Yesterday's Progress

Well, there is a slight outside chance that I am getting better at this watercolor card thing.  I can't post the pictures since they will be a surprise but I think they are getting better and I am certainly getting freer with the paint--not as tight as at first.

Took some photos yesterday that I hope I can use.  Today, I am going to try a  little Japanese watercolor as well.  And just maybe, since hubby is cooking today, I will start on the acrylic!

Yes!

No one reads this anyway. Soooo.....

And that's not Eeyore speaking, either.  I would be shocked if anyone stumbled on this thing in blogdom, or whatever you might call that nebulous "kingdom of the blogs".


At any rate, if just for myself, I decided to get going on this. It will keep me honest. It will keep me looking for the next project and I hope it will keep me sane.

Since last here, I have been to Alaska and back, to New Mexico for an icon workshop at Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery in Pecos (it was awesome) and to Italy and the Panama canal, and Peru.  Plus the usual travelling to see/move family in various US locations.  Yes, I have been in cars, boats and airplanes almost more than my studio.  The last trip to Florence and Rome almost forced me to throw out my paints, brushes and pencils and take up watching TV professionally (if you can do that).  Michelangelo, Raphael and Fra Angelico.....are......wonderful and discouraging all at the same time.  In my recent reading, I have discovered, though, that just like me, they practiced, studied and learned from others.  Not really too much different even with their uncommon and wonderful brilliance..

So, my current project?  I am making a set of cards to give at Christmas, all handpainted watercolors and all different.  I am throwing out about 50 percent of my work, but honestly it forces me to practice in a number of (consistent) ways and take challenges I wouldn't otherwise take on. And I think I am improving.  So, all in all a good thing to do.  As things transpire, I hope to do a better job of recording problems/thoughts/exasperations here.  

Getting back to this....

Ok, so I've been There and Back and am preparing on another trip, this time to Alaska.

Quite a bit of drawing, painting and heart searching has gone on since then.  I don't know about any other artists out there, but sometimes I have had the feeling of "Why do I do this? What good does it do?"  I can't help but look around the dying world and wonder, as I stand before my easel day after day, safe in my cocoon and think about what my actions do for anyone. And that sort of thought pains me, because I also believe that G-d put us on earth to help others.

I was thinking about all this when on a parallel action, I decided to paint an icon of a kitchen saint.  I am Roman Catholic but I have been reading about the Orthodox Church, and have even visited two, and have greatly admired the beauty of their churches. The theology behind the icon is something quite beautiful and also different, I find from what I have been told (I am beginning to realize that often, one group has exactly the wrong take on another, often in interesting ways).  It is a "window to heaven" and the people are stylized precisely because we really can't paint them as they are now. At least, that is my understanding.

But my cooking needs help and I thought about the advice of an Orthodox lady on the Ancient Faith Radio that I often listen to--cooking is not mundane but sacred and that she had a icon of St. Euphronysus in her kitchen to look over things with his prayers. 

Hmmm, I thought. So thinking I was tempted to order an icon online, but I had this block of wood in the garage that was doing nothing but holding down the floor. I have acrylic paint. So I thought, why not?

The results, for my first icon were better than I could have hoped for. Furthermore I found it fun and challenging, even though I didn't know what I was doing, and am very sure it was done with many mistakes.  But he sits in my kitchen now, my friend from Heaven,  overlooking my cooking and sweetening my creativity.

It started me thinking.  I had spent the last year helping teach in a Bible study at our local parish.  It had been hard work, and more difficult because sometimes leadership doesn't understand how important such teaching is. But words are words and once said they go off into the air and are lost, unless the Holy Spirit makes them live in a person's heart.  How much better, I thought to take that time and make something that SHOWED people, through an implement both of prayer and art Who it is that made us and how He loves us. It was then that I realized I wanted to be an iconographer.

So thanks, AFR and all the Orthodox out there. And no, there is no Orthodox church in this town. May G-d grant its arrival.

Thoughts on Traveling South

I am heading south, way south, to South America, specifically Argentina, Chile and Uruguay this Sunday.  I have never been where I am going and in a sense I feel as if it were a marvelous and uncertain adventure.  I go knowing only a little Spanish, so although I go with my husband, who knows a great deal more, the lack of understanding of the people around me is, in itself, is a bit daunting.

I had never thought to go here. In fact, I had never thought much about these places until my husband set up the trip. So I feel it has G-d written all over it, just because it is not on my "bucket list".  I do not know what I will find, or who I will meet or how it will change the way I look at things.  I do know that it is one more step on the journey, one more rung on the ladder leading Home. It is a place I must go and a thing I must do. So it has prayer written all over it too.

And this part of South America is a beautiful place.  I have seen some pictures and I am taking new journals full of watercolor paper, and new drawing pens, watercolor pencils and hope that, after a month and a half of artists' block, I will be able to free things enough to create--something, even if it is just a new friend.  It is funny how opening a sketch pad seems to open people up to conversation.   There is a certain fascination people have with art-in-progress--and in this case, I may be at a disadvantage with my remedial Spanish, so the art may just have to speak for itself.

It is now Autumn....

Even though I have been absent from this spot for several months, I have not been absent from my studio.  It is Labor Day, and since we were using this day as a "staycation", I thought I would work in the studio on a piece for my daughter.  She had wanted a pastel like Degas.  She didn't get it, but I managed to pull off a good picture and although I am reluctant to show it, it represents another milestone.

In other words, I was please with the whole piece this time.

And that is rare.

We will take it in tomorrow for framing. Now, I will think more about pastels to supplement my watercolors.
 

Offering for Ash Wednesday

Usually, trips are a great catalyst for me and I come back, if not brimming with ideas, then at least having a few pop into my head.  In this case, I went to an art fair in Boca Raton, and met a very nice (and I might say from his paintings, accomplished) artist who had a piece which was charcoal done on canvas and fixed with the usual fixative.  I had not heard of such a thing (being  ignorant and at the beginning of a steep learning curve) and so decided when I got home to try it.

This was the result.  It is called "Are you so sure?"  I really like the charcoal on the canvas idea, but not sure yet if it is durable enough.  I have put fixative on it and will see how it holds.

 

Sometimes Bigger is Better

I just finished a watercolor, a much bigger version of one I have hanging in my dining room.  The one there is a favorite of my husband's and it was his idea to enlarge it.  I hadn't done it for two reasons.  First, could I pull it off again?  Second, it would require an expensive frame and matting if I did pull it off.

However, everyone is gone and I decided to take paint in hands.  After a trip to the local craft store for a ginormous piece of paper this was the result, and the effect I sought in the first picture actually came to life in this one.

 So, sometimes bigger IS better!