Woke up this morning, early.  Too. Early.  It amazes me how I cannot sleep in.  I was up til 2am painting last night and still woke up at 7:30.  Now I didn’t say I woke up completely motivated and ready to start the day, but awake nonetheless.  Sigh.  Awaiting me in the kitchen, last night’s projects.  One oval canvas, one round canvas and four rectangular canvases all white and ready to be painted upon.  Six surfaces, waiting for some sort of resolution.

One thing that I struggle with is maximizing productivity on my days off.  If I don’t watch out, hours will pass by and leaving me wondering, ‘hey, where did my day go? And, more importantly, what did I accomplish?’ It is a constant battle to make time for art, to clean and organize around home, and to get things done for school. (Notice I didn’t include spending time with John in this list because he always supersedes any item on any list, awwwwww) One thing that I have started to do is to work in ‘rounds’, rotating my activities in timed increments.  I even set the timer on my phone.  I will work on my art for x-amount of time.  The alarm rings.  I will move to cleaning up for x-amount of time, etc, etc.  I know that this seems very regimented, and it is.  But when I can be disciplined in this way, it works for me, and I don’t re-awaken from zoning out on the couch and find that I was wasting my time watching a Real Housewives marathon.  (Yes, guilty.) 

So far so good.  I really like to document my progress.  This helps me reflect on how I work, and make assessments on my productivity.  As for today, off to a good start.  I have six pieces in-progress.  Still working with the face going off the bottom of the picture plane, still exploring specific words layered and intertwined to form hair structures.  Love. Life. Truth. Self.  Laughter. Inspiration.  Just some things on my mind.  Started to experiment with exaggerating my favorite facial feature, the eyes.  Definitely inspired by the artwork of my friend, Jessie, who is an amazing artist and a big motivator for me right now.

Now, a trip to Michaels (of course) and trip to pick up my work from the PBSC show could derail me, but I am hoping I will be able to get back on track, so to speak, once I return from these errands.

Here I was thinking I would get all this work done today…not so much.  After a late start I got busy doing….well, nothing.  I did attempt to go to Michaels…totally forgot that it was a holiday weekend.  Fail.  By around 7:30pm I mustered some motivation to at least paint over some old canvases, prepping them to become the next…not sure.  While waiting on my friend to stop by, and for the canvases to dry I reached for one of the round canvases that I picked up and found my idea, somewhere mingled, mangled and mixed up in all of the images that I file away in my head (and sometimes literally file away).  I decided to continue with the theme of the face and my Mucha-inspired hair and love for text in the piece that I am still working on, inspired by all of the images that you see above.  

In true fashion, I didn’t start just one, I also started an oval-shaped canvas and of course I have intentions of buying several more to start all at once, will probably aim for at least five canvases in each shape for a total of ten dedicated to this theme/imagery.  So far, faces are sketched on both canvases and only the round canvas has been developed further.  I am working with the text ‘love’ to create the hair, pushing the face to the bottom of the picture plane.  I started thinking about how it is easy to get preoccupied with one word, one thought to the point that it fills your head.  Love it is, then.  I am going to step away for tonight, look at the work with fresh eyes tomorrow and with some daylight!

I have been keeping busy this weekend with trying to find support for my fibers…that is to say, to help me either put away this paint brush and pick up my sewing needle again or reach for both.  I think in some ways I am hesitant to delve back into my embellished pieces, even though I know that somewhere in those beads, the hand-dyed fabrics and the marks I make with pencil and paint lives some resolution for what I want to create.  The beading can be intense, very laborious, with results that are not immediate.  One thing that I have done this weekend is seek out groups that maybe I could join.  I enjoy painting and drawing and admittedly prefer to do both alone with my music to keep me company, but there is a more social aspect for me when I work with fibers.  Makes me think of folks sitting around weaving together, stitching together, of quilting circles, of my own grandmother crocheting while everyone was talking and eating around her, never missing a beat.  Once I dye the fabrics and fuse them together, the actual stitch by stitch, bead by bead manner in which I embellish does well with some company.  Not sure anyone in the area is doing this specific work, but I was hoping to find a knitting or quilt group at least.  I have also been working on networking with the local community of artists, trying to find support and opportunities to exhibit my various drawings and paintings.

Tomorrow, more painting.  Maybe I will fuse some scraps together and just start a little beadwork, see where it takes me…

The goals for this evening…originally it was just to mail off some work then sit down and make some art….then I remembered that I had to get some work ready for the PBCATA members show at Sugar Sand Park.  So, after a two trips to Michaels and a little over an hour wrestling with frames, double-stick tape and wire…I have some semblance of three pieces ready for presentation.  I love drawing, but you can really spend some money of presentation for drawings.  Wow.  Thankfully all I have to do for the Bear and Bird show is wire the back of the canvas, and my shoes I didn’t even worry about, just mailed those suckers off.  (While I am thinking about it, for the record, please note that I always get the bear and the bird backwards…tsk, tsk)

I digress.  Oh yes, art…art is not happening tonight…instead, gonna get some sleep. I’m spent.

So...I have actually done some work this week...two drawings under my belt...the first one is in the previous post...the second one was a revision of the first one...besides that, been busy packing up artwork to ship out, framing a couple of pieces for a local show and a friend's birthday...and hosting my first on-line art event.  Looking forward to the weekend...ready to make some more art!!


(Right) design based on 'Salvation Song'- Avett Brothers, version 2