Nomad 1

Yes, I really am making an effort to get back into drawing and painting. Unlike a lot of people, I like to draw. Always have. To the extent that, as a kid, before sidewalk chalk, I would draw on the sidewalk with an ice cube wrapped in a wash cloth. My mom's idea of cheap drawing tools. With five kids, it was the best she could do at the time. I didn't mind, and it was really fun on a hot summer day.

Anyway, I have been thinking about a series of drawings/paintings on nomads and gypsies, with a bit of fantasy thrown in for fun. Not too much of the fantasy element in this piece, because I am trying to feel my way back into things, using colored pencils. So, this is basically a practice run. However, it turned out better than I thought it would.

So, I thought I would share the stages it went through.

The two sources I used, both found on Pinterest, and the pencil drawing. 

Here is a little bit better one of the drawing.

 

The next one is after I inked the drawing, using a dark grey Pigma Micron 05. I usually ink drawings in either dark gray or warm brown, rather than black.

And here is the finished drawing, using Prismacolor and Karet colored pencils. The spot on her cheek is a tribal tattoo, similar to the one in the old postcard photo.

Two of the design features I really want to play around with a lot more, are the silhouette of buildings against a sunset sky, and getting a bit more outlandish with the costume. Anyway, I thought for my first dive back in, she didn't turn out too bad.

Only big thing I will change will be doing the drawings on illustration board instead of on paper. The Karet colored pencils are watercolor pencils, but I didn't dare use them that way on this paper, which was just some Strathmore sketch paper.  It would have crinkled up like crazy. Crinkles = NOT good.

This last photo is just of my work table, showing the finished drawing, the source pictures, and the scratch paper with color tests, which I do as I go.

So, that it. Can't wait to start on the next one.

Art And Questions

Funny how one little book filled with forty-nine creativity exercises started me questioning how and why I create, and how does what I do relate to "the big picture?" The book is The Trickster's Hat by Nick Bantock. I was having a lot of fun working on some of the exercises, and reading ahead to see what was coming up next...until I got to number thirty-one "Learning from others." It is mainly about how all artists are influenced by the work of others in some form or another. But what got me into this rare introspective mood was this quote from the book:

"Our job as creative individuals is to acknowledge, develop, and shine light on all realities, whether they be concrete or mythological—not for individual glory but because it feeds the collective unconscious and gives permission to others to widen the periphery of their vision."

Whew!

After reading that I had to ask myself if what I was doing really did widen the periphery of other people's vision? Uh...I have no idea. Even worse, I started thinking my artwork was, well, pretty insipid, the jewelry quaint, the stitching a cute hobby. Then I started asking other questions.

If a limited number of people, or no one, sees your work, how can it be helping the "collective unconscious?"
For art to be relevant does it have to be put out in the universe for others to see?
Does each work of art have to say/mean something? Can't it be just a pretty picture?
If you make figures with cute little party hats and butterfly wings, is that art irrelevant? Is it even art?
If you do art—any kind of art—simply for yourself, are you a mere dabbler, rather than a true artist?
What is a true artist?

As you see, my mind was in turmoil. I admit, showing someone my work and getting no response at all, a total "meh", is worse than someone instantly wanting to hurl rotten fruit at the piece. At least with the fruit hurler I got a reaction, even if his/her unconscious might be damaged for awhile..never mind what it would do to my ego. But how do I make my work relevant? Is that something I should even think about? Constantly asking myself if what I am working on is for the greater good, other than putting me in my happy place, would quickly smother any creative spark...and yet, here I am, asking myself that very question. 

Then I asked myself...

Is the very act of creating saying something, even if I'm not aware of it at the time?
The ideas must flow from somewhere, and mean something to me or I wouldn't bother, so simply by doing...whether painting, drawing, sewing, jewelry making, writing...it must be relevant from the very start...right? But is it relevant to the "collective unconscious?" Does it need to be? And if it isn't, am I wasting my time doing it if it has no higher purpose?

I still haven't come to grips with all of these questions. But the fact that I am spewing them out here, shows that I am very unsettled by them, which must meant I am looking for the answers.



So, after all that exhausting introspection, here is something to lighten things up a little. Photos of the iris growing in my garden.

On the white one, look closely. Can you see the hidden beastie?

