Finding Joy in Simple Pleasures

Let me confess something to you, dear readers. In my 'old age' I am finding myself to be more and more attracted to the simple things in life and less and less attracted to the things that society tells us we should be attracted to. ( wealth, power, etc) I am currently engaging in one of my favorite day off activities. That is to say, I am sipping my favorite tea and writing a blog post to you while planning out my day. An added bonus this time is that I also have some beautiful roses to enjoy as there was a wedding at my day job and I was able to take a few of the leftover roses home with me.

 So let me amend my original statement. I am sipping my favorite tea while gazing in awe upon the beauty of these roses. Upon reflection, I don't believe that it's the roses, or the blog posts or even the tea that is making me so happy though. It's the stillness in the morning while I plan my day and take a moment to ENJOY THE PRESENT. The present is lovely and still and the future is filled with hope and possibilities. Once I get going working on all of the things on my to-do list, that stillness will be broken, but for now I am embracing this peace with every ounce of my being and reveling in it.

With holy week impending I am finding my life to be in a constant state of chaos. My day job is frantically preparing for Easter and my responsibilities as a cantor and choir singer are also quite frantic. From this Sunday, through Easter Sunday I have no less than 5 performances at my church. Finding time to create is getting to be more and more of a challenge right now. I am still doing my sketch-a-day series but am finding myself missing days here and there and frantically trying to catch up with them. This has been leading to even more stress. I don't know about you, but I want my art to come from a place of joy. If I'm stressed out and frantic, then all of the fun has been taken out of the creating. I was reprimanding myself for missing days, but I've stopped that now. I am simply doing my best and not beating myself up when I am too tired to do a sketch.

Here are some of my latest sketches...

 

What are a few of your favorite things? What simple pleasures do you enjoy?

Unspoken Stories Behind Famous Paintings

I recently came across a very interesting blog post by James Gurney. (author and illustrator of the Dinatopia books) If you love art and aren't following his blog, then I highly recommend that you do. He is always posting interesting historical facts about past artists as well as helpful information regarding techniques. This particular post was about the artist John Everett Millais and his friendship with John Ruskin (a famous art critic,author and artist at that time)

We all know that art is a form of storytelling, but we forget that there are sometimes even more interesting stories hidden behind that artwork.

Case in point...

 

"The Waterfall" by John Everett Millais, 1853, oil

John Everett Millais painted this careful study of a woman beside a stream during a painting trip to Scotland. The woman is Effie (Euphemia) Gray, the wife of John Ruskin.

During the long days that it would have taken to paint this picture, one can imagine John and Effie getting to know each other. Effie was unhappy in her own marriage to Mr. Ruskin, in part because of a very awkward situation that unfolded on the Ruskin's wedding night. 

Until his marriage, Ruskin's idea of women's bodies had derived from his encounters with classical statues and paintings. Confronted by the reality of Effie's nude body on the wedding night, he was shocked and dismayed. 

No one knows for sure what exactly blew his mind: it might have been either the pubic hair or the menstrual blood. Some have argued recently that the sensual reality of woman's body conflicted with Ruskin's mental image of an idealized young female. Others have argued that Ruskin was a pedophile as he later had relationships with girls very much his junior.  (though many believe that he never had any sexual relations within his lifetime) The way Ruskin put it later at the annulment proceedings: "It may be thought strange that I could abstain from a woman who to most people was so attractive. But though her face was beautiful, her person was not formed to excite passion. On the contrary, there were certain circumstances in her person which completely checked it."

 

Millais and Effie had fallen in love, but this led to a big problem, because the whole point of the Scotland trip was for Millais to paint a standing portrait of Ruskin in a natural setting. Having established the natural backdrop, Millais returned to London, where Ruskin posed for him in the studio. Millais called it "the most hateful task I have ever had to perform." 

 

                                    
    "John Ruskin" by John Everett Millais , 1953-1954, oil on canvas

After the portrait was completed, Ruskin and Millais broke off relations, and Ruskin's marriage was on the rocks. Effie, still a virgin, sued for annulment.

Ruskin may have been turned off by Effie, but Millais wasn't. They married in 1854 and had eight children together.

