100 days of whatever

There's this trendy thing that pops up on Instagram yearly where half my feed picks a thing to do for 100 days and does it. I thought it was pretty dumb when it started last year, but by the end of it felt bad for not playing along. (So much for avoiding peer pressure.) 

I decided I'm doing 100 days of watercolor. Although, at nine days in, I also have a really nice start to 100 days of cupcakes and cheeseburgers. 

Actually, yeah, let me just take a second to pretend I am a food blogger and acknowledge my current cheeseburger fetish.

Look at that beauty. I'm not going to be one of those obnoxious vegan-ish types who claims that a meat-eater wouldn't notice the difference. Because really, it's made of beans and rice and oats and quinoa, there's a fricking difference. But I will say, as someone who really loved cheeseburgers before becoming allergic to dairy and then becoming too neurotic to eat meat, it's really good. Oh, and it's sturdy enough that you best believe I will be popping some on a grill this summer with my carrot hotdogs or whatever the hell bullshit I am into in a few months. 

Anyway, now that that's out of my system. Here are the watercolor things I've done that I like so far.

In addition to focusing on watercolor, I am also focusing on not using grids/ any other high precision techniques. I do my sketch. Add my paint. Be on my way. It's a lot faster and less stressful and also more beneficial to actually brushing up my "look at a thing, art the thing" skills.

Hair is another soft focus for these.

I was so happy with this rose. I didn't have a lot of time/energy this day and flowers usually just muck my shift up.

This was the view out my first apartment and it cracks me up because it looks like the nicest apartment ever. In reality, this was the place where I woke up one morning, went to check on the lizard and found that ants had crawled out the electrical socket under this very window, dismembered the crickets we had bought and were dragging their severed eyeballs back into the outlet. They also didn't keep their big ol' Eucalyptus trees trimmed properly so we got a knock on our door at 10pm from the upstairs neighbor informing us a branch had fallen and dented the shit out of our car. Also. There wasn't assigned or enough parking, so we got back at one am from seeing a movie and had to just spend the rest of the night driving out through the desert until people started going to work. I could go on. This shoebox of an apartment was a little bit of a heckhole, but we were just married and it was in our price range, so it was our heckhole. 

And here's the view from the lower balcony at our current place. Which is a lot less of a heckhole. 

So that's been what I have been doing. Daily poetry for National Poetry Writing Month, Watercolor a day, too many cheeseburgers and cupcakes, a stupid amount of interviews. Trying to smoosh replying to letters in that list. Maybe I'll do a letter a day once the Poetry thing is over.

One Song Album Covers

I listen to a lot of music... or more accurately, I listen to a little bit of music a lot.

I was thinking the other day I wanted to go ahead and paint some of the album covers of stuff I listened to all the time because, well, I am pretty sure I can see some of these album covers when I shut my eyes by now and I need the practice. 

I took it a step further and went for painting album covers as their songs came up on shuffle, one album cover per song. I went through the effort to link the actual album covers in case anyone is curious since these aren't exactly iconic albums.

Speed is not my strong suit. Neither is my taste in music. 

6:18 

A Violent Emotion, Aesthetic Perfection

I had plenty of time to sketch out this cover and slop on some color, even enough time to recreate the ugly sofa. At this point I felt good about the whole ordeal.

4:53 

Anything that gets you through the night, Edge of Dawn

This album cover was a lot more difficult. The art focuses on the hand of the man in the ill fitting suit, everything else is blurry, her head angle is stupid and I spent too long sketching, wasting valuable seconds on the crappy lettering.

4:19 

No Instruments, Neuroticfish

I got to spend these four minutes wondering what the hell is even going on with this album art. Bald woman with horrible breath holds arm at awkward angle to consume mortified fish. Yes. Solid design choice.

5:30

The Hunter, Mastodon

Ok, for real, this album cover features a photograph of an absolutely gorgeous surreal wood sculpture that would take me the entire album to do justice. This is actually one of the ones I am happiest with.

5:09

Random is Resistance, Rotersand

There is so much going on in this album art, I didn't even try to sketch it first. I went straight for the kill and realized I have no idea what a helicopter looks like but that's ok because the people who made the album art didn't seem to either. 

