30 in 30....day 30

Finally.
I get a break tomorrow.
That's where I'm at right now.

I'm not at all pleased with this painting.  Although there's someone out there that probably doesn't even know of me that if they stumbled across my work would probably think this is the most inspired I've ever done.  Or not.  I don't know.

I really don't know much at all.

I suppose that's what the challenge has taught me.  Which I already knew -just for the record!  I'm a student, learning, exploring...I hope I always will be!

I pushed the envelope on this one.  I think I pushed too far.  I think it was there (or at least closer) half an hour before I finished and I just spent the last half hour attempting to make the closest thing to an abstract more "identifiable"  which I think missed the point.   I took a picture during the process then deleted because I knew I couldn't get it back...but I should have posted that one.  It was fresher, cleaner, more energetic less over-worked.  Will I pursue a more abstract style in the future?  I'm not sure.  Time will tell.  I know I can compare the colours of this one and see similarities to my more representational pieces but I am more pleased with the results of many of the others.  I'm curious none-the-less.  I cracked open a door I never intended to walk through.  What's on the other side is intriguing, interesting, alluring, but is it for me?  Time will tell.

For now.  I will take a break.  Maybe a day, maybe more.  I will reflect, regroup, clean up my work area and attack some other aspect of my life with a bit more gusto.

When I return to my easel I will return with a bit more confidence because now I know I don't always have to wait for inspiration to show up, sometimes me showing up first calls inspiration and asks it to put in some time.  Sometimes that scenario works too.

I'm happy I participated in the challenge and I will again.  This has been an intense month but I believe it was a great learning experience and totally worth the time.  Thanks for taking the journey with me!

24 x 12

acrylic on canvas

30 in 30....day 20

Yay!  Day 20  -only 10 more days to go!

This challenge is a full time job!!!  Not really, but I am complaining, it is hard to be inspired ALL THE TIME!  However, the art needs to be done and the more I do the more experiments and experience acquired but it really is a very intensive assignment....there are days I just want to take a break, have a weekend...whatever, however...on I paint.

And today it was worth trudging up to my studio and putting paint to canvas, I really like how this turned out.  I painted almost the exact scene once before but the seasons were slightly different... this photo was snapped early autumn, the last time I painted this I captured an early summer day and it turned out predominantly blue and green.  Though there wasn't a lot of fully coloured leaves apparent in this picture I can easily see the results show a much wider colour spectrum.  I likely made about half of them up, or so Scott would say, he looks at my photos and wonders where I come up with all the variations...but honest, in my eyes those colours are there.
For real.
Which leads me to wonder just how differently do each of us see and perceive the same scene?

God knows we hear the same words differently, feel different in the same situations, interpret every piece of music, current event, facial expression and piece of art differently so I guess it's perfectly plausible that I really do see all the colours and Scott simply does not.
 
Likely much similar to how he interprets my eye rolls as a "sarcastic reaction"  whereas in reality it's just a sign of affection! -Ha! Now we'll see if he reads my blog!  ;)

  

 

      18 x 24

acrylic on canvas

30 in 30....day 12 & 13

I'm not absolutely sure that this 30 day painting challenge is bringing out the very best of my artistic talent!

I decided to participate for various reasons, one which includes my continued involvement in the Pontiac Artists' Studio Tour.  The tour runs during the middle 2 weekends in June and my oldest in her 14 year old wisdom ( last year) informed me I would be so much less stressed before the tour if I just got my act together much sooner in the year.  So, Emma, I'm placing any waste of paint and supplies and time this January very firmly upon YOUR shoulders!  ;)   Just kidding.

I do have a collection of paintings in various states of completion and I am truly far ahead as compared to years past and yet I find myself rushing a little too quickly a little too often to get my link up on Leslie Saeta's blog...so the quality may not always be right on, however experimentation is happening which wouldn't have otherwise so I'll chalk it up to lessons learned!  

Next, there is the predicament of after I link up my art to her site of perusing through 400+ other artists' daily masterpieces...and they truly are, then I start to doubt and worry and wonder....

then, in an effort of self preservation (or ego preservation at the very least) I quickly go do something else that doesn't involve art at all....and then...

my next predicament:  I fall behind!  Payroll for Glad Crest Farms is in fine shape, I'm proud to report, but I failed to post yesterday at all...so today, a 2 for one!

The 2 missing seasons from my little experimental series.   Summer had many challenges, Autumn was much easier.

Enjoy!

each 12 x 16

acrylic on canvas board

30 in 30....day 7

Confession:  This was not painted today.  But recent-ish.  I spent the day putting away Christmas and just didn't get around to pulling out my paints.

