Broken

I changed this. She is broken. I love the word broken, it says so much with one word. My girl has been broken, by life, a lover, a family member or a circumstance. So, like the song, what becomes of the brokenhearted? Do they heal, and if they do, what heals them? Time, anger, work, love or space? The swirling lines suggest questions like these. Where do you go, which road do you take to get back from broken and lost?

"Walls"
Some days are diamonds
Some days are rocks
Some doors are open
Some roads are blocked



But you got a heart so big
It could crush this town
And I can't hold out forever
Even walls fall down

And all around your island
There's a barricade
It keeps out the danger
It holds in the pain

Sometimes you're happy
Sometimes you cry
Half of me is ocean
Half of me is sky

But you got a heart so big
It could crush this town.
and I can't hold on forever,
even walls come down....

And some things are over
Some things go on
And part of me you carry
Part of me is gone

I love the last verse because it profoundly describes how love can uplift, but also deplete and take away and diminish one's soul. Every time someone hurts you there is a piece of you that is no longer there. I could talk forever abou this, but Petty uses brief phrasing to say so much. I can only respond with paint on a page.

We tend to draw and paint ourselves and in my case, a much younger self. I love the look in her eyes. No text yet. The papers were loads of fun to make ranger resist inks with stamps, and my forlorn former self. I'm actually coming close to an end to this moleskine journal--it's starting to fall apart. This journal was all about the human face, fantasy, hopes, daydreams and the pleasure of putting pencil to page. Somewhere the girls grow to be women, and the women grow into aging. Skin sags and sallows, her eyes see it before it happens and she mourns her youth. The vibrance of the papers suggest a renewed purpose and goals. It is time to look outward instead of into a mirror that will only disappoint.

I love this song whether Eva Cassidy, Gordon Lightfoot or Joan Baez sings it. And my girl here looks so sad. It's raining again in New England, but truly, I had a nice day. Worked in the journal all day, made peace with an old adversary, and listened to really nice music. So yeah, good day. Why are all my girls wistful, tentative and sad--I
don't know. I'm half Irish and I have a melancholy soul. I love this girl though, and I added the text to get the mood, as if the expression and blue background weren't enough. I love working the journal, now when I hit canvas, I lose courage. It feels less intimate and I freeze up. But I worked differently on this girl--I kept her mid tones identical: warm and just shaded in a back and forth fashion, but primarily stayed warm, sanded back when the values got too dark. You can't listen to Eva Cassidy all day and make a happy portrait. She's great, but oh so achingly sad, and her phrasing is so slow and dramatic. I hope she's in heaven serenading the other angels.

I love pink, pink skies, pink icing on cupcakes, pink fingernails and toe nails and pink mist.

Started with colored pencil, upped the shading with watercolor crayons, acrylic on the hair, water soluble oil pastels on the eyes. Collaged altered photograph of a rose in the pink background. Had fun with this one. Keeping the dark images at bay, staying in the pink as much as I can.

Sitting in the student cafe where I'm taking my courses. Drinking a latte and trying to look like I'm writing the next great American Novel. I really just want to take my art journal and colored pencils and get lost in it. Feel discouraged about certain things in my little corner of the world right now, but I'm trying not to let it bring me down. I find the college kids endearing, yet at the same time annoyingly young, enthusiastic, and good looking. I've got to sit in a class where we're boxed in like sardines and listen to a professor, who is well meaning, but I'm just not checked in to her lectures. Technology in the classroom, learning to use excel, word and create a power point, and a discussion about disabilities. This is a crazy juxtaposition of subject matter, but I'm keeping my mouth shut.
Because with my luck, they'll decide to split the class into two classes and have me here for four afternoons instead of three. They're playing some awesome acoustic music in this cafe, and it is quiet after being in a classroom with little kids for six hours.

I'm taking out my journal.

Say hello to Uncertainty. Taking a stand is tough. Especially when you stand alone, and the stakes are high. Letting go when the costs are steep, and you know may live to regret it. But how much of yourself are you willing to give, blindly, to someone bent on self-destruction? So you get angry, you get frustrated, you get sad. Then you are made to feel badly because you had the nerve to express your own feelings of frustration.

You walk away amid a chorus of blame, with the weight of self-doubt, that will now be your companion, for some time.

Sometimes you have to take a stand.

Sept 17 Stuff

Posting newest picture. Really pleased with this one. Picture is slightly overexposed, but I like the collaging elements, old watercolors and my favorites, deep greens and blues, in the background. I did the portrait with no gesso, sanded the the page and really tried to use the pencil lightly. I also erased some of the colored pencil with sandpaper (220grit) where the values got too dark. Eyes have some acrylic, but tried to create a shadowing effect with some white colored pencil, not highlight so much as a blurred reflective quality of the eyes after acrylic black. Eye color is all colored pencil blues and greens.

Well, finally got some work on the blog. I actually have two canvases that I could add, but I'll stay with the journal entries. Still feeling pretty overwhelmed as one can see from Really Blue Girl, but
I'll hang in. I'm not the only middle aged woman who is back at school and work and trying to manage a family and create. It beats the alternative nothing to do no one to talk to. I miss time to exercise, make dinner and have a glass of wine at the end of the day. Well, wine is giving me a horrendous headache anyhow. But a nice long walk with the ipod is nice.

