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.

Has it been a year?

April 5th, 2017 I pulled out a sketchbook with a few half-assed drawings and shopping lists in it, tore those out and started actually keeping a sketchbook/low key art journal for the first time since high school.

Now, a year later, I filled my third (fourth, if we want to acknowledge one of the books was done both fronts and backs).

It was a trip flipping through all the pages last night. There, in sloppy sketches, short notes, little pictures, was the full last year. Roadtrips, early character sketches, pie journaling, child obtainment, court process, the great 2017 migration, bad days and good days and holidays. It felt impossible at the time for me to even finish the first sketchbook, I'm really happy now I started then.

Anyway, here's a few highlights of this sketchbook.

No cover-art this go around, save for this derpy lil dragon. No title either. Just straight into it.

I did mostly watercolor again, but I used it in a lot of different ways and styles.

I caught a few memories that had been floating around in my head.

And started a project illustrating and recording my dreams. 

The dream paintings, like everything else, didn't stick to one style either. This is my favorite one of them, I think, for how understated it is.

I drew/ painted/ carved a fair amount of skulls. "Memento Mori" was probably written/painted in here more than any other phrase. I spent a lot of time meditating on the transient nature of life and detachment from self the last few months. Which has somewhat helped in my creating, as a person paralyzed by the idea of perpetuality, it feels a pressure off to live in the moment and not focus on always attempting to make art of eternal great importance. Ironically, in accepting this, I have created more artwork that I think I will still find important years from now.

And sometimes, when I was not busy basking in the comfort of my mortality, I found time to draw some dumb shit that makes the kid laugh.

More dreams. I liked this one a lot, very loose and dream-like.

I took more time to paint from life as well. The kid plays some beautiful music and I sit on his floor to paint a lot and just spend time in proximity of each other. It's nice. He lets me pick out sheet music for him to learn, which is an endless source of amusement.

We even took a trip to the park and I painted the little coffee shop building there. I had no idea I would love painting buildings so much.

Still at the park, a quick study of the ground and the sky.

The last page. 

I've been thinking a lot lately about the little red pump by the pond in my grandparents' backyard. I would spend so much time playing with the pump, using a cottage cheese container to pour water in and pumping my arms frantically to try to get the water flowing. I felt like that pump this last week, like I just needed some water and faith and flailing to get myself going and where I wanted to be again. And that maybe I need to accept that sometimes the pump will dry out again and I'll need to start over again with my cottage cheese container and flailing.

Art Escape (Celebrating Forever) 2013

 Ah, 2013. Going to college, way into mail, lamenting the fact I did not do as much art (or writing!) as I used to. The perfect conditions for an art journal to emerge into existence.

Unfortunately, the best pages in this journal are way too personal to want to put online. Like holy shit. So let's snoop at a few tamer ones.

Oh hey, what's that on the cover, is it that one picture?

The first page, to be contrary, was a collection of reasons I didn't think starting an art journal was a good idea. My favorite one: "Journaling is for self-important assholes who draw too many self portraits." eeyup.

Crane your neck and squint. So much texture on this page. The mellow background is so rare for my work, I love it.

I used to paint and draw a lot of peppers. Why peppers? I'm allergic to most flowers. The stamp I was testing was for... I don't know what it was for. I know for a fact this juxtaposition was to make good use of space and not intentional content wise, but it's a pretty good snapshot of my personality at the time, whatever that means.

This page cracks me up. The exercise was from a book on journaling (not entirely sure which one). I have no idea what I had against ascots, or business law, or half of the things that make up my "inner critic". I will chalk up the anti-starbucks sentiment to being a Seattle-ite coffee snob though. 

This post is a continuation of my old sketchbook series. For the last installment, click ye here.

another sketchbook

My blogging habits have been abysmal lately. I've been busy as fuuuuuuuuuuuu and by the time I remember to blog it's Monday already. 

I finished another sketchbook. Or, kinda finished it. I flipped it upside down and backwards and am working on filling the backs now. 

Without further ado. My favorite pages. Apologies for overlap with the hands post because damn I like some of the hand pages. 

This was the first page. I did it quickly at the park while the kid and the husband man were playing frisbee. 

Sometimes I journaled a bit on the pages. Like about my many toads.

This was a family affair. Everyone took turns drawing us people. I will never get over my husband's stick figures.

