Doing Art on My Phone

I have been experimenting with making art on my phone. Using Adobe Draw I have art on the go or I can make stuff while lounging on the couch. There is no clean up, or pencils lost in the cushions.

When using a new medium there is a kind of beginners experimental freedom.  A hmmm, what happens when I try this approach. Which can lead to very interesting and expansive creations- patterned backgrounds and unexpected cartoon characters.

Now in between creations I track my ups package. Wishing my stylus Godspeed.

Love Your Soul

"Love Your Soul" says the tag on my Yogi tea teabag. For the longest time I struggled with that. Then suddenly the other day while I was I was finishing up a project for one of my classes I felt a shift. To be quite honest I was really tired of my project  and was just phoning it in so to speak. It really wasn't my best piece of work.  As I was looking at my project a sense of awe came over me and I thought, "wow I actually made this!" A  genuine appreciation for myself filled my heart. Strange  huh?

 I have come a long way artistically. It has been a rough bleak at times but I prevailed and really appreciated myself for that.  This awakened a great sense of compassion and empathy for myself seemed out side of me-like I was another person.

I saw the importance of just sitting back every now and then and just observing ones self and just appreciating who you are and what you've done-especially when you are not quite there yet. It's a little extra gift of strength  from you to you for the journey ahead. Who else,s approval could be better?

A Good Artist is also a Geek: You've got to Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek Out!

One of my painting teachers would continually joke about how the best painters had no friends. This somehow made me feel better about not being Ms. Popularity. He would also follow up with how such a person needs to spend time alone reading, studying and experimenting with their medium, In other words you've gotta geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek out!

Artists are intuitive creatures but there is also a learning curve that takes time playing and seeing what your medium can do. I recently found this out while learning photography. Instinctively I know how to frame a great shot. Although when I worked  more on the technical aspects did my photos really begin to have deeper meaning and look awesome. Art does need effort and a strong work ethic too. It wasn't till I rolled up my sleeves locked myself away from distractions and got down to business did I really begin make progress.

Nerd, is what some people would call someone who would stay home on a Friday night and mix paint, work on their HTML or watch youtube videos on how to use After Effects. When you allow yourself to geek out, with all your heart and really stalk your passions by doing the footwork your art will really begin to bloom. You will also find yourself evolving too and soon  you will be creating the art you were always meant to create.

Much love and happy geeking!

You Always Have Your Art Practice

I was talking with an old friend who recently lost his job. He didn't know his next step in life and seemed a bit unsure of who he really was now. Sometimes life and work can swallow you up and spin you around. You may get to the point where you have to recalibrate in order to find out who you really are at different times in your life.


My friend said it was wonderful how I paint and draw and I could tell he longed for a constant like that. As insecure as art can be it was always a part of me I could never let go of. There were years when I pursued other things only getting in a few stolen moments with art as time permitted.


Recently I made the commitment to deepen my practice whether or not it turns out to be a career.
Art can be a constant in my life and  always a piece of who I am no matter how our crazy world decides to define me.

Ann Page Recent Sculptures & Drawings and Lecture "Blurring Boundries"

 

In her lecture before the show she started off by explaining what inspired her.  As an artist I loved this kind of thing. I love to hear the stories how pieces were made and how her past and present works evolved. Her work is very beautiful and intricate and looks like it may have been inspired by the ocean. Most of her pieces, especially her 3D printer made works kind of look a bit like coral. But that’s not the story behind them. She didn’t just set out just to make” beautiful” art.

This made me realize most of my own approach to making art is to find only beauty in things and showcasing that. After hearing Ann Pages lecture and seeking her work I am inspired to take an explorative and “let’s see what happens” leap of faith approach to art.  She not only finds the beauty in something simple and everyday things.  In the lecture she spoke about a piece inspired from as the small details in popcorn.  Page made it into an interesting pattern, a whole different creation!

Page’s small pieces dazzled me the most with their beauty.  I liked the multi cut out layered dimensions she created. When you look up close at these you see what looks like light amoeba like sketches that give the pieces more playful fun.  These appear at first to be something right out of a sketchbook, fun floaty lightly painted and very imaginative but from here lecture I learned there is more thought and depth to what she does. The multiple layers of her pieces really gave her work beautiful depth like a tiny microcosm you can look into. There is so much for the eye to see.  The foreground and background have wonderful  lattice  like cutouts that overlap and show deeper dimensions. It reminds me of something you might see while deep sea diving.

Ann Page had larger and similar pieces that showcased more prominently the cut out layered dimensions.  I really liked the multiple layers and the depth these showed.  They were less playful than the smaller ones. In a lot of ways the layers were in contrast of one another. I loved and hated this. In some pieces it seemed like they didn’t belong with another and it seemed jarring to the senses. Stepping back at the same time I could also see the meaning behind it and could enjoy the madness. She has water colored cutouts with what appeared to be photo shopped layers beneath that. There is an intense difference between the photo shopped layers and gentle watercolor cutouts.  All in all found the work interesting and indeed “Blurring Boundaries” of my own. 

Page also made tiny sculptures with a 3D printer! In her lecture she mentioned exploring this technology! How bold just to pick up a new technology and artistically see how far you could go with it! For myself I like to take a bunch of classes and explore alone for a long time with a new medium.  I feel freed as an artist by her  bold approach in this. Some of the coral like pieces were paired with small artworks with the ones mentioned above. This gave the work even more dimension and playfulness-a tiny world so intricate.

There were other interesting sculptures, ones made what appeared to be out of paper stacked on one another.  They looked something out of an old science fiction movie or like a light fixture of the 1960’s! I liked the delicacy the paper gave them.

The lecture “Blurring Boundaries” and the art show “Recent Sculptures & Drawings” opened my eyes to being more experimental in my own art. She also encouraged me to look deeper into my mundane life for ideas.  Ann Pages work is definitely an inspiration and a cue for me to go bold in my work.

Ann Page Recent Sculptures and Drawings

 

Drawing Lessons: The Blackboard

My grandparents had this old genuine slate chalkboard. When I was a kid Pop Pop would draw a picture on it for me whenever I visited.  I excitedly would run in to see my picture.  This made me feel really special.  Later on he would teach me how to draw the picture myself. I struggled but  learned to draw boats, houses, cars, dogs, cats etc.


Later on in life I fought the instinct to make art.  The pursuit of art making doesn't  guarantee reward. Shouldn't  I be doing something more practical with my time? But still this pull inside me calls me to do the work anyway. Now  I continue despite, connecting the past with the present and creating the future.

Reliving Childhood:A Return to the Source

Like a lot of girls I became obsessed with horses. I  devoured books about them and obsessively cut out pictures of every one I came across in magazines and newspapers. At I had the coolest trapper keeper notebook with one brilliantly displayed  on it. I must have drawn that gallant chestnut horse a thousand times until it was perfect.


I haven't thought about horses in a very long time. Now years later I am learning to draw animals. It was challenging at first but when we took a trip to the L.A. Equestrian Center things started to click.
The reuniting with my childhood passion was a doorway to  realizing my current artistic pursuits. My memory  of the shape of the legs and the muzzle came back like riding a bike.  It made my strokes bolder and I started to really enjoy the process.