6:44

blood spills not far from the wound, Aesthetic Perfection

Another one I am happy with. I really love this album cover and would have liked to have spent more time on it. 

4:53

How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, Florence + The Machine

The hardest part of most of these was not being able to actually let the watercolor dry at all between layers. It was a choice between bleeding and a sort of blocky frantic look. Turns out I like blocky frantic. 

3:22 

Filthy Apes and Lions, Mark Stoermer

There is so, so much going on in this album art and I knew three minutes was not near enough time to hit everything. It was also after midnight by now and I was running low on steam.

4:07

The Looking Glass Society, Ashbury Heights

This is what giving up looks like. The kid and I affectionately refer to the lead singer as "the sad mirror eyeliner man". So I prioritized those traits while laughing maniacally. 

And that was valuable insight as to how I spend my Saturday nights. 

Deep Dark Secrets + Happy Thoughts

So some fucker keeps making posts about her goddamn comp books and after enough posts about them and obsessing over how cool and fun it looked, I decided to make one...

under the conditions that I was a) not keeping it and b) not blogging about it. 

The last thing I needed was to be self conscious while I worked on this bullshit, especially since I have been posting so much of my art on instagram. Actually working on this project made me realize I have to cut back on that, even at the cost of not being as "present" on social media. As much as I don't do well in a void, I don't do well without my void to retreat to, either. 

The reason I didn't want to keep it was the same. I wanted to be able to put whatever I wanted in it without worry about who around the house picked it up and read it. Without worrying about myself reading it. 

With that said, here's the cover and the 6 pages (out of 40+) that I am ok with sharing. It's been sitting under my desk in an envelope for a few weeks now, I really gotta get it mailed off.

The cover. This comp book was a Christmas gift, otherwise I would never have just had one on hand and therefore never done this project.

Learned a few pages in that you really need to tape 2 pages together or you get bleed through awful. I should have just bought, idk, a fucking sketchbook.

Also. I go through a stupid amount of black watercolor.

There are definitely a good few completely silly pages. It is Deep Dark Secrets AND Happy Thoughts, after all. I lost my shit the entire time I was making this page. Still lose my shit looking at that mug sometimes.

Over arching theme.

This magazine clipping will never not make me laugh.

Stamp tests.

And the truth. I have always had a really weird hatred for comp books, probably the standard size, thin pages, boring covers, unforgiving binding, weird warping if you look at them wrong. But in a way, I actually enjoyed all those things while working on this. I liked that I had to tape pages together, I liked that it getting fucked up and crinkly and weird was inevitable, I liked the obnoxious lines through my drawings. It kept it casual.

I want to make another, or else adopt the lax nature into my written journals.

Probably not in another comp book though.

Things that made my soul sing last week

Something a little different this week. Not because I didn't do any art, but actually because I did so much art very little of it is done or shareable at the moment. Here's a few things that made me happy and refueled my creative tank between glaring at business tax obligations and slowly chipping away at a 12 x 16 inch realistic cat portrait commission.

Oils. Good lord, oils put some life back in me. I pulled them out to start a large mix media portrait and while I had them out, did a "quick" little painting of my hand on a spare background. I think this is my first oil "from life" and I loved doing it. Note to self. More oils. More oil hands. More oil anything.

Speaking of hands. We went for a long walk downtown and really spent some time looking at a couple of the murals. This one in particular, which of course I didn't take a full picture of, we stood in the empty lot and talked about the technique and what we liked about it and I explained to the kid, approximately, how it would have been done.

We got up close and personal and really admired the little splotches that gave away the fact it was spray painted. And I was in love with the cracks from the paint underneath.

Note to self: buy spray paint. Do a mural.

On this epic of a walk, we passed a tea shop and I mentioned that we could have a tea party for a hell of a lot cheaper at home where it would actually be dairy-free and quiet. So the kid says "Can we have a tea party?" Yes, yes we can.

We got all dressed up and after our tea we were discussing themes for future tea parties. A "retro futurism" themed tea party came up and he called his grandma to ask what she thought now would be like in the 50's. She went off on a tangent about the cold war and how gay used to mean happy and I snapped this very very Norman Rockwell -esque picture. Which I cannot wait for a spare moment to paint in oil.