The kids are adorable at school, but full of energy as always. Some days I feel as though they're getting too young and I'm getting too old. But every year is different, and although this one promises to be challenging, I'm hopefully keeping my head above water and keep my sanity intact.

Crazy, crazy, crazy. This past week has been a whirlwind. Work, class, family all coming before art. I do have a couple of journal pages and a canvas to add. Hope to post tomorrow. Still loving the colored pencil even though I'm still at a trial and error phase. But that's the journey. I am taking a background class and am picking up some nice background techniques. Hope to display more as soon as possible.

Still working in art journal. Trying to hone my craft with the dry media,i.e., colored pencil. The paper has to be texturized, roughed up to catch the pencil. Thinking of diluting the clear gesso or sanding it after applying. Straight gesso gives the moleskine journal too much tooth, then the graphite becomes too stark. Will post some journal entries this weekend. Back to work and school, art takes a back seat unfortunately.

Looking back on a wonderful summer, again no text... I might go back to canvas for a bit. I love using the inks to make my own backgrounds and using the rice paper. I guess this is just going to be only a visual journal for now. Not ready for the intimacy of text. It will come, I'm just so much more comfortable speaking with illustration and paint right now.

Whispers in my heart sounds nice, but it's what I feel when I am nervous. I'm giving the whispers to the angels. I'm concerned I won't be able to keep out this same level of creating when school and course starts. Working almost manically. Just need to right now.

I've been focusing mostly on the journal right now. Made some interesting background collage paper with distressing inks. This was fun. I got most of the info on some great youtube sites for ranger inks. There was also a cool site referenced called two peas in a bucket. I will check this out tomorrow. Still struggling with text for journal. My art is such a perfect metaphor for my life. I will go so far with something, then fear of failure causes paralysis. Obviously still drawn to the face. When I was in eighth grade we had to write in journals. Our teacher said we could staple the pages we didn't want her to read. Fortunately or unfortunately, I never had anything that interesting that I would want to hide it from an adult. Anyway, a couple of my journal page disasters I haven't shared. Not so much that they're intimate, just that they're kind of awful. Found the ugly mirror today, but determined to keep working.

I am working on some new women in costume and some journal entries. Working rather feverishly because I know once works starts, more importantly, field study; I won't have time. I just have to get through this course and I'll be able to create again. Now that I'm following my own creative muse, it's fun again. No more landscapes, close ups of flowers and beach scenes, I'm really having fun. Will add more tomorrow. Nature's glory was fun. I wanted to cover her in dread locks but I was afraid the paper wouldn't hold. I would love to teach a class on visual journal entries.

I am really happy with Broken Wing. The words and picture seem to fit. I like the idea of an angel who sees our struggles and watches over us: an angel who sees our broken wing. I liked putting the text on notebook paper so that it looked like a note sent to a friend in a class or somewhere. I've been communicating a lot with classmates on Facebook--yes, time would be better spent on art--but broken wing came from a lot of discussion with old classmates. We all presented the good image as a front but everyone seemed to have a broken wing hidden or partially hidden.
Okay, back to art. Loving the mixed media. Throw everything but the kitchen sink at a painting: colored pencils, acrylic paint, water soluble crayons, paper and, wala! The process is a great metaphor for life, keep trying, try different approaches and do what you love. My untitled girl still needs text and embellishment, but she's not talking to me yet. Okay, I'm not crazy, not really, I haven't found words yet for her expression. I may do a journal page til I figure untitled girl out.
I mentioned in a earlier post that I do get caught up in "the New England painted lighthouse" to please the mass market. Enough already, mixed media tells a story. It's so much more fun. As you can tell, I put the ugly mirror away today. I hope I forget where I put it.<3!

Well, I completed a lot of text with the flapper girls. It's very minimalist. Basically I looked at their expressions and waited for the word or words to come to me. Played with the negative space. I love mixed media. It is not the classic art rendering that I have been taught, but I find such joy in it. I'm going to paint what I want from now on. The human face speaks to me and I am so drawn to it artistically. My photographs are terrible but I hope to improve this. I don't have a cropping tool obviously and would re-shoot to make decent prints. I'm going to make one more in this series and go back to the journal. I will look for a place to exhibit these, but mixed media does not get as warm a reception where I'm from. A lot of people in New England want to look at endless paintings of lighthouses--no fun. It's got to be for me and for fun. Oh well....

I guess I'm frustrated with adding and collaging things to my paintings. I'm always afraid I will ruin them. I do want to look at them and individually see what feelings they convey. It takes time and a thought process. Maybe word association. The first picture on my blog, the girl in the green hat, has an expression that is so open, vulnerable and tentative. I want to be careful with text that I add. I don't want to make the picture harsh in any way. Some of the other girls have a more savy look and I don't have a problem experimenting with text. I think I will write things on paper and kind of place words on them before I get out the matte medium.

Some new paintings on the blog. These are actually works in progress, I want to collage them but the words come after. I have to paint them, look at them, and think about what their expressions convey.
My angel is an angel of gratitude. Every time I paint an angel, I'm compelled to convey gratitude because I believe in angels. I'm grateful for their protection. I am also very grateful for having the time to paint and the energy to be creative.