 

If this story interests or fascinates you, then you'll have a chance to see more in the upcoming movie 'Effie' which was written by actress extraordinaire Emma Thompson. ( who also acts in it)

 

I'm excited about one of my favorite art movements finally coming back into vogue and am looking forward to seeing the pre-Raphaelites' artwork finally taking it's much deserved spotlight. I'm also a huge fan of Emma Thompson so I'm REALLY excited to see this upcoming film which was released in the UK on March 4th, but currently has no US release date. Hopefully it will be brought across the pond soon! :)

To read more about John Ruskin
To read more about John Everett Millais
To learn about the Pre-Raphaelites

Practice Makes Perfect

I remember back in college, we had a speaker come to talk about being a professional artist. One of my fellow students asked him what advice he could bestow on all of us. He said that if you would like to be good at something, then you need to practice it all the time. If you'd like to be better at drawing hands, then keep a journal just for hands and draw in it every single day. This wasn't necessarily profound advice, but it still managed to have a profound effect on the students who heard it. Many of us went out and purchased new sketchbooks and used them to better ourselves on whatever subject we felt we were lacking in.

Now, years later, I am finally putting this into practice again. I'm not focusing on a particular subject matter, but I am forcing myself to sketch something each and every day. There are no rules as to what the sketch has to be about, but typically I give myself only about 30 min to create it. Some days I'll be inspired to create something from my head, while other days I'll be short on ideas and will therefore devote my sketch time to observing something around me. I expect that some of these sketches will be good and some will be downright terrible, but I'm not going to allow myself to focus on these things. I'm only focusing on the act of creating and allowing whatever comes of it to remain as it is.

My goal with this is to keep the creative juices flowing so-to-speak. I would like to make sure that I continue to grow as an artist each and every day. So ensuring that I am creating something each and every day (no matter how small it may be) seems like a good way to do that.

I'm calling it my Sketch-A-Day Series and have added 5 sketches so far. I'm looking forward to adding each days' piece as they are finished.

Here are some of my sketches so far...

 

March 20,2014- A sketch I did while at work on my birthday.

 

March 21,2014- A concept sketch for my next painting

 

March 22, 2014

 

March 23,2014- some sketches I did while attending a musical concert at my church

 

March 24,2014

What do you do to keep yourself in tip top shape? If you could give advice to someone wishing to pursue your line of work, what would it be?

Mermaids On My Mind

Last April, I discussed some concept sketches that I had done for a client who wanted me to do a painting of her two daughters as mermaids.  I realize now that I never posted the final decision that my client made nor the final painting that was created for her. Sorry about that!! As always, life seems to get in the way of my good intentions.

Here is the final painting that was created for her.

Perhaps it's because of my work on this painting, but it seems as if I'm stuck on mermaids right now. Here are a few more mermaid pieces that I've created since then...

 

'Mermaid with the Golden Tail'

watercolor

 

 

 

Mermaid Necklace

                                                 
             Handpainted polymer Mermaid Barrettes

Do you ever find yourself getting stuck on a theme? What concept or theme have you gotten attached to? Children? Portraits? Landscapes?

Hope that your week is going swimmingly...  ;)

Wearable Art Show

As promised in my last blog post, here is a video and some photos of the amazing work from this year's Fashion Artillery Show.
This show featured 36 different pieces from about 27 different artists.




I would recommend muting the sound for this video as the background noise can get rather obnoxious. As I was modeling my own piece, I wasn't able to create a video of my own so am posting one that was taken by someone from Broward College's North Campus Art Club.

Next to me, Amanda Thompson models her piece 'To Meme, With Love', which used magazines, cardboard food boxes and aluminum can scraps

Sandra Kuba's piece 'Epiphyte' made using airplants and moss

 

Kes Elliot's pieces 'All Tomorrow's Parties' featuring hand-painted hoodies and jeans

 

A collaborative piece entitled 'Sweet Nothings' using candy and candy wrappers

 

Page R. Burow's piece 'The Cartographer's Daughter' made from maps

 

Eden Manresa's piece 'Aqua' used melted down plastic bags for parts of it

 

Jennifer Love Gironda's piece 'Floral Bridal Gown' used recycled paper

 

Jessica Benton Kelty's pieces 'Haute Bath' and 'Oodles of Pool Noodles' used shower caps, bath loofas, pool noodles and pool towels

 

Amy Shannon's piece 'Craft Vodka Couture' featured over 300 cardboard bottle neck tags and over 100 copper bottle tops

 

Alexandra Kirschner's piece 'Dare to Wear' featured a top made of sea glass

 

Karen Chandler's 'Elven Mischief' which recycled old sweaters

 

The back of Sarah Buchanan's piece 'Bloom' which featured plastic bags and had strings of lights within the train

Joni Sarah White's piece 'Year of the Horse' used an old English saddle, Sisel rope and porcupine quills

 

Julie Silk Beaumont's piece 'The Spring Collection' used plastered gauze and paint

 

Aidana Baldassarre's piece 'Wedding News' used recycled newspaper

 

Of the pieces shown, do you have a favorite? Have you ever created a piece using unconventional materials? What material do you think will eventually work it's way into mainstream fashion?

