Are Sunflowers Becoming a Theme With Me?

Sunflowers seem to be "my thing" lately. I don't know if it's because they have large wide-open happy faces, or because they ever strive to reach the sun, or is it just because they show up for work? Every day during the summer, they are there, on duty, standing along the fence just smiling as if they are the overseers of our back yard kingdom.

Or is it because the petals grow so crazy-wild and it takes a real conscientious effort to be able to capture their rise and dips. Or maybe it's just because they are happy and in trying to spread that happiness, it makes me happy? I think it's that - it makes me happy. I've consciously given up doing things that don't make me happy every day. Kind of an indulgence, but I'm going to keep it going as long as I can.

Here are a few drawings that I haven't put color to yet. I like the compositions and I wanted to preserve them until I try out different colors and effects. (Basically, I don't want to mess them up.)

More later.

K

Trying Something a Little Different

Okay, this sunflower is NOT tiny - it's 5 x 7, small, but not tiny.

I've spent the last couple of days working on a few very small watercolors. Why? I don't know. I don't even know why you ask me that. I just felt like it. Anyway, I like the idea of panoramic paintings and I've got to work with what I've got.....and .... well here they are. Since they are so small, the thought of framing was starting to concern me. I haven't see any very small panoramic frames lately. . . . or ever. . . and custom framing, phffft, I'm sure that THAT would be cost prohibitive, so I'm going to mount them on recycled wood - which means I'm going out to my garage and find pieces left over from something else I've done, and put them on that.

We'll see how that goes.

Feel free to comment. I was so pleased that I couldn't even wait until a decent hour to talk about it.

K

A Painting a Day - It's all I ask...

Well, some days I'm fairly prolific, and some days I'm not.

I watch my dog, my big beautiful German Shepherd, as she turns in circles, figuring out just how to settle in. It's a puzzle to her, though it looks very much the same to me, but she's looking for just the right spot, just the right "merge" place where she can ease into her relaxation mode.

Granted - she's a dog, but many times in my effort to get started I feel the same way. There's a process. I get up in the morning, get coffee, then I head to the computer to check email and look at things - could be other blogs, it could be flipping through magazines for a minute or 15 - but most of the time I spend time laying out what I've been working on.

I've finally gotten my watercolors in a binder, in protective sleeves so that they're . . . well - protected, from water drips, my fingers, accidental pencil marks - whatever. I'll line up the other half dozen drawings that are in progress and try to decide which one I feel led to work on. They're all in various stages of unfinished - just ink, ink with some color, drawings that need something but I haven't figure out just what ... I spread them out and just look at them. Though it may appear (to people close to me) that organization is the bane of my existence, I am finally accepting that it's much easier to work in a semi-organized fashion - completed stuff put away, only the others cluttering about. Semi-organized.

My "circling" requires me to check the binder, line up my pencils, return pastels to their boxes. I like the process of setting the paper pads in front of me stacked in order of height and right next to them the pots of brushes. I probably only use three different brushes most of the time but still I like the pot of them nearby. It makes me feel official - like if I needed them, they'd be standing at-the-ready. Good little soldiers. Worn but loyal.

I think I'm ready now. One more trip to the restroom, one more glass of water. And now - to address what's at hand - do I start on a big page of blankness or work on what I've started?

Here's work from today - Saturday, March 6, Happy Birthday Mom!

Looking back on past work

This watercolor (the trees and rock) is actually a portion of the original. I like this part the best. I love river rock and I think I got this part, at least the colors. Aug. 2008 (??) The orange flower at the right - I don't think there are actually flowers like this but I like it, even if it is only in MY head, and I love the way the colors turned out. (2006?, maybe 2008)

Just an 11 x 14 inch doodle. Haven't colored it yet and I'm not quite sure what I want to do with it. I love these (there are a couple of them) but I really like tucking a little message or scripture in them somewhere. 2006 The daffodils are oil pastels and watercolor on a paper bag. It's sturdy, not very absorbent, but it's heavy enough to rub color on over and over until I get the desired colors. I like to practice on bags, but then it I end up really liking some of the pieces so I'll probably frame them, and then the crease won't matter to me.