Finally, it snowed. Which got me all geared up for winter as a concept and, well, was a novelty anyhow. My husband forbade me of posting photos of my snowman on the internet because he's censoring my art, but it was a good time.

Now back to the soup, and the laundry, and that behemoth of a cat painting.

Did I promise a mail related post last week?

I lied. Here's a short story I wrote last year for a swap. The prompt was "an approximately 500 word story about winter" which was a vague and horrible prompt and I can say as much because I am the jerk who hosted the damn thing. It's gathering digital dust on my hard-drive so I may as well put it up here while it's still chilly out. 

The Architect

I sat at the college station, smoking a candy cigarette and waiting for the four fifteen bus back to the less interesting side of town. Generally in writing you list what someone is doing in order of importance, so trust me, at that particular moment, the candy cigarette was the important part. I exhaled carefully into the atmosphere, the cold making my breath into a trail of smoke, before boarding the bus.

It was a single bus with plenty of room to spare. I took the seat across from the exit and watched the sunset out the side windows as the bus slunk across town. With every departure, my legs were assaulted with a cold rush of air. I turned my collar up towards my neck and pulled my scarf over my chin. With every passing second I considered moving to a different part of the bus, but some masochistically neurotic part of me was convinced if I moved I would somehow be violating my manifest destiny of sitting in this seat and watching the sunset.

When the sun had nearly set, the lights inside the bus flickered on and the windows turned to mirrors just in time for the next group of bus people to board. I caught a glimpse of a familiar face in the reflection and smiled under my scarf. The architect. I knew it was him by the scar on his nose and the way he locked eyes with each passenger, one by one.

In a warmer month, we had spoken. He had sat next to me and commented on the chain of flowers in my hair, asking if I was on a quest to bring back transcendentalism. He wanted to know what my plans were, if I had any, where I was heading to. He informed me he had been an architect with the same level of flippant certainty that he told me I was a wanderer. At the time, it felt like an affirmation, but at this moment, it was another disappointment. Here we were, different stop on the same bus route, concrete evidence how little I had managed to wander.

He sat near the front of the bus, facing towards the back. I could tell he had noticed me, but not if he had recognized me. The same small part of me that wanted to move to a warmer seat wanted me to walk over and talk to him, but the rest of me was still adamant that it was my destiny to sit here, cold, staring at the emerging stars in the indigo sky.

I listened to him laugh and chatter with the people in neighboring seats, most of whom seemed less than amused to be making small talk, until he stood, walked towards me with a warm smile, and departed the bus. He disappeared into the poorly lit side streets before the bus had a chance to continue towards its next stop.

The wild part of me still wanted to wander, to find snowflakes to put in my hair, but as I disembarked my tired feet took the same path home as they followed every night and morning. At the moment, it was a disappointment. At the moment, I did not know how many more moments it would take to become a triumph that I lived by words I had spoken instead of ones I had been told.

Canvas

When I was a teen and the only things I had to spend money on were comic books and art supplies, I painted on canvas a lot. I went through this ridiculous abstract phase, not that abstract is inherently bad, but boy-howdy mine sure was. Those masterpieces have since been painted over (save for one that had actual effort put in) and besides that, I just don't work on canvas very much. 

But lately I have had this day dream of the perfect commission. There are these GIANT, taller than me, canvas at my local art store. My dream is that some devastatingly good looking person will commission a life-sized black and white nude portrait of themselves that I can do in oil over a gorgeously splattered rainbow on white acrylic background and they'll pay me like 3 grand plus supplies and I'll be able to afford sushi and perhaps a shelf for my art crap. 

This has, of course, gotten me really excited about the idea of working on canvas, so this week I did a bit because I need to list more art in my etsy. Really, I must. This is for my business. 

Playing it safe on canvas board, I did an actually good abstract in the same technique as last week's blog post because I was a bit gutted about cutting it up. 

Procrastinating a commission, I did a similar style, but without really mixed media-ing the tiles. It's just plain acrylic. Also on canvas board. 

