…stings like a bee

I was supposed to finish this drawing in early 2014 (read: I said I would — much more of a failed promise rather than a request).  I’m only almost a year late.  Finished in record time!
01182015

Site, meet blog…

A gentle heads up for those of you that get to my blog via www.ItDoesArt.com: eventually you will be redirected to my site. I trashed it months ago – what’s the point of paying hosting when nothing is being hosted, yeah? My plan is to have the site up by the middle of this month. Woohoo! Of course, like the last one, there will be a gallery page so all the horror that spills out of my hands can be viewed at one time. Like a severely inappropriate picture book!

More painting…

The clouds are working out. I always forget that if I am patient, then I can get things to look as I want them to. But rarely am I patient. I made tiny, tiny changes today that might be hardly noticeable, but that’s okay…

A necklace…

Just a photo and a quick back-story:

A bit over 2 years ago my brother asked me to make him a hemp necklace, so I said I would. 2 years ago. I did it 2 days ago. Shame on me. This is not his necklace though – I was on a roll so I made one for my mom.

The Sketchbook Project 2012…

Has gone the way of The Fiction Project.

This is Procrastinator 2: (Putting Off) Judgment Day. In this version, everyone (including Terminators) plops down on the sofa and nothing gets accomplished because they’re too busy watching American Dad and eating hummus with crackers. No one dies and Linda Hamilton doesn’t develop arms that could break Chuck Norris in two. Nope.

I should now tell you that I started writing this post on Saturday (2 days ago). On Saturday I was under the impression that my Sketchbook Project had to be post-marked by January 21st. Clearly I missed that, so I did what I typically do every time I feel defeated: I give up and internally give my self a “talking-to” about why I suck and how I need to take a course on the Meaning of Time and How it Works, or something like that.

Pouting, I opened Opera and headed over to the Art House Co-op to check out the other artists and see what was going on with them, and pout some more. When I did that, I saw a date: January 31st! I realized that I originally misread it (I do this frequently – numbers don’t look like they’re supposed to in my head) and I still had time!!!! Yesterday, I whipped out a bunch of drawings that don’t make one bit of sense and finished the Sketchbook Project. Today I put the book in a bubble sleeve, weighed it, slathered it with stamps, and shoved it in the mail-hole. Fingers crossed that the postage on USPS is correct!

Woohoo! This might be the first time I have completed something within the time frame I am given! I would celebrate, but I have to go watch It’s Always Sunny so I’ll celebrate later…

Dead foot…

I took a series of photos a few months ago (probably longer than a few, I suck at time) of feet. When I was in junior high I went through this foot-drawing phase. I just drew feet on everything and I have no idea why. My English teacher (who wasnt a bit fond of me) smiled and said “Maybe when you grow up, you’ll sell shoes”. Yes. At 14 years old, I aspired to be Al Bundy (although I should say if Her Hotness Katey Segal was my wife, I would have zero complaints).

Last night and a bit today I’ve been playing with these photos. I have a sort of love/hate for photo editing software because it helps me get my photos close to what I see in my head, but also allows me to procrastinate on learning how to fully operate my wonderful camera. Lazy. I’m just lazy. On one particular photo, I zoomed in and out repeatedly; getting up close and personal with dry skin. The adjustments I made to the photo caused discoloration and pronounced shadows and slight imperfections so much that the foot looks filthy, disgusting, and dead. I love it.  I love the horror of it, I guess.

Going back to the first paragraph of my childhood aspirations I actually wanted to be everything in the entire world. There were certain careers that stood out more than others, but I liked the idea of being able to help people with anything from a plumbing problem to an interior design crisis. One specific career that I was really interested in was becoming a mortician.  I wanted to be a Funeral Director. To me, Funeral Directors got to play several different parts; like actors, except continuous work was a guarantee (maybe this is relevant to my identity issues). This life-long preoccupation with death comes through in a lot of my artwork and this foot photo was no exception! After playing around, it started looking like a dead foot. The skin, along with looking filthy and dry, appeared mottled. I’ve done this with body photos before and I always like the outcome, but I’ve never zoomed in like I did with the foot. I like that even more.

I am fascinated with breaking people/bodies into sections. Picking one area and highlighting or removing it from where its supposed to be. Disjointing, I suppose. So taking this foot and zooming in so close goes along with that fascination. It’s truly repulsive (and I’m smiling as I write that).

If you were a fairy….

Where would you live?

In November a friend, Rick, asked me to paint a picture for his little girl. He digs my style and wanted a picture made that incorporated Tinker Bell. His daughter is MAD for Tinker Bell. Not only was I flattered that he asked me to do this, but I was also nervous. The initial thought I had is my style and Tinker Bell do not go together at least not in an age-appropriate fashion. He chuckled at that Statement of Truth and was confident that I could pull it off.

Because of the hecticness of November, I got a late start on the painting. Then because of my nerves and previous experiences with doing these kinds of things for family, I kept thinking I cant do this!, “He’s going to hate it!”, “She’ll have nightmares!”, and so on. I didnt know what materials to use, I didnt know what colors to use, I didnt know what kind of landscape or background I needed, etc This is when I took in a breath and asked myself:

If you were a fairy, where would you live?