This bouquet I did last month. I like it so I've done more, not exactly like this but similar.
* * * * * * * * * *
I was digging around looking for more paper to draw on and found some other paintings that I've done in past years. It's always an interesting thing to take a step back and evaluate with a new 'eye' what you've been doing. For me it's kind of like painting a room that I'd waited a long time to paint . . . . and then I have to walk in and take a look, walk out, pretend that I've never seen it before, walk back in. Maybe I take a personal vote, or see if my scale from 1-10 stays the same. In any case, I like to do the same thing with my artwork. I'm very critical as I'm doing something, whether it's ceramics or painting or whatever, and the urge to trash it and start over comes up many times during the process, but I've learned (I think) to set things aside and go back in for that fresh look, that fresh and hopefully objective view. I've done that with these paintings and I like them a lot more than I remember. I like the colors and composition, and I'm liking the feedback I'm getting on Facebook, from friends and family and people who drop by while I'm working. There's so much to continually learn but it's a fun kind of learning. It's learning about something I actually want to know.

So that's it - just sharing today.

Kate

My Daily Drawing

Today's beginning work......and on to my morning thoughts... BIG NEWS!


I've FINALLY come to recognize something that I should have learned long ago... but didn't... the benefits of practice. Practice makes you better at something, or some things. I'm not sure what it was that I didn't get but it makes me understand why I have struggled with many things in my life. I don't know if it's just an 'acceptance' thing that now I'm finally getting to. Or, if I'm like many other people I see who struggle with not understanding some simple principles.



When I was taking classes, there were a lot of them that were easy or fairly easy to me. Writing papers, pffst......piece of cake. Talking in front of people .... oh please. Analyzing something or figuring out why people do what they do.... c'mon, bring on the hard stuff. But... and here is where it all starts to unravel for me... if I'm given a task where I have to go at something again and again, and again, to get it right - *gasp* where I'd have to "LEARN" ..... I struggle.



Algebra - STRUGGLE. Ceramics and getting the glazes dead on - struggle. Willing to practice at that, but still, it's a struggle.

And then there's art - WHEN did this decide to be a struggle? When I realized that to be at all decent, I have to do it again, and again. And do it over and go over that again. And to practice and practice and maybe then I will be able to exhibit some control and duplicate what I've done.



God, I exhaust myself. Why can't I just be accepting of the fact that learning is necessary in almost all things. To be any good at anything, I think I have to just accept that maybe I know nothing .......and then we can start from the beginning. LEARNING . . . . listening, getting knowledge of, practicing what you don't know until you understand it and have a command of such knowledge. Get it? Got it!
*sigh*

"Okay, let's go. Let's do it again."

K

Watercolor

Watercolor is a pretty cool medium, especially if the weather is unreliable. You don't need much, some decent paper, a watercolor paint set, a cup of water. And a pen. I've been doodling this week and these are what I've produced. I think they may be put up for sale on Etsy a bit later.

It's Almost Spring......maybe

Spring is heading our way. The blossoms on the almond tree in our front yard plumped out of the branches, budded and were in full bloom within five days, maybe it was even four. Each year it amazes me how quickly "it" happens. With this new-to-us house we also have an orange tree in the back yard. It remained green all winter while I noticed that others in our neighborhood had lots of orange "pops of color." I thought maybe we were passed over for the fruit this year. But no. Nature was just pacing itself. Little by little I realized that I just wasn't aware of all the work being done in the background. What I could not see were the hidden green balls, that would soon turn orange and make their visual announcement. Every morning I notice more. I know it happens but still each season I am amazed.


I participated in a local monthly art exhibit last evening - only the seond time I've shown any of my artwork in public and again got a wonderful response. I was happily surprized. I even sold a small ink and watercolor painting of a couple of sunflowers. I was and am ecstatic. I wanted to kiss the woman and thank her for buying my "doodles." And that's one that I wasn't going to take, and of course didn't keep a copy. I did get a lot of wonderful comments on my Kandinsky-esque drawing that I used a couple of summers ago when I taught Art Camp to kids.


At the same time I'm getting in to my art work, I'm trying to position myself to teach art to children. My first and very loyal student is Rita. Here she is working very hard. She's not yet three, but she clearly wants to be shown ONCE and then wants to do it on her own. If she said what she thought I'm sure it would be "Quit buggin me, I can draw by my own self."

With three year olds you've got to be faster than the spilling water cup, quicker than the brushes falling off the table and you've got to be in love with brown because no matter how hard you try, they want to mix those colors into each other until they're one uniform color. And it's much easier to work with chaos on your paper. Maybe that's why I like working with them - I think like that too. Here's Rita hard at work.