#97 - #102!!! I did it! I reached my goal of 100 pieces in 100 Days!

#96

This is another piece from when I was playing with aboriginal motifs. I really enjoy drawing with dots to create fluid movement or form or volume. It's surprising what they can do. The only problem with it is that drawing the dots or the small lines causes my hands to hurt more than I can tolerate. My massage therapist felt my hand after creating my pregnant nude (a 3-4 day process) and was stunned at how large and hard my hand felt.  And it HURT!  I went to bed in pain. Darn it! I don't know if there's a better way to do the dots and lines or not. I watched an aboriginal woman paint (leaves, not dots) and her lines were incredibly fluid and easeful.  I have a lot to learn before I can do that!

#97

In my Intermediate Drawing class the other day, I brought in some dogwood flowers and asked the students to draw them in as many different ways they could imagine, using lots of different materials.  I decided to take my own challenge.  #97 and #98 were my results. I find it helpful to challenge myself to draw the same thing many times - it kicks me out of my ingrained habits and ways of doing things and helps force me to have new ideas. The pencil drawing is my typical way of drawing a flower. It's what I know best (other than pastel) and gives me the most control.  The small black square-ish is done with a Sharpie marker and pencil. It was very different working smaller an trying to fit the flower into the small box. I faced the flower a different way as well, so it probably isn't as legible as a dogwood blossom. For that reason, it makes me a bit uncomfortable, but I also find it an interesting graphic. Overall, I like it more than I don't.

#98

#98. First I drew the flower in ink, lying face down on the table. I used the method of Modified Blind Contour Drawing, so mostly I wasn't looking at the paper as I drew, just at the flower (though I peeked enough to get it mostly accurate). Then I drew charcoal all over the paper and used my eraser to draw the larger flower in, right over top of the smaller flower. I used to never layer things. I wouldn't have put two different drawings on the same page. Now I don't really care. I didn't pay attention to the first flower when I drew the second. They end up interacting with each other. If I'd been more intentional about it, I would have changed the composition, but this one makes me think and work with it and try to decide if I like it or not, or what I could/should have done better. It's good to try new stuff. I never know if I'll end up liking something or not.

#99

Wysteria Vine from the Discomfort
Workshop

Yesterday I was beginning to panic a little bit because April 15 was rapidly approaching, and I didn't have any idea of how many pieces I had done and whether I was close to 100 or not.  To that end, I began playing in my visual journal, combining elements I'd been saving for a while. This picture has images from a flower catalog, a quote, and some paper I made Thursday morning.  That's another story...

I teach a group of women who've been working with me for about two and a half years now.  We began by having me teach them Zentangles. After a while, I got tired of Zentangles and wanted to expand what we did, so I began teaching them some elements of design and about color. Since that time, we have explored so much! We've researched artists and created artwork a la Artists XYZ. We will soon be starting on a series of women artists and their contributions over the centuries and today.

One of the women in the group is the one who loves to buy art supplies and brought me the Brusho to try out. She also provided a book by Elizabeth St. Hilaire who creates colorful papers using acrylics on rice paper, then tears up the paper to create collages. This students, Barbara, wanted to learn how to do it, and was thinking about going to Florida to take a workshop with the woman, but I told her, after looking at the book, that I thought I could figure out most of it.  So Thursday, we created part one of 8 of my version of St. Helaire's workshop!

We hauled 7 folding tables into my yard, covered them with plastic, then pulled out paints, water, cups, things with which to make textures, paintbrushes, stencils, and about 30 other fun things with which to paint/mark/scrape/etc. and for 4 hours proceeded to cover rice paper with as much paint and as many textures as we could muster.  It was a great deal of fun, and we came up with some really interesting papers.  Though we are meant to hold on to them to use for collaging, I have used a couple in my Visual Journal already today. In #100, the white paper is one of the sheets I made that day.  I used paint on corrugated cardboard along with some bubble wrap to create the textures you can see.  The green is simply brush strokes. I think it'll be fun to see what other papers we come up with and what we end up doing with it.  It's an interesting process to learn an to go wild with!

#100

#101

#101 is a collage out of many disparate elements. The card is an advertisement for a book of poetry published here in Richmond by a woman named Hope Whitby. 

#102

#102 is more flower catalog images along with a blind contour drawing.

AND - I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!! With this blog post I am finished with my 100 Creations in 100 Days! Warts and all!  And 2 days early. Wow.  Tomorrow I will take some time to reflect on how this feels and what I've learned from the whole process, but for now I need to go to bed. It's after 1 AM and I gotta get some sleep!

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. I'm deeply honored that you have spent your time with me. If you feel like leaving comments, I always welcome them (as long as they're nice!)

Good night!