Ebb and Flow or...?

 I did not make a post yesterday, Wednesday, as I said I was going to. I am sorry, past-Stephanie, you with your eyes optimistically shining bright, making the naïve assumption that future-Stephanie would be able to stick to a regular posting schedule. I, present-Stephanie, am here to say that, sadly, that probably isn't true.

But I might get close. Today, for instance, is Thursday, and Thursday is just Wednesday plus a few extra hours. 

I also took a three day break from embroidery. And, though I did fulfill the challenge I set for myself last week to draw 7 drawings from reference, I didn't do any sort of art at all yesterday. Every so often I go to do the things I have set out to do, trying to fulfill the goals that I have created for myself (like posting to this blog every Wednesday or drawing or embroidering every day) and a small voice in the back of my head says, "Hm... I don't wanna."

And, actually, I'm trying to honor that little voice, to take it seriously, because the feeling isn't arising for no reason. The real trick is to figure out what the reason is. I thought about it a lot yesterday.

Is it the natural ebb and flow of creation? Sometimes the ideas and work are flowing fast and I feel excited to get to it and I lose myself in it and at other times, I just feel like I need to take a step back. It could be that. 

Or is it that I have an inherent aversion to schedules and when I try to follow them, I'm prone to eventually begin to rebel against them, even if I created them myself? There is absolutely something to that. I have found that I have dueling forces inside of me and one of them is a scheduling/organizing dynamo and the other is a messy, disorganized free spirit. Which means I like to make to-do lists and then toss them out and say, "Screw that!" So, there might be something to that as well.

Or it could be the making-public aspect of this journey. No matter how small my audience is on Instagram or here (or any other platform I choose to experiment with in the future), the fact of the matter is, I am putting my art into the public eye and that is a thing that is uncomfortable for me and probably always will be. I'm certainly more comfortable with it than I was before I started doing it, but I don't think I'll ever get to the point where it just feels natural and easy. Or maybe it will, who knows? One can hope.

I think that little voice and that I-don't-wanna feeling probably pop up due to a combination of all three of these factors (and maybe because of other things I haven't considered), but I really do think it's important to listen to it. Sometimes I'm ready to come back to it right away. Sometimes it takes longer. But there's really no point in trying to force it. 

I'd like to report back on the challenge I set for myself. I did do 7 drawings from reference, but I didn't do them daily, as I had wanted. I did for the first 4 days, skipped days 5 and 6, and made up for it on day 7 by drawing more than what I needed to make up the missed days. I drew a few portraits from photos and a few objects from around the house. The portraits felt very disappointing. I don't think I'm going to show them, despite my intention to be willing to show bad art. (I don't have to show everything, for goodness' sake.) I don't know if I was just out of practice or what. Possibly I wasn't giving myself enough time. 

I will show you a couple of the drawings of objects. This is a LaCroix can and a tiny owl vase that I bought from Target.

I think they turned out fine, if not terribly accurate. I think I got the general idea and I think they are recognizable as what they are supposed to be. A little more time might have resulted in more accurate representations, but I guess that's not what I'm aiming for necessarily. After all, it's a sketchbook sketch. It's practice, it's not meant for a freaking gallery show.

I liked this challenge and I think it was good for me, so I'm going to try to do it again this coming week. One thing I learned was that I need to be mindful of what objects I'm choosing to draw. I'm not going to feel enthusiastic about just any old thing. I'll report back next week to let you know how it went.

An Honest Assessment

As I begin this journey, I'd like to take a good look at where I've already been. For it's not truly the beginning of my art journey; it is a continuation. I want to look closely at the artwork I've made and make an honest assessment of it, or at least as honest of an assessment as one can make of their own work.

But... Before I begin, I want to make a note to myself. This is the third time I've tackled this post and each time I've had to tone it down and scale it back. When my kids were little they used to watch a children's show on PBS called Dragon Tales. There was a two-headed dragon on it whose heads were siblings named Zak and Wheezy. Zak, the sensible one, was always saying to Wheezy, "Take it easy, Wheezy!" I don't know why, but this phrase has been popping into my head every so often lately. My own way of reminding myself not to freak out, I guess. In this case, it's my way of reminding myself to keep my time and energy focused primarily on the creating and only secondarily on the show-and-tell aspect of it, and this blog (and Instagram) fall into the show-and-tell category.