On canvas paper, the commission I was supposed to do. I actually had to clean my desk off entirely for it so I could fit both my easel and laptop on it. I work on and off on canvas paper, but I find really most my art I either do in my sketchbook or on bristol/mixed media board to cut into mail art, unless I have a commission, of course. I rarely really do fine art "just because".

I decided that my easel being out was a good enough reason to do a painting on stretched canvas. Which is always a serious delight to me, as is any chance to paint a topless lady. The canvas was an odd size, 12" x 16", so I decided to work in landscape for once. Originally I wanted to try my hand at a palette knife painting, but I settled for just going a bit more impressionist than usual. And I love it so much. I want to paint a thousand more canvas in this style. I am thinking I desperately need to rope some friends into modeling for me because I'm still digging through my old self portraits from when I did photography and needed to iron out lighting issues for inspiration.

So, those are my canvas of the last week. This coming week is the start of InCoWriMo again, so expect something mail related next post...

Where the Magical Mess Happens

I've been blogging and babbling for how many posts and still haven't done a "craft room" walk through? tsk tsk. 

I should have done this back when I first started blogging and had my very own office to myself. Since we got the kid, I have been demoted back to a corner of the bedroom. In some ways this sucks, ok in most ways this sucks, having an entire room to myself was great, but it actually was a good opportunity for me to pare down and thin out. More art work has been created in this little space already because I am not as overwhelmed by all the crap. 

Without further ado. 

My desk.

And surrounding area.

But not the closet where I store all my extra crap because it's terrifying. 

Kabam! It's a desk from Ikea. It's covered in some starts to a mixed media project today. I have no idea why or where it's going, I'm thinking I want to do some smaller scale of the oil portraits on mixed media background I really love doing (we'll get to those in a bit).

Over the years I have been stickering, modpodging and painting on random crap to the front of the desk especially. I've grown quite attached to it and have no desire to trade it in for a less gross desk any time soon.

    

In this corner of my desk I keep a spearhead for no real reason. And the acrylic paint has moved in from its proper home in the closet.

A closer look at part of my ledge. Incense holder, homeless atc's, origami and elephants with their snouts pointed towards the balcony door.

But what's that curtain hiding, anyway?

Oh cool. It's the stairwell.

Some moron decided these townhouses all really needed a half wall in the corner of the master bedroom. I'm not even joking, the kid and I tried to recreate this townhouse in the SIMS and the SIMS wouldn't let us put half walls here. The mother fucking SIMS knew it was a stupid idea.

Anyhow, the blackout curtain and having a stereo helps a lot. Eventually I am going to paint on the curtain but haven't gotten to it yet.

More of my ledge. Mascot, business cards, the scissors mug. The "queen of fucking everything" mug was an anniversary gift from my husband. We're romantic.

My chair is an awful little folding chair with the cutest quilt my mum sent me for Christmas last year. I have a list of things I aspire to own if I can get a few more commissions. A colander, a decent chair and windex are at the top.

Also shown here is newspaper on the floor, that's where prints or whatever go to dry when I am working on things. Which is pretty much perpetually right now.

One of the things I really loved about this desk when I picked it out was the built in shelves. On the bottom front are my manuscripts, kinda, mostly, some of them.

On the top shelf in the front is an assortment of books I use often for reference. The main bookcases both live downstairs. Most of these are writing books... scratch that, all of these are writing books except the book on Dutch. I just don't tend to use art books that much if at all. 

Most importantly. The crap on my wall to the left of my desk.

This is where I pin photographs and things I get in the mail that I really really love. I have had one of these walls at every place I lived and every time I move I get to take it all down and start from scratch. By the time we move from here, I expect the entire wall will be solid.

It's also where the paint towels live and the little mirror. The taco monster is my earliest in tact drawing, my grandpa had it laminated and my mum found it in his desk after he died and gave it to me.

I also have two kinda giant paintings up. They're my favorites I've done and really a style I wish I worked in more often because it feels the most like "my style". Heavily textured mixed media backgrounds, grungy details and muted portraits in oil. That's what I aim to do with the (much smaller) canvas that's on my desk right now waiting patiently for its next layer.

