.

The plant this little fella came from is loaded with fruit, so we will be eating lots of these. I plan to put them in a big bowl on the kitchen counter, and we'll grab them to snack on as we pass by. This one was very sweet, so we are looking forward to using these in salads as well.

Other than tending the gardens and yard, and trying to keep them all from withering in the heat, I have been working on the painting Gypsy 3 - Soul Mates. Here is a photo of it after I inked the drawing and then erased out the pencil. Currently the base coats of paint are on parts of it, but I don't have a photo of that yet. I want it a bit further along before I show it again.

The other thing I have been working on, besides riding my horse - which the other day was so miserably hot I felt like a fried piece of bacon - is a new costume project. Robert and I didn't compete in the Rogue Mounted Archers International competition this year. We sweltered as ground crew. Next year we want to ride (I did the previous year), and for that we need "warrior" costumes. The norm is for everyone to go black leather, corsets, medieval, or native (which could be from any country, as riders come from all over the world). I can't ride in a corset, I have NO desire to wear black leather when it's 90 degrees plus, and I wear medieval when I do SCA stuff, so wanted something different. Then we watched the new Mad Max film, and shazam! Road warrior! Robert and I have already trolled the Goodwill for bits and pieces of stuff, and got pretty lucky. The idea of ripping, shredding, and coffee dying all of this has me very excited. Also adding bits of flotsom, and metal hardware to the clothing, is going to be way fun. It's all so different than what I am used to working on, so that is the really exciting part for me. Here are the items, other than two belts, we picked up from the Goodwill, laid out on my work table. This is the "Before" shot. Every item is between 90 and 100% cotton, so even if it gets hot, it will breath. All of this has to be comfortable when riding a horse and shooting a bow, which influences the design. A fun challenge. So, let the ripping, shredding, and dying begin!

 I will post updated photos of these pieces as I go along.

So, that's what's happening in the heatwave of Southern Oregon. Well, at least at our place.

Gypsy 2 - Gemini

This has been a very interesting, frustrating, and ultimately satisfying experience. Back into paint. Back into color. Back into trying to figure things out, correct mistakes, and admit when I'm done and leave it alone. Which is hard, because I have a tendency to want to keep tweaking things until I have killed the picture. Death by tweaking! (No, not twerking. That is a WHOLE different thing!)

This was the progression with the color. And as I have stated before, I have a love/hate relationship with color. I like it, but often it doesn't like me.

Blocking in color. The faces and arms are done with watercolor pencils, which at this point hasn't been blended with a brush and a bit of water. The dresses are way too bright, but these are under-colors and will be toned down as things go along. Hopefully, that will work. At this point, I wasn't sure it would. I haven't played with acrylics since the 70s.

On this next one, you can see more colors filled in, and the color of the dresses toned down. What REALLY wasn't working was the dark section at the bottom. I let the painting sit for about four days, thinking about what was wrong. Was it too dark, too chopped, too blah? I ended up answering yes to all three of those questions. I even dragged my husband out to the garage to look at it, and tell me what he thought. He's no artist, but he surprised me by saying out loud what I had been thinking. "It's too chopped up." He asked, "What is the dark part? A floor? A rug? Is the blue behind them a sheet or backdrop?" Hmmm, I thought, he has a point.

I wanted them to be outside. They are gypsy girls, after all. So, how to fix it? I tried lightening the area a little, but that didn't help. It still looked blah and too heavy and dark.

Then, I had a "duh" moment. Grass! Make them standing in grass, and add little flower blossoms in the colors of the dresses. Shazam. That did the trick. I like the painting much better now.

So, as of right now, I have walked away from this one and declared it finished. Sort of. I am leaving it out for a few days so I can keep looking at it, and if something really annoying leaps out at me I will fix it - if it can be fixed. For my first attempt at getting back into painting, I don't think it's too bad. In all honesty, it turned out better than I thought it would. I was expecting a disaster.

The important part for me is, that I am painting again. And that I didn't get halfway through, start to cry because I felt so inept (part of my brain kept screaming "High school kids can paint better than this!), and toss the piece in the trash. Although I admit, at one point I was VERY tempted.

Lastly, here is my little corner, with the finished painting still in place, until I decide it really is finished.

Now, it is on to the next painting in the Gypsy series. Maybe this one will have a horse in it along with the figure. Gypsies were great horse people, and let's face it, ...crafty and not so honest horse traders. I guess I should go out and start taking more photos of my horses, just in case.

My Little Corner

Until we did a major cleaning out of the garage, I had no place to put the nice drafting table I was given several years ago, when a man I worked for, who owned a sign company, retired. It is a heavy duty piece, with shelves and drawers, and a tilting work surface. I like it because I can stand and work, and I can work on bigger pieces, and with paint. Also, the light is the best, coming from a window to my left. And since our garage is now insulated and drywalled, it doesn't get brutally cold in winter, or like an oven during the summer. Right outside the window is the fountain we have in the entryway, so as I work, I hear splashing water, and the birds who come in to drink chirping and talking to each other. Perfect!

It doesn't look like much, but for someone who had nothing but a dark room, a flat table, and carpet under foot in the only other place I could work, this is heaven.