Creating a Phoenix Fire Dress

                                             
  My phoenix necklace, which can be purchased here.

As always I began with a series of sketches. I wanted the dress to be inspired by the fire that the mythological phoenix is so commonly symbolized with. (A phoenix dies in fire and is reborn from the ashes )

 My first design was stylish but not as dramatic as I wanted this dress to be. I really wanted the flames to flicker and move as the wearer moved.
So my design underwent some changes even after I had already sent in my design sketch and had been accepted into the show. I designed a fitted dress with an overskirt that would flare out as one walked. The overskirt would have the flames on it so that as the skirt flared it would give the appearance of moving 'flames'.

                           The original look of the fabric

Once I was satisfied with the design I began to paint the fabric. For this piece I used some 1970s drapery material that I had salvaged from the side of the road year ago. I have no idea what the material is just that it was clearly meant to look like a silk shantung. It has a matte side and a shiny side. As the material is some sort of strange synthetic (probably with some sort of plastic in it's composition) I had a heck of a time getting it to take my paints. I knew better than to try to dye a synthetic material but I had no idea that even painting it with acrylics would be so challenging! It didn't grab the paint in an even manner and would often look perfect when wet but about 75% lighter once it had dried. I took 2-3 sessions of painting for each piece. This was much more time consuming than I had anticipated and this placed me in a bit of a time crunch in order to get the piece finished in time. Not to mention the challenge of painting over 6 yds of material!

 I will say that once the fabric was painted it was beautiful. The sheen that it had almost gave the appearance of leather once the piece was done. I dry brushed copper paint over parts to really give the piece a luminescent warmth as well as the appearance of 'sparks and embers' up and down the length of the dress.

For my closures I found some filigree brass hooks. Once my underdress was complete I began work on the overskirt. The 'flames' or tendrils weren't hard per se ( I simply cut the pieces in random spiraling shapes) but they were exceedingly time consuming.

I had to paint a wide variety of colors as I wanted the flames to be varying in shades of reds, oranges and yellows. Each piece had to be painted 2-3 times before I could actually begin cutting the 'flames' out and then each 'flame' had to be pinned to the overskirt before I could hand-sew it on. The challenge was trying to place the flames correctly when someone wasn't wearing it.

I had the overskirt hanging up but it was difficult to see how it would hang on a person. Also, once I finally pinned all of the flames onto the overskirt I found it rather challenging to sew the flames on due to the mass of fabric that I was working with.
Needless to say, I was sewing flames onto my overskirt pretty much all the way up to the night of the show.

 I had originally wanted to create a sort of stomacher of feathers but decided that the feather cheapened the look of the fabric if used in too much of an abundance. Therefore I kept the feathers to a simple accent on the belt and created a fascinator for my hair. I had never worked with feathers before and found this to be a bit challenging, but fun at the same time. Especially when I figured out how to curl feathers. It's a messy process but a lot of fun too. I'll probably do a video in the future on how to do this yourself.

The finished dress on the night of the show! :)

Keep an eye out for my next blog post. I'll be posting a video as well as photos of all of the amazing designs that were showcased at the Armory Art Center's Fashion Artillery Show.

To read about last year's Fashion Artillery Show entry please click here.

Adventures in Shrinky Dink!

I recently attended a slumber party with two of my best friends from high school. It sounds like something that a child would do, but my friends and I try to have one of these parties at least once a year. We turn them into a fun creative experience where we walk away with some sort of finished art project. The first time we had one of these parties we created beaded necklaces. This year my friend decided to make it a shrinky dink party. I had never used shrinky dink before so the experience was a completely new one to me. I have to say that I am now hooked. What a fun material to work with!

Shrinky Dink is essentially a thin plastic film that you can draw on. You can punch holes into it and cut into it but once it shrinks down it becomes a hard durable plastic. Keep in mind that when you place your piece into an oven, it will shrink down to about a third of it's original size.

 

 

Perhaps it's because I am currently painting some koi mermaids, but I decided to created a 'kissing koi' necklace with my shrinky dink. Here is my necklace before it is shrunk in the oven. I used colored pencils and markers to create the image.

 

 

Look at how much it shinks down! I have to say that I was biting my nails with the image completely curled in on itself. I wasn't sure that it would flatten itself out! Once it's shrunk down it also makes the colors much more vibrant!

 

My finished kissing koi necklace complete with glass 'bubbles'

 

I'm thinking about adding some of these fun, whimsical pieces to my etsy shop. What do you think?

 

Do you have creative parties or get togethers with your friends? What do you create when you get together?