Getting briefly back to the whole question of the relevancy or non-relevancy of art, I suspect all creative types ask themselves these same questions, and struggle with understanding why they do what they do. Hopefully, we don't hog-tie ourselves with so many questions and self-doubts that we quit creating. The collective unconscious would surely be diminished if that were to happen.

Hair Ornaments and Hairballs

Hair Ornaments

I finally got my poor Etsy site back up and running (there is a link in my header), and that was an ordeal. It takes forever to upload the photos, write the descriptions, decide on a price, etc, etc. Once that was all done, I then went back and pinned each item to my Pinterest account, hoping for a bit more exposure and sales. It basically took me most of yesterday. Partly because I still had some photographs to take, which takes time to set up and get right. I still don't have a light box (my bad), but I set up something in the garage where the light is better, and that seemed to work okay...for now.

The big decision with the Etsy thing was to keep the prices as low as possible, which means I probably won't post earrings any longer. If I make a ten dollar pair of earrings, it's going to cost me three dollars to mail it, or more if out of the US. Not worth it. So there will be nothing on the site under fifteen dollars, but hopefully no more than twenty-five dollars. No postage charged unless out of the US. We'll see how things go. Here are a few of the new hair ornaments.

Hairball

For the last two days I have been cussing at my Firefox browser. For some inexplicable reason, it dumped all but ten of my bookmarks. One night I had 25-30, the next morning they were gone but for the first ten. Now, I would have been a lot more upset over that if I hadn't been wanting to purge a lot of them anyway. Many were ones I no longer had any interest in. But, when I added back a few of my favorites that had been deleted, when I turned on Mr. Computer this morning, I found that Firefox had dumped the new additions and defaulted back to the ten. This I found very annoying, especially since I have no idea why it is doing it.

I have had several people recommend I upload a new browser...like Chrome. I hate doing that, because invariable when you upload anything new, it affects something else, usually in weird ways. I am giving this little Firefox hairball time to unravel itself before I do anything else. And since computers I not my forte, I am usually loath to do anything that might go pear-shaped, because I won't know how to fix it.

Why is it the oh-so-handy "Owners Manual" on things went out of favor? You know, that wonderful guide to tell you how to work things, and full of nice trouble shooting hints. No computer comes with an owners manual. Oh no, you have to go online to get that information. Well, what if you can't get to the web? What if your browser is going bonkers? What if your computer gives you a blank screen where before you had easy to click into graphics of places you had been and would get you there again (I did, now I don't, which is another part of the hairball)? Where is my bloody owners manual to tell me what all of that means?

As you can see, I have a low frustration threshold when it comes to electronics. I think I'll go have a cup of tea...maybe with some rum in it.

The Astronaut's Courtesan

She always worried about him, alone, way out there is space. Sometimes she wouldn't see him for months and months, but she didn't mind waiting. While he was gone, she took other lovers, but he was always her favorite, her special one.  The others brought her flowers or jewelry. None of them had ever brought her rocks from the moon, or rings from Saturn.

This is a collage I did years ago, when I was first experimenting. It's still one of my favorites. Only thing I would change is the signature placement. I use a cartouch now, and that would fit in better.

"Trickster's Hat" Lesson 3

This is lesson 3 from Nick Bantock's book "The Trickster's Hat." It is supposed to be a landscape. I decided mine ended up looking more like detritus washed up on a beach. Because of that I cheated a bit. None of the stamps could be used for what was actually pictured = a tree couldn't be used as a tree. But I couldn't resist using the leaning capitol dome, buried to its pillars with trash, to finish my lesson.

Mixed Bag Wednesday

Here are a few updates on things I have been working on, and a new journal project. Also, a bit about the Nick Bantock book The Trickster's Hat, which I just bought, and am looking forward to playing around with the 49 creative exercise challenges he writes about.  Here we go.

First, the Drunken Spider Vest. I have pretty much finished the web part...I think. I will add more beads as time goes on. I still need to find little bugs to add to the web, and a nice spider pin for the center. I have also started beading around the armholes, and will bead around the neckline.

This is all done in back stitch with either embroidery floss or doubled quilting thread.



