Happy Halloween! A bit early.

 This week I created a spooky season Procreate illustration. I wanted to recreate an embroidery design I had made a few years ago, but this time as something fleshed out with digital brushwork instead of stitchwork. I've always loved those silly ghosts swirling out and around the smiling jack-o-lantern. This gave me an opportunity to mess around with layers and opacity again in order to make the ghosts' tails sort of less substantial than the rest of their (bodies?).

original design

This illustration afforded me a handful of happy hours in which I was able to really lose myself and be in the creative zone. This is a good thing because I really enjoy being creative and making art. It does result in a sense of lost time, though, which is not as great.

I also started two other projects, both of them based on sun and moon images. One is a painting and one is an embellished fabric embroidery. I'll share those later when they're done, assuming they work out as I want them to.

Here's my ordinary beauty photo, taken when we went to a concert. I liked the bright colors against the night sky. I'm still a week behind, so hopefully I'll be able to take two this week and get caught up. 9 weeks left to 52.

Arena

Oak and Aspen Leaf Stamps

 Last week I carved a set of two leaf stamps. I started with a simple oak leaf, somewhat inspired by a sketch I had made in my sketchbook. I opted for the inner part of the leaf to be the negative space of the stamp and I really love how it turned out. I even (maybe especially) like the little bits of line leftover that weren't fully carved away.

After that I opted for an aspen leaf. Aspens hold a special place in my heart because I grew up around them in Colorado. Also, we had just recently gone up to the mountains here to take a look at the aspens as they started to change color, so that was fresh in my mind. Again, I opted for the body of the leaf to be negative space and I'm not as sure I prefer it that way for this one, but I think it turned out well enough.

Together they made a nice little page of falling leaves in one of my sketchbooks.

Also this week I finally listed the last abstract hoop I finished (which happened months ago now), so it can now be found in my Etsy shop. And I sent off a piece that I sold one minute after I listed it (wow, that's a great feeling!).

Moose + Drizzle, A Painting I Forgot to Share, & Thoughts About Social Media

 This past week's creation was a digital illustration based off of two separate 'tober art challenge prompts (moose and drizzle). The challenge prompt part is not really of any consequence because I haven't kept up with any of them. But it did result in an illustration I am rather pleased with.

Also, I realized I forgot to share this painting I did of my cat, Abed, either here or on Instagram or anywhere. 

Again, quite pleased with it, but I also look at it and think, ehhhh, I could have done better. The tail, though! I love the way the tail turned out. 

At some point during the week I had the brilliant idea to look through some older work of mine and it was a largely positive experience. Having some distance from one's work (via the passage of time) almost always (for me, anyway) results in a kinder eye toward it. I found myself saying, "hey, that's pretty good" over and over in looking at it and it also resulted in a fresh jolt of inspiration to keep it up.

Now, to return to the topic of social media again: some of what I don't like about social media (specifically in terms of using it the way I've been trying to use it, as an art-sharing/marketing account) is the feeling of obligation surrounding it. It became increasingly obvious to me over the years that social media companies were very extractive and demanding (though that part of it is not obvious). I have never been interested in following trends and I've never felt great about making sure I was being "consistent" with my posting (and no matter what anyone says, to me it feels like consistent=prolific). I have been thinking about this blog and how it feels more like a place of my own, subject to my own needs and guidelines, and so I want to develop it more and devote more of my energy to it, as opposed to Instagram, which is where all my art-sharing energy used to go. If the internet is a river, my blog is like a calm little inlet while Instagram is right in the thick of the main flow. But, being right in the thick of that flow, it can be useful in directing people toward my little inlet (hopefully, the type of people who would enjoy being here!). So, I don't want to abandon it completely. 

The thought of writing a weekly blog post and coming up with however many posts or reels per week feels overwhelming and the biggest internal response I get to that idea is UGH. But, it just occurred to me (like, today) that I could make Friday my posting day for not only this blog, but also Instagram. That there's no law that says I have to have different content for both places. Once a week is something which is more than the nothing I've been doing there. And putting it on the same day makes it less overwhelming. It gives me a way to keep my toes dipped into the social media way of sharing my art, while still giving me the space to explore other avenues to see how well they fit and how beneficial they are. So, I'll be doing that, probably, but like I said, I just thought of it today, so I reserve the right to abandon this system.

Here's my Ordinary Beauty photo for the week:

what does the tree see?

Watercolor Attempt

 I am not too pleased with my creation for this week. It's an attempt at a watercolor landscape, but once again, I am foiled by my tendency to jump into things without knowing what I am doing and without having a clear plan. It's fine. I can reconcile it by being cognizant of the fact that things were learned.

This is from before I took the tape off, which really did create a nice, clean white border, so at least there was that.

This week we took a little day trip to the mountains and it is from there that I took my two Ordinary Beauty photos (an additional one for the week prior, which I missed). 

