Catching up and LOTS of ART!

Posted on | January 9, 2007 | 9 Comments

I cannot tell you how good it feels to have my “lifeline” back! I missed all my online friends! Thanks for hanging in there while I was dealing with the computer issues. I did get a call from Best Buy today. They’re junking the computer (DUH!) and s DH is going to get a new laptop tonight. Thank goodness this will all be over with soon!

So now, I bring you some art. Yes, I said art! I bet you thought this blogger had forgotten to do her art while she was away. Nope. It’s the only thing that kept me sane while I was on “hiatus”!

To the left is one of my more recent creations. It’s for Illustration Friday. The buzz prompt immediately made me think of the constant tinnitis that I have in my left ear. For those of you who don’t know, I have no hearing in my left ear due to an auto-immune disease. The only sound that is left in that ear is a buzzing or ringing sound. And this is my homage to my deaf and yet constantly buzzing ear! Ironic, eh?

I’ve noticed something about Illustration Friday – it seems to inspire me to pull out a Pigma micron (as I did here!) and just start drawing. No sketching or light pencil drawings – just jumping in. That’s not usually something I’ve done with drawing in the past, so this is a good and important challenge for me.

Some of you may recall the collages I did for my husband’s medical office. He really likes them and gets a lot of comments and questions about them! So husband likes the images in his office so much that he asked me to make some more collages for him that feature these 16th century anatomical images. And, of course, I’m happy to oblige!

So, here’s an 8″ x 10″ canvas I did for him. I used garnet gel to create the texture around the edges. Before adding that, though, I did my usual three or four miscellaneous layers. But this time I used liquid matte medium and my Caran d’ache Neocolors to create the color. The matte medium allowed me to layer the different colors on top of each other. Best of all, my DH really likes it. So it will go in his exam room along with some others I’m working on!

And there’s more! To keep myself sane during this time of no-computer, I did some more of my collaged/doodled backgrounds. It also happens to fit in really well with this week’s Artword, which is “graffiti”! I really find these quite soothing and fun to do while I’m sitting in front of the tv. I don’t feel quite as bad for letting my brain rot in front of the tube when I’m doing these. And, really, they’re done using some of my favorite products – Sakura’s Gelly Roll, Soufflé, and Permapaque pens. Since I don’t have to worry about the pen’s lightfastness, or whether it’s going to work, I am able to really enjoy the process.

To the left is a collage I created one day in December when I was looking back on the past year. I wanted to find positive words to describe myself. I think that at the end of a year, we’re always so self-critical. I’m think it’s important for us to think about the positive and good things that have happened. That’s what this collage represents for me. Words like, “brave”, “balanced”, “creative”, “happy” and “strong” are things that I found in myself in the past year. This is one of those collages that I will copy and put in other pieces of art, but it will also end up on the studio wall so I can see it when I hit those times of self-doubt all artists are prone to!

The collage to the right is not yet finished. The colors speak to me like a spring day – all positive and happy. I think it’s becoming an ode to my muse – Inspiration and Art. It is this muse that has helped me through my transitions this past year. I have some images that keep popping up in my mind for inside that center space, but I haven’t yet taken the time to work on that part. I will focus on that in the next few days, I think. But it all depends upon the muse as to whether it will come to me!

And yes, there is more, but I will save that for tomorrow! I need to photograph some larger paintings I’m working on. Those will be in tomorrow’s installment!

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