The Rapture

Journal entry--no text yet. Getting to the end of this moleskine. I will have to re-bind. Can't wait to start a new one, but what will be my prompt this time? Maybe just artist muscle flexing and experimentation I don't know why, but I just get more satisfaction out of the journal entries. I think it's cause they're just for me:) Big, big smile....

The New

First foray into wood, I struggled with this one. I struggle with a lot of them lately. Don't know why....But I improved her expression, narrowed the face from 5' to 41/2 and made the chin smaller. I was able to stylize her to that look of innocence; her face has softer tones in it.

Class is done--got an A!!

Angular Anguish

Sometimes they work in seconds....Then there are these. Her features are angular and strong: she's lost her femininity. When I logged on today the irony was that I read that the waif-like Brittany Murphy died. She looked so thin in all the pictures I saw of her. The pressure to be a size two must be overwhelming for these poor girls.
Sensuality in women can be found in the curve and the fullness. I sometimes wonder if Hollywood isn't run by gay men who want to masculinize women. I don't like this girl because she is too angular and hard.

Serene Fire

Serene Fire represents my passion to paint. There's a stillness in painting. I think artists like to express a wealth of feeling but have trouble with conventional communication. When you're still, the thought process is in the forefront, outside stimuli recedes, you drop out. Your thoughts rush forward, concentration is lubed, and the process begins. You tell your story.

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This is me

honestly, I have more lines on my forehead, but you got to love the self edit.
I know my eyes, and unfortunately I put them on a lot of my girls/women. What can I tell you? We paint like we write; it's what we know. Try as I may they always look...a little like me, perhaps the former me. It's really not creepy, it's just academic: I go on autopilot when it comes to facial features. I learned to draw a face by looking at my own. Sitting for an artist is impossibly boring, and models are expensive and sometimes creepy.... Most artists resort to the mirror. If you get really good, you get beyond this.
But I'm just not that good--or I really like my eyes, even as I get older.

I have to admit it. I'll say it out loud, sort of. I love this one. She was a mistake, and I kind of tweaked her, here and there. She's basically a mixed media portrait: colored pencil face, collaged my old watercolors, and went over her face with acrylics again. The I collaged in the Paul Simon lyrics: "My mind's distracted and diffused, my thoughts are many miles away. They lie with you while you're asleep and kiss you when you start your day."

I loved this, and then I dropped it. I'm too disgusted to talk about it now. Maybe I'll sand it down and try to fix it.

Okay, I fixed one of my angels, the other will just find a place in my closet with other artwork that is really is artwon't. But she's okay; I like her. Serene, strong and beautiful.
Did a journal page that looks like Carrot Top's sister. Will reluctantly post, just can't get my head around how garish she looks--maybe she's just a sign of the stress I feel. Hey, Munch had his painting of woman with red hair and green eyes and she was really, really scary. He was freaked out about Hitler,and I'm freaked out about finals, work, and the holidays. Hardly seems equitable, but hey, stress is a relative thing. Why is it I can create under incredible stress, but everything else goes on autopilot when I'm stressed? Creation is joyous, I guess. It's a path away from the darkness. Creation is a promise of renewal, a constant, a friend.

Groundhog Day..

No this is not the Madonna or Mary. I am throwing a blanket over my head and not coming out until this awful semester is over. I am officially fed up. Hell, I might not come out until spring.

Work came slowly even with time off. Holiday, reunions and travel kept my pencil, pen and brush from the page. I did do a couple of angels for the holiday, but I'm not wild about either of them. They need work. But I like this girl/woman.
Class is almost over, it has been ravenously eating my time, and I resent it like hell--but you'd never know from these posts:) No not at all....It has sucked, but met some new friends, so get over yourself....

Journal entries are more in my field now. You know, you do some canvases, they sit, and you get antsy. The canvases take up space, remind you that no one has bought your work yet. Yet. Time, I know...

Far from the Twisted Reach

I liked the angle of this, but was not pleased with the skin tone. But she emerged....slowly. We paint ourselves, in this case me, with a lot of collagen.
This angle was quite a struggle, though. Two day week coming up, maybe I'll get more painting in, I hope.

Desert Flower/Let it Rain

Was hating the acrylics and canvas work, and she stopped by. Eric Clapton singing in the background and it comes to together. The art could get better, but the experience doesn't.

It rained and rained and rained, but I listened to music and painted.
"Let it rain, let it rain, let your love rain down on me...."

Ha, ha, ha, ha....got a day off and got to paint! Screw school, screw work, screw it all. I painted today, and it loved me back!!!!

No painting, no journals, no drawing just homework

I am totally bummed that my work load for school and work has to take precedence over my art. This is a reality for so many creative types like myself, and it's frustrating. I am working to further educate myself in the teaching of art, I am currently teaching art, but I currently have no time to make art. There are worse prediciments I certainly know this, but I'm just so frustrated. I envy those who can wake up, walk into their studios and begin to create. I know someday I'll get there, but it's just so frustrating now. It's not going to end world hunger if I paint, but painting just seems to make my life make sense sometimes. Lunch break over.

Busy weekend hit two canvases. Actually the culmination of two weekends. Feeling more and more at ease with the acrylics. First one is "Back to the Garden" second, "Some things Go On" back to the Petty lyrics.
They speak to me, what can I say? Just layered and layered with paper and glaze with these two, and they came to be. Can't bear to auction them off. When school's over, I'll look for a venue to exhibit. When school's over, God willing....

Actually hit canvas today, brave girl that I am. Acrylics still a love hate relationship with me. In fact I still have some brushes downstairs that need to be washed. I am so lazy. Auctioning off this one with a riddle on FB. Need some fun....

What though the radiance
which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass,
of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

-- William Wordsworth
A fellow artist once told me that we'd never paint
anything as beautiful as the written word
when I read this poem, I know he is right.

---

....is there where i'm supposed to say thank you

Back to feeling overworked and under-appreciated, like half the rest of the world. But, painted all day. Created some nice work on my own time and feel really good about that. I feel like every girl gets a little closer to what I'm trying to achieve. Starting to put polymer gloss on the pages. Feeling the value, the need to preserve. So I've got to be going in the right direction artistically. Now if I didn't have to spend half my life going to school and work, I really might get somewhere as am artist, but I do feel like I'm moving in the right direction. Maybe getting just a little bit sassy about it too. Took a chance on a far out hair color and loved it. Hopefully moving toward individual style. Night....

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?