In My Mind’s Eye

I’ve been seeing several artists doing painting on wooden plaques lately, so when a couple of plaques found me in the thrift store yesterday, who was I to say no? I started to envision a brightly colored geometric painting on one of my dark wooden thrift store finds. I wanted to do a step by step set of photos, but today when I got home from work, I was so excited to get started that I forgot to take the before picture with the old plaque artwork—a cheesy poem and a painting of a little boy and a sunflower.

I got right to scrubbing the paper off the plaques and felt very inspired when I saw the lovely wood underneath:

Here are my two plaques drying after their bath. I liked how they looked at this stage so much that I considered leaving them this way and starting a wall hanging collection of blank plaques, but the vision in my head and my paints called.

Sadly, this post does not have a happy or colorful ending. As so often happens with a completely new project, things did not work out exactly as my mind’s eye imagined them. I now have one plaque partially painted, but just can’t seem to get the background color right.

Part of the reason I love working in pen so much is that it doesn’t involve drying time—I am not a very patient person. So perhaps, this post is about failure—”If you never fail, you never try anything new,” right? I hope to be back tomorrow with a finished painting. For now, I am trying to accept my defeat with grace—unfortunately, I don’t have quite enough grace yet to share a picture of my defeat! But stay tuned!

Going blind and a few words

Another great blogger found me, and I in turn got to find her. Sarah over at drawing diary is doing some wonderful blind drawing that inspired me to do a little drawing from life myself. Basically, what I mean by “blind drawing” is drawing without looking at the paper. Kind of like how you type without looking at the keys; with this technique you keep your eyes completely on your subject.

I first heard about it in a drawing class where we used the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards that has you start out doing blind contour drawings (contour means you just draw the lines without shading).

It’s pretty freeing and fun and teaches you that drawing is more about seeing your subject than anything else. This technique also allows you to be sloppy and just focus on noticing detail. It’s a great way to get past the whole “I suck and I can’t do this” phase that so many people seem to feel about art.

I fully agree with Betty Edwards when she says anyone can learn to draw. I say, “throw caution to the wind, pick up pen and paper NOW, and let the fun begin! You can do it!”

Here are a couple blind contour drawings I did today:

My dog Lance

A self-portrait—I particularly like the left eye!

On another note, I have flipped back into a painting phase, and I’m working on a very large 28 inch by 36 inch word painting called “Black Hole.”

I have been in a pen and ink phase for quite some time, so you may not have seen or heard about this other work, but I like to paint large words on wood with bright house paint. I’ve done rhyming words and little funny poem-like things, but this one is a couple phrases I wrote a while ago that I am really feeling right now.

These paintings take me a whole lot longer than my small drawings because I have to paint over and over the letters to get them solid, and there’s a lot of area, so I will be working on it for a little while yet. If I’m really motivated, I could finish it by the end of the week, but I’m not making any promises. Here is a little glimpse:

Making Your Dreams Come True

As you may know if you read my blog, I am working on a project under the theme “30 Ways to Save the World”. I started thinking about how to represent two new “ways” about dreaming. When I started working on the drawing, I decided it needed some color, so here it goes:

“Dream,” 5×7 inches, pen and ink and watercolor

“Make Your Dreams Happen,” 5×7 inches, pen and ink and watercolor

More Words

I haven’t been posting pictures of my word paintings lately because they’re so challenging to photograph (If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know). I only have a little point and shoot digital camera, which could be part of the problem. Well anyway, here are some word paintings I have been working on:

“Doubles” 9×24 inches

“Nude Fruit” 9×12 inches

“2 Loops” 9×12 inches

These bottom two will be part of a 9 piece series that all have the same size and word format “She is . . .” followed by an “ooh” sound. Some others are “She is stealing tender shoots” “She is wearing blue boots” “She is dancing around hoops” — you get the idea. These are the two I’ve finished so far. They should be cool all hung together in a swarm.

bees knees

I feel lucky to have gotten to spend quite a bit of time on art this week. It’s amazing how much time just a couple of activities can take up– when they’re over, you really feel it. Here is the product of my new red paint.

This piece is about 27×12 inches or 69×30 cm. I love the expression “bees knees,” and I had fun playing with it here although my favorite part is the “thieves sneezing.” Hopefully there will be more art to come this weekend as I have the whole weekend to myself. Happy creating!