This is a very large painting I did early December when I should have probably been doing about a dozen other more pertinent things.  I have wanted to paint a reindeer for about 3 years and never took the time.  I finally decided to be selfish and stubborn and ignore all responsibilities.  This is the result.
My reindeer.  "Waiting for Santa"

The photo quality is poor.  Actually, all my photos are not great.  I've been using my I-phone and our home has a lot of bright, warm walls and generally by the time I'm done painting for the day I have lots of lights turned on so colours are distorted.

I will need to take some time to pull out my good camera and set up on a bright clear day and retake all my images, but particularly this one.  It is sparkly and kind of magical.  This does not do it justice....but here it is anyway, I'd rather post a poor picture than none at all.  When I take on a challenge I generally stick to it, stubborn like that!

See you tomorrow!

  

48 x 24

acrylic on gallery canvas

30 in 30....day 6

Again trying a slightly different style today, I will eventually get back to my tried and true method to painting but I do find it really weird how no matter what I set out to do when experimenting I get completely different results than what I was actually aiming for!  I guess that's a sign that I'm no true expert...or at least not a very good fake!

What I had in mind was that I was going to create a series of seasonal paintings...I've done the same concept before but another style that time too...I was thinking of a painting made almost entirely of circular organic shapes, with extra colours and circles within circles....inspired by the likes of Norval Morrisseau, bright bold colours, very graphic...and so on.

What I ended up with was something very different. Mr. Morrisseau would no doubt NOT be impressed, but in my defence I abandoned that concept almost immediately after beginning.

My head was in the clouds today. I've been thinking of a couple people who've lost those very close to them in the last couple days, considering spirituality, mourning, grief, letting go and such.  So perhaps that's why this ended up looking like it did.   I "think" I like it but I don't consider myself much of a romantic and this looks like that to me.

(I also so hope that heaven is a little more rockin' than this too....assuming I'd be admitted that is...and that this isn't my subconscious giving me a window to the great hereafter!)

Perhaps it ended up like this only because it was my spring version??  A little sticky sweet, perhaps I can make a winter storm next or a really miserable autumn day...more matching to my volatile character!        

I do like the globs of paint, it created a bit of texture which is hard to see in this image but pretty cool when the board is in front of you.  I will continue the series for the remaining 3 seasons and hope when they're all together it looks cool.

12 x 16

acrylic on canvas board

30 in 30....day 2

Back again for day 2 of the 30 in 30 painting challenge...

Here is my work for today!

From a photo I snapped while biking with the kids this past autumn (they kept asking why I had to stop so many times to take so many pictures....an occupational hazard I suppose)

'Twas a brilliant afternoon...everything really was this glorious-for real!

I've always been intrigued by the old lane way, the house has been torn down and it is now only used for the fields which surround the yard that was the location of the homestead.  Usually makes me a bit melancholy to see homes fallen and forgotten but with the light the way it was on this particular day I thought it had a festive air.

Wouldn't you love to travel home to this maple lined lane?
 

12 x 12

Acrylic on Canvas

30 in 30 ....day 1

Trying something really new  (other than actually posting on my blog!)  Trying a 30 paintings in 30 days challenge, basically this is a worldwide challenge to get artists painting, creating, becoming more experimental and prolific than before!  A link to the host blog is here.

...All things I need a lot of help with so what the hey!...here goes nothing!....

Started today with a painting which was perhaps a bit too ambitious for a "painting in a day" challenge.  These 2 sweethearts have actually somehow for real wormed their way into our hearts around here, but not because they're actually that sweet.  They are kind of tyrants actually!  They are the source of many tears, much frustration and a broken bone and mild concussion.  Horses are fun, they said!  Horses are intelligent, they said!  We have learned that perhaps they are more intelligent than their owners.  Period.

Anyhoo!  Back to the painting!  I started with our lovely horse and pony show.  (Picasso and Pepper) I snapped this pic earlier this fall because I  loved the light that was streaming from behind as they grazed.

I really admire artists who can capture an image roughly with what looks like very little real effort...a brush stroke here, a slash of colour there and VOILA !  -the essence of a horse captured in perfection. Sigh.
I am actually a lot more anal than I care to admit.  I do apparently not know how to do quick and effortless.  I want to work and rework this.  (I might just yet...but I'm obeying the rules and posting on the day I'm actually supposed to...be gentle with any commentary...sigh, again!)

