Backlog

So, the bad news is that I've been a little lazy with updates. However, the good news is, I haven't been wasting all of my time and I actually have some art to show.



This is a tree in a park across the street from my house. I worked on this over a couple of evenings because I'm not familiar with the watercolor paper in this sketchbook and I wanted to "get to know" it, so I tested to see how it took to masking fluid and repeated washes. It stood up fairly well, but I still wasn't too sure how much I liked the paper, so I went on to paint this:



This is a second shot at one of the peonies in my backyard. The paper stood up all right to the layering of colors, so I got to be a little more comfortable with it.

The next day, I went out in front of my house to where some Echinacea grows and decided to do a quick sketch of those flowers.



The paper took well to the light wash and I'm pleased with the result.

Then, this past week, I went to Chicago to visit my brother who lives in Hyde Park. I wanted to draw and/or paint some of the beautiful Gothic architecture at the University of Chicago (his alma mater) so I went out walking the first day I was there and found a nice shady spot south of the quad with a good view and started to draw. I wanted to use some of the water-soluble Derwent colored pencils I'd gotten recently, so after I sketched everything out and added the colored pencil, I went to wash over it with water. I'd learned in my color swatch tests of the pencils that I needed to "scrub" a little to get all of the pigment mobile in the water, so I scrubbed gently on my drawing that the paper started balling up right away. I was very disappointed that the paper "bruised" so easily, (but when I'd worked on the tree, I'd come close to having a similar problem.)

So, the uncooperative paper threw me off a little. (Yes, that's right, I'm blaming my materials.) I stopped using the Derwent pencils and used my field watercolor set instead, and that worked better with the paper but I was still put off. The part that had balled up was right in the middle of the drawing, so I kept working because, what the hell, I'm not going to "ruin" a "masterpiece," so I might aw well keep plugging along. This is what I ended up with:



I'm thinking about going in and adding more detail with my pen, because when I'm outdoors, I can't concentrate on the fine details as much as I'd like to.

Across the Street

Instead of going to Chicago, I had to stay home with the pets to keep them from fighting. I did, however, get a chance to get out and make some art yesterday. I sat on my porch and drew the house across the street, thereby christening my first watercolor sketchbook.



I've done watercolors before, but I've never had a watercolor sketchbook. The one I'm using now is one I've had for a while now but, as it cost about seventeen dollars, I've been skittish about using it. I'm used to using a book-bound sketchbook (my Moleskine) and, since I like to share my sketchbooks with people, I am petrified of screwing up and being stuck with it. I know it's stupid and that the fear stunts my creativity, but I'm a perfectionist, which is something of a double-edged sword: when I'm good, I'm good and when I'm afraid that I'm not going to be good, I'm nothing. I'm trying to get over it.

I told myself that as far as this sketchbook is concerned, it's spiral-bound and if I really, irrevocably, and unforgivably screw up royally, I can just tear out the page and no one will ever have to see it. Of course, I could just not show my sketchbooks to anybody, but, even though I would like to claim that I only make art for myself, I really do enjoy the little ego-boost I get from showing my work to other people, non-artists who marvel at someone's ability to stare down a blank page and create something recognizable with a little graphite, ink, and pigment. I suppose, when it comes down to it, if I were a hermit living in the middle of nowhere, I would make art to stave off insanity even if there were not a soul for miles with whom I might share my work. But, I do derive an additional thrill from sharing my work with non-artists and other artists alike.

Change of Seasons

I've spent the past five weeks chasing my new kitty around the house, trying to keep her from attacking our dog. Scout, it seems, is not a kitten, but a 3-4 year-old, full-grown cat, according to our vet. She's adjusted well to living indoors and if she'd only stop being afraid of the dog and preemptively attacking, she'd be an absolute angel.

The weather is becoming more summery and, partially as a response to this, I've been feeling more like making art. For the past six months or so, I've confined myself to doing monotonous stipples of photos, which has been therapeutic in that it was something that I never felt "allowed" to do while in art school; it was something that would have been, at best, condemned as "illustration" and I would have been deemed "uncreative" for copying photos. But it's something I do to unwind; it's not all I ever do. So, now I'm feeling more like working from life. I have no shortage of inspiration with the flowers in the yard... Though, come to think of it, flowers would have been deemed cliche at school, but what the hell. I like flowers. So, I'm gonna take inspiration from flowers for now since they're available.

So, I'm gearing up for a trip to the University of Chicago for my brother's graduation this weekend. I'm gathering my sketchbooks, pens and pencils, and field watercolor kit to draw in Hyde Park. The U of C has the most amazing Gothic architecture. I hope I get a chance to draw some of it. If I do, I'll share it here. If not, I'll at least post photos.