Hooray for an unbridled imagination! Channeling not my own inner little girl, but what I know from Ricks little girl, I started getting these images rapidly firing off in my head. Bursts of colors and happy and light and fun! Exciting and pretty! PINK PINK PINK! Sparkles! Glitter! I’m sure princesses and ponies belong in there somewhere. I do have to admit, working on this has been hella fun – his little girl is a GIRLY girl…possibly the girliest little girly girl I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.

And so here I am, paint brush in hand, trying my best to piece together all those pictures in my brain, make one big picture, and slap a Tinker Bell on top! By the way, Tinker Bell has been giving me a hard time. Seriously. WHY am I having such a hard time drawing her?! I has taken me for-ev-er and I still don’t have her right.

Here is a glimpse at this WIP:

A messy life and Work of Art…

My place is a wreck. A serious, serious wreck. After returning from the Illness Vacation and whipping out that MS Paint drawing on the 14th, I still have not properly cleaned my apartment nor have I really (really) worked on anything. I did start a painting I was asked to do, but only started it and haven’t touched it in a week. Terrible.

Today, though, has started out wonderfully well. I slept quite well (woke up nearly every hour, but did not allow myself to get out of bed), awoke at 5:30, made coffee, started laundry and dishes, and am well on my way to cleaning off the drafting table and getting my rather large behind in gear!

Last night I watched the final episode of “Work of Art” (thank you On Demand!). Two days prior, I watched the next-to-final episode and couldn’t wait to see the end. Wow. Before watching, I was certain Young would win due to his previous successes. I liked the idea of his work for the finale, but I couldn’t get into it. Although, I would have liked to stand in that structure he built to see the photos of his boyfriend and mother staring back at me – I really dug that concept. I’m not sure why that wasn’t made to be more significant in the work.

Sara’s work was really beautiful. Both the crane piece and bed of hypodermic needles are equally my favorite, just in different ways. I wasn’t entirely sure about the video (or the web), but I think it worked. I wonder if maybe it was detrimental to her winning, though? I go back and forth on it; a part of me feels it was necessary. I am a fan of getting to the nitty-gritty of a person’s being. That she took an idea that allowed people to say whatever they wanted/needed due to the freedom of anonymity was fantastic. Something like that always ranks high with me.

I would think it a tough decision choosing between Sara and Kymia’s work, but they chose well. I can’t think of any piece Kymia did that I didn’t like – including the burial mounds. The boat picture was my favorite, of course. That picture makes the cliché “a picture is worth…” true. Truly stunning. I’m still not sure about the headpiece so I will need to watch that episode again (I usually watch each one a couple of times because my head doesn’t always sit straight and still). Really, all of the paintings she did were beautiful.

Time to fly now. I’m running low on juice and getting easily distracted (I’m sure you can tell mid-way through the Sara paragraph!).

Illustration Friday’s “Vanity”

Before drawing this I wanted to doodle a bit to prepare for whipping out “Vanity”.  That’s what I told myself anyway.  I spent over an hour working on some eye as “preparation” and completely forgot about I.F.  Hand tired, back and neck cramped and on fire I scratched this thing out.

A chick.  A pile of bodies.  A hand mirror.  What else could anyone ask for?

Sensible blathering…

So, the whole purpose of this blog is to make myself get off my keister and keep being creative. I sometimes forget that one creative thing I enjoy doing is writing. One of the many things I wanted to be as a child was a writer! I loved it and still do. Lately, though, I have shoved it aside and focused more on the idea of making artwork (I would say doing artwork, but I haven’t been doing much these past couple weeks) and beating myself up for procrastinating.

Writing certainly makes my head work and when my head is working, ideas always come to me – including ideas for visual works. So…I’m writing. I had thought about making yet another blog strictly for “Sensible Blathering” but, honestly, I have too many blogs. Way too many. Since I’ve been using “It Does Art”, I haven’t posted to the others, so there is no point in creating another one that will eventually be neglected. I’ll just blather here because it’s tied to being creative!

A little known fact about me: I have started writing 3 books in my life. One was started when I was still in high school and the other two were started in my early 20s. Note I said started instead of completed. Yes…procrastinator. I like the idea of going back to them, but out of the 3, 2 will not be picked up where I left off because I’m not the same as I was then. However, I can still take the ideas and form them around who I am now and the similar messages I want to convey. I think about them often and I think about how much motivation I had when I started them and how I just became overwhelmed with life in general, not the writing. I think about how I am now and there are still aspects of me that haven’t changed much – the main one being my attention span and how frustratingly short it is. It’s something I work on and as long as I’m doing something to keep my head working in a creative manner, I’m okay with it.

I keep reminding myself that there really isn’t anything I’m incapable of doing. That includes finishing books, creating serious/ridiculous artwork, or even going outside when I’m just too afraid. It’s the same for you. Not a “if you dream it, you can do it” message – more of a “break things down into their simplest forms so you can see how non-complicated things can be”.

I want to make a candle holder out of paper-mache/papier-mache – I realize this would be along the lines of ridiculous artwork. Woohoo fire!