#21-28 of 100 Creations in 100 Days: Visual Journal Explorations

#21

#23 from a fabric design by Knoll 

#21-24 are images I drew/copied from artwork I found on Pinterest.  I am drawn to patterns and lines and Zentangles and these were variations on those.  Eventually I'll incorporate more lines and patterns into my paintings - when I figure out how to do it!  But for now at least I can have the pleasure of doing them separately!

#22

#24

I had suggested to one of my students that she try copying some drawings by the Masters as a way to improve her observational and drawing skills.  I liked the suggestion so much that I decided to take it on myself!  Vincent Van Gogh used a quill pen or some other kind of ink pen when doing his drawing, but I didn't have that available so I used a couple of markers with wide and narrow points instead.  He is a true master!  I learned a lot from doing this - about his marks, his choices, his different kinds of strokes.  The trick now will be to include them in my own drawings!

#25 Apres Vincent

#26 Looking at Her

On our way to Wintergreen Ski Resort, we stopped at Tuckahoe Antiques in Nelly's Ford. I bought some antique postcards there then had the fun of playing with them in my visual journal over the course of the weekend.  #26 combines one of the postcards with a woven image I made of my husband.  It looks like he is oogling the girl, so I named the piece "Looking at Her".  I like the juxtaposition, but it does Chris an injustice as he would never, ever look at a woman like that - unless it was me!  He's the kindest, most appropriate man ever.  But the images worked together, so I'm sticking with them for now!

#27

I took my students to the museum last week and asked them to look for patterns throughout the galleries.  I have posted about that before.  At Wintergreen, I took the time to add watercolor to the images I'd drawn just because it felt good to explore what they would look like.  I enjoy having this set of images to use for documentation and for reference to include in my work.

#28

When I created the CitraSolv/watercolor tree, I first cut out a tree to use as a template. This is that tree juxtaposed against some watercolor paper I'd used long ago for templates of leaves which I used as stencils.  It was fun exploring how they'd work together.  I chose this weekend to not adhere tightly to what I would normally think was "right" or "OK" and instead pushed my boundaries and explored how things looked.  I enjoyed trying new things and doing things I wouldn't normally - like putting the pink flowered pattern together with the tree and the leaf stencils - I had to release my usual judgments about what would work together to let myself do this.  Ends up I like what happened!  Who knew that exploration and boldness could lead to cool results??!

A Typical Day in the Life of This Artist + #11

Today was full of art, but I had to climb back out of bed tonight in order to finish a piece for the day!

#11 Chris

To give you a sense of my fairly typical day...

• Up at 7:15 and into the studio where, instead of creating, I loaded pictures onto my blog - something which hadn't worked yesterday no matter what I tried.
• 8:15 - met with the men who are building our deck to let them in the house where they were planning to put a hole in the wall for our sliding glass door.
• 8:30 took off for a walk with a friend
• 10:00 - at the VMFA, I met with a group of women I teach.  Their exercise for the day was to look for patterns in the artwork and draw the patterns in their sketchbooks for use at a latter date and to raise awareness of patterns as a component in artworks. 

I have done this exercise for myself before because I have always loved patterns but felt it wasn't OK to include them in artwork - that they were somehow "less than".  I realized I needed to go to the museum to test my belief.  Once there, I saw that virtually all the pieces I examined contained patterns!  It was crazy for me to think they weren't valid!  I immediately began to include them into my work.

Today I chose to look at my favorite section first: Kasai Hasui's Japanese Wood Block Prints. Those pieces always make me feel so calm and serene. My favorite patterns this time were his trees and the shadow of a tree on steps.  I love the layering of trees as they recede into the distance and the simplicity of the stairs.

I wanted to go look at the Asian Indian art because I'd delighted in the patterns I found there before, but instead I decided to go into the room with Greek and Roman art - decidedly NOT my favorite art.  I thought I should see what was there since I'd been too prejudiced to go in there before.  It's a good practice for me to test my prejudices!  I found so many interesting and beautiful patterns, some that felt so modern! I look forward to incorporating them into my artwork soon.  I especially liked the pattern on the top of the page on the right.  It looks like something I might have done on my own with all the spirals.

•  1:15 I met a 99-year-old friend of mine for lunch and had a wonderful wide-ranging conversation that touched on art, dance, Iceland, illness, and death.  Frances is a role model for me, someone I'd like to emulate as I age because she lives life fully. She is performing in a ballet this weekend - yes, at age 99!  She is not as spry as she used to be, but she still dances twice a week and even still teaches.  When we talked about death today, I felt like I was touching on a forbidden topic (even though she brought it up), but she said she's ready to die - she's lived a terrific life - it doesn't worry her or make her feel afraid.  It's nice talking to someone who is closer to death than I am (probably) about death.  It takes the taboo out of it.

• 4 Home to work in the studio for a few hours.  I made more Citrusolv pages because I'm going to Wintergreen next week with some friends to create art, and I want to have lots of pages to play with.  I got some wonderful ones today!  I don't know what I'll do with them, but I'm imagining weaving with them and making layered abstractions and perhaps even trying to create landscapes.  I look forward to having all day to explore and play.
  
  
   I worked on my painting of the boat some more, hoping to finish it, but when I got to this point, I could see, finally, that my drawing is off substantially.  I think the bow of the boat is too far to the left.  It's going to take quite a lot of effort to fix that, so I stopped work on it til I feel fresher.

• Chris got home at 8 so I went into the house then to have dinner with him and spend time with my sweetie. We went to bed at 10, but I just wasn't tired enough to sleep, so, in my pj's, I came back out to the studio to examine the Citrusolv pieces more.  Then I felt compelled to get a finished product for the day so I did a weaving based on a lesson Helen Hiebert shared.  I used pictures of Chris which I'd taken to do a David Hockney-type portrait, but haven't done yet. I am enjoying the juxtaposition of the parts of his head/face which don't quite fit together but which clearly belong together and the funky weaving.  The piece makes me giggle!

• So...  long day. Good day. Creative day.  I am blessed to live a life that is typically full of creativity and delight and curiosity and fun.  Having the goal of 100 Creations in 100 Days is making me even more aware of what I'm doing in the studio and is making me do even more.  I'm glad I made this decision.  And now I'm tired enough to go to bed!