Next is a photo of three of the many hair ornaments I have done lately. I sold several of these at a recent SCA event, and got lots of positive feedback, so that made me feel good. I was attempting to rig a quickie light box by holding a white sheet of paper behind the ornaments, but with dubious success. Light box is still on my "to do" list. The wire is either hammered copper, aluminum, or steel. I really enjoy making these and unless I add vintage pieces to the prong, I can keep the price fairly low. These three would have gone for $10 each.

Moving right along...

I bought Nick Bantock's book The Tricksters Hat, mainly because I love anything by Nick Bantock, but also because it was a play book for creativity. By play book I don't mean a list of tunes from the local radio station, I mean play...as in get out in the dirt and build a town with whatever you can find (yes, that is one of the lessons). I am not going to go into detail because I would much rather you bought the book ( I imagine Nick would rather you did as well). All I am going to do is give the lesson number and post a photo of what I did. Maybe it will pique your interest enough to go see what the fun is all about. I hope so.

So, this is a photo of lesson one. The lesson only involved the two 1"x1" boxes, the rest of the doodles I did on my own 'cause I was having way too much fun to stop.

Lastly...and you might want to sit down for this one, since I have posted many times here how unsuccessful I am at this...I am starting another journal. Now, before you scoff (and you would have every right, considering my past stalling out with previous journals), this one is a bit different. I put a limitation on it, mainly so that I wouldn't get bogged down and too serious. The journal itself is small, only 5 1/2" by 4 1/4", so I can't get too carried away. It was a thank-you gift given to me last October. The cover is actual vellum (sheep skin) and the pages hand bound. It has been sitting on a shelf in my "studio" ever since it was given to me. However, with this new spur from my Nick Bantock book, and the fact that I really do like journals, I am giving it another go. Here are the limitations: I can only pick one thing from the day to write about, and the artwork must be quick and small. Actually there is a third limitation...the artwork must be done within 15 min. The reasoning behind this is that, with my previous journals I would start out gangbusters with wonderfully complex pages...then slowly lose interest because they took too much time. Also, my handwriting is ghastly and my spelling worse (which I am going to ignore) With this small journal, I am forcing my brain to KISS — Keep It Simple, Stupid!

I did the first page yesterday, the day after the lunar eclipse, which I thought a good omen for starting something new. I stayed up until 2 am watching the magic of it, and even woke Robert up from a sound sleep at 1 am because I couldn't bear the thought that he would miss it all. I think he was grateful, but he was still half asleep, so it was hard to tell.

The last photo is about the farrier coming to trim the horse's hooves this morning. The number three is because we have three horses. Sorry for my finger in the picture, but the journal doesn't lay flat so I had to hold the page open.

Again, the main focus of this journal is to keep it quick, simple, and not overworked. Besides, my days aren't all that exciting, so for today, the fact that the farrier was due was sorta the high point. Endless entries about where I go (pretty much nowhere), how I worked the horses, or did blah, blah, blah, is what got me bogged down before.

So that is Mixed Bag Wednesday, with lots of fun stuff to look forward to all summer.

An Idea And Its Source

For years I have loved and collected books by the artist and writer Nick Bantock, best known for his Griffin and Sabine series, but he has done other illustrated books as well. Two of my favorites are The Venetian's Wife, and The Forgetting Room. The other day I discovered his FB page, which I dived into like Alice down the rabbit hole, scrolling through older and older posts of artwork, creativity advice, limericks, and artists tips on process and tools. But what he also does on this FB site, along with posting his artwork, is to tell short stories to go with some of the pieces. Intriguing little snippets that pique your interest and make you look at the art a bit closer.

I loved the concept and thought it would be a great way to give myself writing prompts, while also encouraging me to do more artwork — something I've been trying to get back into for months. Granted, I'm no Nick Bantock, but I thought it would be fun to play with his idea, so, periodically I will post a piece of my own work and make up a very short little story to go with it. I hope to have my first piece up by next week.

It might make a nice change from the stitching, beading, altered clothing, jewelry and horse stuff I usually post. Which brings up another thing I am changing...again. I'm going to reboot my horse blog. I've been posting a lot of horse stuff on FB, and a little of it here, which not everyone is interested in. With a new horse at our barn and lots of equine activities planned for this summer, it seems like a good idea go back to Equine Madness for all of that. If you're interested, there is a link under my header.

Hope you'll stay tuned...