Lessons learned from this my first post for the 30 in 30 day challenge:

-I am challenged
- pick an easier subject or at least approach it with looser expectations
-cannot overemphasize the importance of drawing, sketching, planning before...that would have helped SO VERY MUCH
- relax.  It's just a painting....it'll speak to someone, or it won't
- On 5 hours sleep after chaperoning 6 teenagers and 2 youth and 1 hubby with strep throat at a New Years Eve party in my home while being their short order cook- I should perhaps not expect too much of myself!

Well, here it is.  See you tomorrow.  :)

March Break Art

The kids were on March Break a couple weeks back. 
I had also been asked to teach an art class for kids as a fundraiser for the Pontiac Artists' Association which didn't transpire.  Hope is that next year more people will be looking for activities for their children and register.  There is a plethora of super talented instructors in our area who anxiously share their skills with kids one week a year at the Young Artists' Workshop and this was to be an expansion of that.
I was to be the novice teacher and had bought the supplies before the classes got cancelled so half way through the week when we were all going stir crazy I pulled out the canvases and told them "Today is art day...put down the electronics and follow me."  and so they did.
The project I picked was Kid's Silhouette Art.  I found the tutorial online, but the link I used is eluding me completely!
What we did was pretty simple:
-I used a light and traced their outlines for them.
-Set them up at the table with Black Sharpies and told them to draw things that they liked, were about them or important to them within their images.
-I then brought out tempera paints and showed them how to use them like watercolour and fill in their images. (Sam decided he was done slightly before filling it all in...and I decided that was fine...a true reflection of his artistic fortitude at the ripe old age of 6)
-After the paint was dry I pulled out black acrylic and had them paint around the images (mom did that step for Sam)
-All done! 

I've always liked Silhouette art and yet have none.  Although these are pretty flashy and bright, they are really stunning and look incredibly fun in their rooms....and the best part is they say this was the best thing we did over the March Break!  Points for mom!...Gotta love that! ;)

Coffee Bag Art

I agreed to participate in an exhibit some time back and the deadline is looming.  One of our local artists has a great coffee shop and art gallery called Art Brulant and Impressions.  Since he has begun roasting coffee he has accumulated quite a collection of bags that hold the green coffee beans so being resourceful he's decided to hand them out to other artists to transform into art of their choice.  The exhibit will be called "Beyond the Bag" and starts on May 5th in Shawville.
 
I've discovered a couple things about these burlap bags.

-I really like them...just as is.  I hope to get my hands on a few more and make some great toss cushions for outdoors under my porch, love the graphics on them and think they are pretty awesome all on their own!
-But also, even after a good thick coat of gesso and then some more acrylic primer I've discovered that this stuff really sucks up the paint!  I'm going to go broke painting this bag! We are so fortunate to have a plethora of quality art supplies on hand just about everywhere these days, I'll be happy to return to the ease of  my regular canvases shortly.

Meanwhile the coarse nature of the ground means I have very little control over the detail in the painting and this has forced me to loosen up and just go with it.  What the end result will be remains to be seen but I'm doing a bit of a tongue in cheek thing, not getting too serious about the subject and just relaxing about the process. 

I was told in college that I took tasks very literally, I see that literal interpretation popping up yet again in my project but at least I'm stretching my creative legs and moving outside my box even if I'm not getting very far beyond the coffee bag... I just couldn't kill all the printing on the bag- my love of coffee and all the rough, natural burlap and yes- cows are coming through and I'm having fun...so thanks, Raymond for the experience!

I cannot wait to see everyone else's interpretations and creations.  I'm sure most will be far more ingenious than this and it will be a really energetic and entertaining exhibit!  

'Cafe au Lait'  -with miles to go!   ;)

Just Breathing

I don't know about you, but I think for many rural individuals the seasons set the pace of our lives. 

In spring the urgent rush to prepare and plant the fields seems not unlike a long distance race where results are never immediate but the outcome is imminent and the only way to cross that finish line is to invest copious amounts of time moving steadily forward one foot in front of the other and never ever giving up. The list of tasks seem endless and urgent and yet there's a celebratory note in spring because we've just survived the winter, that enthusiasm propels us forward, has us take on things we'd otherwise never make time to do, we are energized and refreshed by the smell of earth as it thaws, the gentle breezes, the warm rain and the reappearance of life, first little bubbles appearing in the earth as it drinks up the melting snow, then tiny blades of strong lime sprouts push through last year's dead, dried grass.  Finally the song birds return home for the season and the land erupts and the season that seemed like it would never quite come is upon us and explodes chaotically all around.  Plants grow so quickly the daily results are measurable and never, ever cease to amaze. 