I want to put a cork board on the wall next to the window, and get a bigger supply table (you can see my stuff is bleeding over to the top of the freezer).  The cork board will be for ideas and pictures pulled from magazines or the Internet. I have them pinned and taped to the cardboard protecting the surface of the table, but a real "mood board" would be more fun. The tall thing is a portable standing easel that my first husband made for me. Back in the 70s I used to do really BIG acrylic paintings. These days, the biggest thing I will probably do is 16" x 20" which is what is on the table right now.

With that all set up, I can now work on my next picture in the Gypsy series. This one is Gypsy 2 - Gemini. I am working on illustration board, which I picked up at Craft Warehouse and had them cut to size. There is NO PLACE in Grants Pass, where I live, where I can get illustration board. I have to drive 35 miles into the next county to find it. Nor does my lovely town have any kind of art supply store, so the only place I can attempt to find things, which tends to be limited, is the local JoAnn's, which is a small one, so it only carries the basics, and mainly for crafters, not for painters.

But I really like working on illustration board, so when I have used up the three pieces I currently have, I will have to make that 40 minute drive again. I will console myself with lunch at Olive Garden. I'll call my mom and see if she wants to make a road trip with lunch included.

Here is the preliminary drawing for Gemini, my first attempt at two figures in the same painting, and then a photo of it inked - which is another rant. I was out of my usual pens in the softer colors I like, so settled for what I could get at the grocery store's teensy art section - JoAnn's only sells kits of pens in a bunch of colors I never use. I got two blues I thought would work, and a fine line black. The blues were too blue, so I used the black, which I don't really like, and isn't as fine lined as I had hoped or was marked on the pen, but I wanted to get started, so I used it anyway. Will have to slog back to Michael's in the next county to stock up on pens again.

After looking at the drawing for two or three days, I decided that the face of the figure on the left was too small. I adjusted it, and had to also adjust her features, and lost the original expression on her face, which I like better. But these drawings/painting are all part of my learning curve in getting back into this kind of work, so it just shows I need lots more practice. But boy, did I wear out an erasure trying to get it right. You can see the difference in the inked version. She looks sterner, like she is the sensible one, as compared to her happier sister.

The pose I got from a fashion magazine, and it was of three figures, but I only used two, which for me was scary enough! The garments the women are wearing, and the jewelry are ones I made up. The tattoo on the righthand figure is the astrological symbol for gemini. Gotta love a Google search when you need one! It gave me tons of designs to choose from. I picked one and modified it.

Before this, I had been working on paper, and the paper had a texture that created a bit of drag when I inked things in. Wow, forgot how slick illustration board is, and nearly skated my first lines way out of whack before taking a deep breath and starting again.  Next step is to add color, which has me hyperventilating at the very thought, but I will battle on!

Lastly, just an FYI to clarify. I am throwing these preliminary drawings on here not so much for comments on whether they are good or bad (feel free to do so, but be kind!), but to show the trials and many tribulations of someone like me, or anyone, who is trying to reclaim a talent that has been dormant for over 30 years. It is fun, frustrating, and a little sad, when I think of how much better technically I would be had I kept honing those skills for all those lost years. But I am excited as well, and even if this piece turns out to be a total bust, which it probably will, I will have learned from it and will move on to the next one.

All I am trying to say with these posts about my journey back into art, is that anyone wanting to reclaim a talent or skill they once had can do it. When I posted about this on Facebook, I had several people remember things they used to do years ago and had let slide. For one it was playing a musical instrument, for another it was a loom she used to work on which had been sitting idle for years. And so it went.

I am lucky in that I now have the time and the space to work. It makes this journey, bumpy as it will be, a bit easier. It is a journey I am already enjoying, and it has only just started. It would be nice if, by posting these early attempts,  I could inspire a few others to start their own journey.

Introvert Chronicles

Now that my horse event season is pretty much over, I can go back to drawing, painting, sewing, embroidery and beading. Also, journaling. As I have stated before, I have a love/hate relationship with art journals. I love them, but am not very faithful. Over part of the summer I did a quickie, small-page, slap-and-dash journal that was fun...but still has empty pages. Event season just got too complicated and I just got too tired to play with it.

A while back I popped into Michael's craft store, and they had all of their art journals/sketchbooks/drawing pads on sale. Buy one, get one free. Seemed like a sign, so I bought one 6"x8" sketch book and got another one free. I had already purchased a bigger sketchbook to use for drawings, but these smaller versions are perfect for an art journal.

The covers are bright yellow heavy paper. Not something I could paint over. So I cut up an old collage I had done at the end of last winter, and that I didn't really like (I had just slapped stuff on paper to get back in the groove of playing with paint and collage, so it was never meant to "be" anything), cut out a corner of it which I thought worked with the title I had decided on, "Introvert Chronicles."

Haven't done anything but the cover, yet, but am looking forward to filling it with whatever catches my fancy, or with whatever angst I am feeling at the time. I might post some of the pages, if they aren't too personal or depressing! Mainly I hope to fill it with a lot of ideas for beading and embroidery as well as drawings and more collage. My main concern is to keep it from getting WAY too serious or complicated ,which usually happens, and is usually why I've walked away from so many other journals.

So here is the cover of the Introvert Chronicles. I still don't like the bright, in-your-face yellow coming through, so may end up trying to paint it and hope the cardstock doesn't crinkle. We'll see.