Kitten!

So, last week, my mother and sister informed me that a stray cat was hanging around our back door. "Okay," I thought with a mental shrug. Our town isn't overrun with stray animals, but it wasn't anything too new. Besides, we'd fed strays before and we always ended up taking them to the local animal shelter. I like cats, but I figured that this one was just passing through or we'd end up taking it to the animal shelter, so I thought it best to not get too attached to the idea of having a new cat around.

The next day, I got to see the cat--my mom had put some food out for it by the back door. I was cautious at first, because, again I didn't want to get too attached, and I wasn't sure if the cat had fleas or was sick... so I tried to keep my distance, but that didn't last for long because soon she was on my lap, purring. During the next couple of days, I fell in love and bonded. I sit outside and the cat, who we found to be female and not so much a cat as an adolescent kitten, sits on my lap for hours at a time as I stroke her soft fur while I read.

I decided soon after I met her, that her name was going to be Scout. (Though, at the time, I thought she was a he; thankfully, I chose a unisex name.) When I first let her onto my lap, I made sure she didn't have fleas, because I didn't want the bugs to get onto me then get taken into the house where the cat and dog we already have would have picked them up. Scout is surprisingly clean for a stray, but we think that she was either lost or someone recently had to move and left her behind. She always seems to want inside the house, so I'd imagine she used to live with people and knows what "inside" is.

Scout came to us very hungry and rather thin. She devoured I don't know how much cat food the first couple of days she was with us. She has since slowed down because she had her fill and/or she realizes that the food's not going anywhere, that we're not going to take it away. We gave her a box with an old rug, a towel, and, most recently, an inexpensive fleece blanket to sleep with since it's rather chilly and rainy. Yesterday, I modified a box, wrapping it in plastic and duct tape in order to waterproof it for the rain and I cut a smaller doorway in the front to block out some of the wind. Scout seems to like her new house.

So, I'm hoping and praying that I can keep the kitten. We're going to see about taking her to the vet to get her shots and to get her de-clawed and spayed. I'm also going to clean up a lot of my crap in my room so the kitten doesn't get lost. I think that as long as there's nothing terribly wrong with her (health-wise)... I think, I hope, that perhaps... maybe... I might be allowed to keep her. I hope, I hope, I hope. Because she's like a little angel that was sent to me. I've been in such a slump; it's so nice to have something new in my life. She'll be my mental health cat. /sappy crap

Anyway, hopefully she'll be given a more or less clean bill of health and will learn to get along with the dog and cat we already have and Scout can stay. I hope, I hope, I hope.

Long Silence

Well... It's been a while. I needed the break. I'm taking the semester off from school to get my shit together so that when I go out into the world with a BFA, I'll feel better prepared. In fact, I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I'm gonna do with the BFA once I have it. To be a painter... an artist, that would be ideal, but I'm not feeling as thought that's gonna happen. Not right away, anyway. For a while, I was thinking about working in theater, with set and production design; I'm still interested in that, but I don't want it to be all I ever do.

As of late, I've not been able to make any new art. I've only been preparing paper with ink washes to be drawn over at a later date. It's frustrating not feeling able to do something that I should be able to do--something that I know I can do--but I feel burnt out. I've been trying to de-program myself of the art school way of thinking, trying to figure out what I want to do because I really want to do it and what I want to do because someone told me I should want to do it. I'm trying to make it be okay for me to not have to do anything. I'm trying to remove the pressure to produce art. It would be nice to create something everyday and, in some ways, I still do, but I guess I'm trying to give myself permission to not feel compelled to produce... at least, for the moment. And, if I should choose to make something, sometimes it's gonna be crappy; that's okay.

I've been trying to get into my writing--the rewrites of my novels, but I can't settle on one to work on. I want to, but I just can't concentrate. I've been doing some reading; after being told to check him out when I was a freshman, I finally "discovered" Neil Gaiman. I read The Graveyard Book, which is one of the best books I've read in a long time. I've moved onto The Sandman series which is quite excellent. I've noticed in the past that I have a difficult time multi-tasking when it comes to reading new books and working on my own writing, it feels like the new information, when it's really good (and Neil Gaiman is really good) tends to influence my writing, sometimes too directly. I don't wanna write a book that's already been written or steal someone else's characters, so I need to get some distance (or time) between the new stuff I'm putting into my head and the stuff that's coming out, or else the two will look alike. I guess I'm fairly impressionable as far as literature goes; I'm still doing a lot of learning about writing and sometimes I'm too much of a sponge.

So, I'm not making art and I'm not working on my writing. I hate not producing, but I keep telling myself that my creative well is not endless and I've gotta let it refill itself once in a while. So, I will.