Then quickly and quietly summer arrives.  She comes in a blast.  One day you are working in the garden, a gentle breeze on your back and the next you are stifled with a wall of heat so thick that it takes your breath and streams of sweat run down your back.  Flowers bud and explode.  One day a garden plant bears a tiny blossom and the next long, crunchy beans, squash or peas appear.  The world becomes a buffet but the work is harder and hot. Still we adapt, the icy waters of spring quickly warm and become our playground, we alternate between basking in summer's hot rays and thick dappled shade to plunging into it's warm refreshing pools.  Summer stifles with her intensity but all too swiftly just when we wonder if we'll ever need the blankets on our beds again or if a breeze will ever ruffle the curtain, if those peepers in the pond will ever stop their incessant night time chatter she gracefully bows out and gives center stage to Fall. 

Autumn comes with a change of clothes from green to yellow.   We welcome his cooler days and are reinvigorated once again to tackle jobs that Summer's heat just couldn't inspire.  We cannot help but pause and marvel at all his splendour, he simply amazes with his riotous brightness from leaves to crops, to the squawking of flocks as they fly over beginning their journey to warmer places but he's a fast one that Fall...in a shaking of his robes the brightly coloured leaves swirl and madly whirl around encircling us with a frosty promise that work will soon slow down.  First, we must hurry, we have things to tidy, harvests to collect, jobs to finish because Winter is waiting.

Sometimes Winter sits impatient on the doorstep and she can be harsh and merciless and we don't want to be caught unprepared.  She blows into every corner sending chill everywhere.  The trees become lifeless statues frozen in her stillness, buried deep inside themselves as they set up a long vigil against her icy madness, swirling blizzards and deep cold.  She is also beautiful this winter, with her long, thick robes  that glimmer on moonlit nights and blind on sunshine days, but for me winter is a time to breathe, regroup and reorganize as the world around lays blanketed thick and white.  A time to rest and plan for the cacophony of spring that is sure to follow.  A time to not wish away but to enjoy and breathe because all too soon the cycle will start again.

Already the days are longer and I know my rest is coming to an end.  I am trying to collect myself, my thoughts, my ideas and organize them in a way that they won't spiral madly out of control at the first sigh of spring.  For now I plan and slowly I will begin again just as the seasons unfold, I guess time will tell exactly what that looks like and what the world has in store for me but for now I chose to simply be and appreciate all this world has to offer us if we only just open our eyes and see! 

Changing Seasons

   

Stuck

Okay, I admit it, I am stuck.  Teetering on a really wobbly plank and I cannot make that plank balance any more than I can tip it in the direction of success.  I can at any moment very unglamorously fall off.

 

Creativity:

I always believed I just had it.

No matter what.  

Now I realize, a bit too late that I too, like every other normal person out there can lose it.  I have lost it. 

Trouble is I need it now and no matter what I do to coax it from its shell, it is eluding me.  

I can paint pretty well.  No, I’m not Degas, Van Gogh, Matisse, Chagall, Leonardo, Warhol, or any of the other great geniuses, not even a modern day undiscovered one, but I can usually paint something that impresses someone.  Not so much, not right now. 

My genius (as classified by Elizabeth Gilbert in a TED presentation on creativity  http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html) must be lost under the dust bunnies in some corner of my world.  I keep showing up to paint and my genius is not following.  Maybe it went on a trip…wish it took me with it, I could use a break.  Maybe it decided to find someone more worthy to attach itself to? 

Whatever.

All I know is panic is beginning to set in. 

And we are suffering.  Not the deep down true suffering that appears in so many people’s lives in death, in sickness, in war, in chaos, in violence.  But I am slowly going mental.  My kids look at me like I’ve grown 3 heads, My house is getting grimy, the laundry is overwhelming me.  My husband has this look of sympathy and I have developed a habit of screaming out loud (not really loud...not quite there yet!) for no apparent reason when what I am trying to coax out of my paintbrush repeatedly fails to transpire upon my canvas.  I 've also hit up a friend or two about my dilemma and if I keep this up eventually I'll become their plague. 

I have a goal and I am starting to believe I will not achieve it. 

I need to paint.  I want to paint WELL.  I don’t want to blow this and I’m afraid I’m going to. 

Meanwhile…my posts will become even more infrequent.  I cannot help this because I’m stubborn enough to keep trying.  I will paint every opportunity I get and I will either waste a pile of art supplies or I will eventually pull off a successful first ever studio tour.  Time will tell. Pray for me…I need it! 

Cheers, Jen