I started the post thinking I'd go through a sampling of my older art and some of my newer art and see how I've grown and improved over the years and what areas I need to work on. How do I want to grow and improve more? First time around I ended up with way too many photos! I decided to limit it to just two photos per category (i.e. portraits, digital art, embroidery, etc.). This morning, I realized I had spent so much time and energy on this one blog post that it was starting to make me unenthusiastic about blogging at all and that was also kind of bleeding into my feelings about Instagram, just because they both are in that aforementioned show-and-tell category.

That's when I figured out there's no reason I can't revisit this particular topic again in the future. No reason I can't focus on one type of art now and others some time in the future. One at a time. I need to take it easy, Wheezy.

Today, I want to begin with this category: drawings in graphite or charcoal, in a realistic style, from a reference.

I drew this picture of Grace Kelly when I was in my late teens/early twenties. It's a good example of the realistic work I was capable of at that time. I used a plain old number 2 pencil. One of the best lessons I remember learning in my junior high school art classes was to "draw what you see." My art teacher from those years taught me to not draw an eye or a nose or lips, but to instead draw the shapes and lines and shadows that I see. Otherwise your symbol-loving brain gets in the way and tries to simplify things.

What I can see here is a pretty good beginning foray. I didn't always get the anatomy of a face just right and I had a tendency to be afraid of deepening the darker areas (difficult with a number two pencil, to be fair), but it had some good potential. 

Here are a three more older examples of portraits I did in the realistic style. These are mostly unfinished or sketchy, because I never pushed myself to get to a finished, polished stage.

This is one of the more recent realistic portraits I've drawn. I created it for the art class I took in 2017 when I went back to college. It is done with charcoal and was drawn from a photo of my oldest child.

I've improved in creating good tonal values, but still have a tendency to not want to push the darker areas, especially in faces. I've improved in terms of getting the facial anatomy right, but even so, the eye on the right is slightly off (a little too big? a little too high?) and that side of the face is pushed out a little too much. I am very proud of how I did the jacket collar in this. I think I improved a lot over the years at details like this, but lots of times I get lazy and don't bother. Since I had a deadline and a grade involved in this particular project I was motivated to get it done. I haven't used charcoal much since I took this class and I really should. I still have some of the fancy expensive paper I bought for this portrait. I should use it.

Here are a few more recent realistic type portraits I've done. (Again, I didn't push myself to get to a finished/polished stage on these.)

Below is a drawing in graphite I did during the aforementioned art class a few years ago. This was done from an actual vase of flowers, not a photo.

I don't have very many examples of still life drawings made outside of that art class. It seems I haven't been all that interested in making them outside of what I did in that art class. I'd actually like to change that and push myself to draw more objects from everyday life. The things that surround us offer so many opportunities for things to draw. It can help me look at things in a different way and it can offer up ideas for what to draw when I'm staring at a blank page. 

Here is one more example of a drawing of an object (also for the art class).

In looking through my artwork, there may be a lack of drawings of things, but there's no shortage of drawings of people, particularly of faces. Seems like I'm pretty fascinated by people as a subject and it's something I've revisited over and over. I'd like to continue to work on that, but one thing I've noticed is that I just do so much better when I'm drawing from a reference. Seems obvious, but I do have a tendency to try to draw faces out of thin air. I am getting better at doing so, but honestly, the results tend to be mixed. Drawing from a reference can help me to better understand the contours of the human face so that if I do want to draw from imagination I can make it look more like an actual face. 

I think I'll set myself a little challenge. This week, I will draw one quick sketch each day. I'll alternate between drawing a face, either from life or a photo, and drawing an object or objects that I'm looking at in real life. 

I'm also starting to think about the 100 Day Challenge that begins in February. I think I might want to participate and since this idea of drawing from reference keeps popping up for me, I think I might want to center it around that.

I'll see you next Wednesday and if all goes well, I'll have 7 sketches to share with you. (If it doesn't, well, I guess I'll think of something else to write about.)

The Why and The How

 

Alright. So, on to the Why of this blog and my project, "Operation Level Up My Art." I mentioned in my last post how I've always felt myself to be a creative person, since I was very young. I mentioned my perfecting of the art of drawing unicorns. My dad taught me how to do that. In fact, I probably got my love of creating art partly from him. He has always set an example by trying out some new artform. He's tried painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography in the course of his life, and his results are always great. 