Another week, another blog post.

p.s. getting two photos side by side should not require swearing, googling, weeping and satanic rituals, blogger. get your shit together. 

Sourcing Inspiration pt. 2

Way back before I had a 15 year old (so about 6 months ago) I wrote a post about sourcing inspiration because at that particular moment I was so incredibly inspired and had so many irons in the fire creatively, it seemed obvious to enthuse about my inspiration.

Today I want to go back and punch that smug asshole in the face.

It's not that I am struggling for inspiration, it's that that post reads like so many books I have read on writing where the author is talking about how whenever she needs inspiration she just pisses off to her cabin in the woods and consults her zen master and rides her bicycle to the cafe to have conversations with biker gangs about how she's writing and how she's struggling to find the time to really write anymore because once a week she has to teach an hour long class on underwater basket weaving to the local animal shelter which she has been thinking of canceling but you know, think of the kittens.

Like, that's great for you, lady, but I got these weird humans stinking up the house asking about dinner and laundry and haircuts before they go to school/ have an interview. Unless my zen master wants to come sit at my kitchen table and talk to me while I make these 96 zucchini muffins because my relatives sent me home with more zucchini than they stock at the farmer's market, I think we're going to have to rain check.

My life right now feels less about sourcing inspiration and more about scheduling inspiration. Which looks like a lot of half jotted down thoughts, a lot of artwork that feels tedious, but is necessary, "write" and "paint" listed in my to-do lists in my planner along with "laundry", "kitchen", "start the kombucha" and "eat".

Anyhow here are five small things that inspire me.

Ridiculous moments (and all the other moments)

One of the most common things that gets me stuck in writing especially, but art and correspondence as well, is that I start to take my work and myself too seriously. 

Life is ridiculous. Life is making a petty as fuck art display out of the mess your husband leaves on the counter daily and your kid coming into the kitchen, pointing at the squashes, asking "is this a squash?" and then giving an awkward thumbs up before running away. Even the most serious moments are ridiculous. There's snot and awkward laughter and bad ringtones at worse times. 

If I feel like I've been stuck on a scene or whatever, I let something ridiculous happen. I let the characters be human, accidentally laugh, mispronounce a word, throw a cup dramatically across the room only for it to not break. It brings it back down to human again and makes it less intimidating.

Limiting myself (fridge poems)

Sometimes creating just seems overwhelming. I have to think of a subject, a composition, a style, a theme, and a million other details with a billion choices each. 

When this happens, I take away some options. 

I sit down in front of the fridge and compose poems using only the power ballad themed set of word magnets. I limit color scheme or pick just one medium. Sometimes I give myself time restraints, whatever I can do in 45 minutes. Taking away the options that don't matter leave more room to focus on the ones that do. 

Bric Bracs

Likely pretty self explanatory. I keep a lot of little objects around the house, sentimental shit, stuff people send me, souvenirs, things that seemingly magically appear. Asides from collecting dust, they are always an endless source for something to draw or something to describe or to write the real (or fake) story of.  

Retelling the same stories (again and again)

I have my go-tos. For art, it is hands right now. For writing, it is one period of time I lived with my sister. 

(and had a haircut like a tropical bird)

If I am stuck, I can always draw a hand or write that same story. Sometimes something new comes up, some little unexpected snippet, other times it just gets me comfortable enough to spring off into a new direction that hasn't been done to death. They are spring boards, the same trail head for a mountain with infinite trails. 

The mundane (many balconies.)

Life is ridiculous, it is also a lot of quiet little moments. 

Not getting caught up on not having big things to write about (especially in regards to correspondence or blogging or whatever) can be incredibly difficult, but your mundane is often someone else's novelty. 

Like my house, where we have a porch and two balconies, one of which is so small you can hardly walk on it. I've been here long enough I have gotten used to it, but when I tell people about it or we have someone over who has not seen all the balconies, there are always giggles. Because who designed this house? It looks like something I'd design in the sims. 

Mundane is in the eye of the person who lives there.             
           
I started drafting this post back in September and just now got around to finishing it. In case anyone was wondering where the hell I got zucchini in November. But hey, blog posts two weeks in a row? tight.