As my entry suggests here, I've actually taken to scheduling art time into my planner. Either by setting goals for x,y,z art project each week or just scheduling in some ME time. I think I averaged about 2-3 pages a week for this sketchbook, which is not bad considering we got a kid and moved nearly 1000 miles in that time span.

I took my field watercolors out on a lot of walks. The kid would lay on the ground listening to Fall Out Boy and I would paint. Lazy summer indeed. 

I did more goofing around pages this journal too, including imprints and abstracts and splotches.

I found a style I was happy with and thought would be my style forever. And then have since moved on with my life and am doing mostly simple line drawings and stencils again.

These watercolors, though.

Some days were really rough. Art was a great distraction.

I found my old spearhead while I was cleaning and keep it on my desk now. When my desk is clean, it is the only thing on my desk. My family thinks I am weird.

More hands, bloodhound gang lyrics, because I am a lady of class.

This wonderful thing happened. My phone started giving me countdowns for how long until it was supposed to start raining and hot damn that tickled my fancy and imagination.

Another page done during our travels. My husband, same ol' style I love.

Trying to do more drawing again. After the move things got kind of fucked up as far as art went but I am trying really really hard to make sure art doesn't become a big deal again. The last thing I want is to be intimidated by a blank page, so sometimes I draw even when I don't want to.

Baby-sitting this fucker for a friend. She is less than impressed with me.

And finally, near the end I took a moment to go back to my roots with bold lines and topless ladies. I have done a lot of art lately that I don't consider my passion and I have to try to remember to still make time and find balance for things I enjoy too. It's rough.

And that's the highlights of this sketchbook. I've made a few other things lately I hope to space out posting, so fingers crossed, same time next week?

Only Rabbits 2011

It is 2011. I am all about the ladies, science, aquatic life and poetry. The title here taken from Saul Williams' book ,said the shotgun to the head where he writes "i cannot make your past disappear, only rabbits my love, only rabbits". 

Sketch of an angler fish that later became a watercolor painting.

Cover idea for one of my earliest zines, although not what I ended up going with in the end. 

Ladies, fish, ladies who are fish...

I always love the pages where I know I got a new art supply. Here I am first trying out water-soluble oil pastels.

And continuing to have fun with them with some loose sketches of women.

Self portrait. Big hair.

This here, is a formative page. I did a series of sketches of the same general idea and after I had settled on one, I photocopied it and turned it into one of my earliest stencils.

Which I consider to be one of my most iconic stencils I have made to date. I went through a lot of spray paint that spring...

More stencil play, the door was opened.

Oh, this bad joke.

"And when in doubt, draw a lizard."

Living Dead Girl 2009-2010

It's September of 2009. I'm sprawled across the sofa reading Fahrenheit 451 and listening to one particular Rob Zombie song on repeat one. Somewhere in the house I've got a blank sketchbook and a new set of ink pens. Let's take a look.

Practicing form and shading with my new pens. I am willing to bet these were Faber Castel, I had this set for years before it gave up the ghost.

I accidentally signed up for a martial arts class and got really ironically into it. I believe I said this before roundhouse kicking the kitchen table.

I was (not at all ironically) really into collecting old issues of Heavy Metal Magazine and Hellraiser comics at the time. I really dig this monster dude and think inspiration for him came somewhere thereabouts. 

No one ever hung my artwork on the fridge.

Ok, apparently I was just really into weird ass mutant creatures. 

"it's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine" as I recall this was a concept sketch for a digital collage I was supposed to make. I ended up doing one with a dead possum and a lot of lens flair instead. 

Ok, another weird mutant thing, but more importantly, MY HANDWRITING. I get a lot of flack now for my eccentric cursive being a little hard to read, but it is nothing compared to this nonsense. In some burst of eccentricity I decided to write in a stylized Sütterlinschrift. Thankfully that did not last long.

Half finished ballpoint pen dragon monster.

Oh, this is fun. My grandma and aunt had all these embroidered dish towels and they all had days of the week on them. Of course, it never actually was the day of the week as the towel hanging on the stove. I embroidered my own set of two, one reading "today" and the other "tomorrow" this was my design for "tomorrow".

For some reason, my grandma didn't want this one hanging with all her ducks in dresses and colonial ladies in bonnets. Forget the fridge, apparently my art just is not allowed in the kitchen. 

Two things- I cared enough to wear earrings at this point in time and I was really really over the moon with fractals as a concept, especially these circle ones.

This post is continuing my old sketchbook series, for the previous in the series click ye here.