From my mom, I learned how to embroider and sew. When I was little I was always drawn to her embroidery floss stash, which she kept in a little tin container all in a tangled-up mess. She'd just find the color she needed and pull it out of the chaos. When I was in the 9th grade she took me to the fabric store and helped me pick out a pattern and some fabric and with her help, I created my first wearable garments, a top and a skirt. I very specifically remember the feeling of pride I had when a girl I admired complimented my skirt and I told her that I had made it myself. My mother had this 70's sewing box made of hard blue plastic. She passed away three years ago and her trusty sewing box lives at my house now. It's lid is half broken, but I don't know that I will ever get rid of it.

I feel like creativity and art made up a major part of my life as I was growing up. I think a turning point came when I reached high school. At the end of ninth grade when we were picking out electives for our 10th grade year, I opted out of Art class for the first time in my educational history. I think I felt intimidated. I thought the kids who would take art in high school would be Very Serious about art and that they would all be better than me and I didn't want to embarrass myself. So, I opted out for all the rest of my high school years. Once in college, I signed up for Art 101, but couldn't muster up the nerve to go to the first class, and I ended up dropping the course.

Throughout adulthood, I feel very much as though I have relegated my art practice to simply "dabbling." I would occasionally pick up a pencil and a sketchbook and work on a few drawings, but the times in between practicing would stretch out to weeks, months, or even years. 

Recently, things have gotten a bit better. My children (and there are four of them) are getting older and have less immediate need of me. To be sure, they still do need me and they take a lot of my time. My youngest is 12 and my second youngest is 16 and both of them are homeschooled. But they certainly don't need my constant attention in the same way they did even a handful of years ago. So, I have found that I have more time and energy to focus on my own artistic pursuits. I even went ahead and took that college level art class when I went back to school to get an Associate's Degree. I was nervous when I first started it, but after discovering that everyone else in that class was there to learn, just like me, and that they weren't all artistic dynamos, I settled into it and really enjoyed myself. And part of that class involved everyone putting their finished drawings up on the wall for everyone else to critique! Amazingly, I had no problem with that. Enjoyed it, even! The photo above is from that class, from an assignment to create a "self-portrait" still life drawing.

Shortly after my mother died, I took up embroidery in a more serious way than I had ever approached it previously and I decided to really apply myself to it as an artform. I also created an Instagram account so that I could "show my work" as Austin Kleon writes. 

Side note: That makes the second time I've mentioned my mother's death since I started writing. I keep asking myself, what does that have to do with this? And, okay, maybe I haven't thought too deeply about it before this moment. But, of course the two things are related. I suppose there's nothing like the death of a loved one to make you realize how short life is, especially when it's the death of someone you literally thought of as a given in your life. I still sometimes think that it's simply impossible and absurd that she's gone. What nonsense! But when you accept the reality, then you accept that it can happen to you, too, and if that's the case, there's really no better time to live your life the way you want to live it than right now. And maybe it all has something to do with wanting to impress her, to show her what I am capable of, even if she's no longer here to see.

Anyway, showing my work was a very scary thing for me to do, but I've had the Instagram account for more than two years now and it's been a very rewarding experience. I even opened an Etsy shop and I've sold a few pieces, which has been amazing. Who would have ever thought I could sell something I created to another human being? A stranger, no less! And I purchased an iPad last year that would enable to me to create and sell embroidery patterns on my Etsy shop and so that I could learn more about digital art through the Procreate app. (Jury's still out on whether or not I enjoy creating patterns, but I do love learning about creating digital art.)

All of this artistic growth has been wonderful, but I still feel like I have so far to go. I want to improve my skills, yes, but I also want to discover who I am as an artist. I want to figure out what sort of things I really enjoy exploring artistically and then, well, explore those things. A lot. So I can get better at them. What is my artistic style? How much can it vary? What kinds of things do I want to say with my art? These are just some of the questions I want to ask myself and maybe even figure out the answers to, although I am kind of assuming the answers change and morph as time goes on, so that there is never a definitive end to the search.

That's basically the Why of this project. Because I want to make up for lost time. Because I want to explore a part of myself I haven't really given a chance to grow as much as I should have. Because I want to make my Mama proud.

As for the How? This blog post has gotten a bit long and I'm tempted to put this part off until next week, but I'd rather get into some actual documentation of learning and exploration ASAP, so I'll keep the answer to the question of How I intend to do this project here in today's post.

I'm going to try out various methods of growth. I assume some of them will be more worthwhile than others, but I'm open to figuring that out as I go along. I can keep the methods that work well for me and let go of what doesn't.

I want to learn from others. In that vein, I'll be watching YouTube tutorials, reading books, and taking paid classes (probably online, but in person would be nice too, assuming neither COVID nor my wallet are deterrents) when I can.

I will be trying out challenges. I have found "Draw This In Your Style" Challenges on Instagram to be very useful and fun to do. I might try a 100 Day challenge. And anything else I come across that looks interesting. These things help a lot with offering up ideas to fill a blank page/screen/embroidery hoop.

I will experiment, try new things, and make an effort to step out of my comfort zone.

I will post to this blog and my Instagram account as consistently as possible for a means of accountability. As mentioned, I'll be posting to this blog every Wednesday. I want to try for Monday-Friday with Instagram.

I will do my best to remove any emotional attachment to the "numbers game." Meaning I don't want to care about followers, views, likes, comments, etc. That is so hard, and I don't even know why, but I'm getting better at it.

I will not worry about posting "bad art." Ugh. This is a hard one, but it's about the journey, not the destination, and also, there is no destination. It can be useful to see my own progress and if it's useful to me, why wouldn't it be useful for others as well?

So, there you go. The Why and the How. I'll see you next week, when I will be sharing some of the art I've made in the past as well as some more recent explorations.

The Who , What, Where, and When

Hello! Welcome to my new small corner of the internet!

I mean, blogs are not new to me, but this blog is new to me. 

That is a lie. I started this blog in 2021, couldn't keep things moving with it, deleted the few existing entries, and recycled it into the form you see now.

And to call it my corner of the internet feels a bit untrue because I do also have an Instagram account and an Etsy shop and a Facebook account and a lurker Reddit account... I don't know if anybody lays claim to just a corner of the internet anymore these days.

Okay, let me start over. 

Hello! Welcome to my new little project! Yes, that feels more accurate.

So, just what is my "new little project"? Well, I'll be using these first two entries as answers to the five customary journalistic questions: Who? What? When? Why? and Where? (and I'll be adding How? to the list.) I'll answer four of them this week (check the title) and the final two next week.

So, to begin with... Who? Well, me. And who am I? My name is Stephanie and I am a creative human. I would say "I'm an artist," because after all, I create art. Therefore, I am an artist, right? I think I can do that in my own head, but putting it in writing on the internet makes me feel a bit... uneasy. So I guess I'll stick with "creative human." 

I am a creative human who is approaching the mid-century mark and I feel like I've been a creative human all my life. I've always loved to draw and write stories and make things. I can remember the irresistible pull of a certain volume of the Childcraft Encyclopedia set that my grandparents had in their sitting room. None of the other volumes interested me, but I could sit for hours poring over the Make and Do volume. Art class was my favorite part of school and I spent a long time perfecting the art of drawing unicorns.

Currently, I create and sell embroidery art and I enjoy drawing, both traditionally and digitally. But I'll get more into where I think I am on my artistic journey in my next week's entry.

So, that's me, briefly. Now, on to the What?

I have decided to dedicate this year, 2022, to my own artistic growth and development. I really want to lean into showing up and practicing, practicing, practicing. So, What is this? It's a blog that's meant to document my year of growth. Of course, I don't think that my artistic growth is going to be over and done with at the end of 2022, as if I will have reached my pinnacle or something. I just know that this year I want my main focus to be on growing as an artist, and improving my art, and I don't feel like I've ever really done that so I want to document it, at least for one year. I'm calling it "Operation: Level Up My Art."

So, that brings me to Where and When. And Where is kind of anticlimactic, actually, because the answer is just... here. On this blog. The answer to the question of When is: once a week. On Wednesdays. Again, a little boring in terms of answers, but I'm just establishing things here. I'll get into the more meaty questions next Wednesday. Why? And How? 

If you're interested in following along on my little journey, seeing what I'm up to and what I have to say, I'd be glad to have you along. I hope I can offer some inspiration or at the very least a bit of a distraction from a world that currently feels overwhelming. I'm excited to see what's in store!