Bark Patterns

Mallow

At the beginning of this month, I decided I was going to try to post every day to social media. I lasted three days and then had to give it up. It's somewhat difficult to analyze. All I really know is that I get a very distinct feeling of repulsion and distaste lately when I think about posting to Instagram or Threads. It is frustrating because there is a persistent voice in my head that says, you need to do this if you want to build an art business. But, then again, I am in a pulling-back, hibernatory-like, learning phase right now, so it doesn't matter much anyway. For now, I will keep to here, my little space on the internet, to share my artistic journey, though I am sure I will dip my toes into those other places occasionally.

Getting Caught Up With All My 52 for 52s

 Over the past several weeks I have made a lot of progress in catching up with all of my various 52 for 52 challenges. So much so that last week I discovered that I was actually ahead with my blogging challenge and was able to take a week (Fri-Thurs) off. Now I can return to a once-a-week schedule, which I prefer to do on Fridays, so see me here then, assuming I can manage the consistency.

This past week I also got caught up on my 52 creations challenge. I finished a page in my sketchbook, which came out... okay. I do not love the butterflies and I had intended for a far more abstract look.

I also put together this piece from my Alice Tea Shoppe miniature set and that brings the total number of pieces completed to two. Pretty sure I've had it for more than two years now. I swear I will finish this thing some day.

And then, I also did this Procreate illustration for one of the 'tober art challenges. Prompt: blackbird.

I like it quite a lot, but one of the things about me and Procreate is that I always use the same brushes, and the same techniques and the only reason for that is that I don't really know how to do otherwise. I think I should try out some tutorials because I'd really like to explore other ways of using the app.

So, here's what I've learned from all of my catching up with my challenges: first, that the absence of schoolwork really does make a difference in my ability to find creative time. Seems like the biggest "duh" of all time, but for some reason my brain really expected to be able to handle all of the assignments, studying, writing, reading, exams, and projects and still squeeze in all of these other things. Now that I'm done with school, I am miraculously able to catch up with all of my creative input and output goals. Who knew? 

The second thing I have been learning is that I really like having challenges like this. Lists, goals, plans, prompts, themes--I love it all. There's a little dark and cynical voice inside of me that wants to devalue this tendency, to call it "cringe," "meaningless," or "stupid," or to say "why bother when you'll never follow through?" I am learning to ignore that voice (in this and many other instances). My brain likes to organize things in this way. It feels like playing. It feels like curiosity. It's fun. The trick is to not take it too seriously. I need to be flexible. I need to know my own limitations. I need to be able to get up and try again a different way if I don't meet the mark the first time instead of giving up completely. Or change the rules. I love changing the rules. There's a lot of power in saying, "Actually, I don't like it that way, so I'm going to try it this way." 

Peach and Teal

 I have been laying down blobs of leftover paint into my sketchbook after each of my painting sessions because I feel bad wasting paint. The other day I took a black Posca marker to one of those pages and added some linework and doodles and ended up with these flowers that I really loved. They reminded me of my teenage obsession with the color combination of peach and turquoise or teal.

I decided to make a few recreations on watercolor paper and I think they turned out pretty good too.

Although, part of what I liked about the sketchbook version was the unfinished look of the peach-colored background, so maybe I'll try it again later.

Here is my Ordinary Beauty photo for the week.

Pink

A Couple of Finished Projects

 This week has felt pretty productive. I started and finished a painting. It's not amazing by any means, but it taught me a lot about using acrylics that you can't really learn without actually sitting down to paint. The more I try, the more I learn (sometimes just subconsciously) how to control the viscosity and color of the paint and how to get closer to having an end result that approaches what I imagined when I started setting paint to canvas. In other words, the more I do it, the more I know how to make the paint do what I want it to do.

This painting is very much inspired by the mini embroidery I also finished this week.

I wanted to finish two things this week and I figured the best way to do that would be to not overthink things. Plus I really liked the combination of colors on the swirl on this sun, so I wanted to use similar ones with paint.

Also, here are two Ordinary Beauty photos to catch me up in sharing them.

butterflies

KEA

I know the IKEA one is very corporate, but I enjoyed the colors and the framing.

A Slow Week

 I've had a lull in creativity since I last posted. It's important to me to work at being at peace with my creative rhythms, so I'm not going to get down on myself for it. I did finish the embellished embroidery mini that I showed in my last post and I got started on the next one. 

I'm going to just go ahead and cover the entire face on that sun because... I don't know, I just don't like it.

Back to Embroidery (but just for myself)

 A few years ago I made a little 3-inch embroidery that was just some pretty fabric that I embellished with stitching and beads. I made it for myself, not to sell. Now there's a space on my wall that needs... something, and I think three hoops of that size will fill it very well. So, I need two more. I didn't have any 3-inch hoops, so I deconstructed a couple of hoop art pieces I had made long, long ago (it's fine, they weren't very good), wrapped them in ribbon, and picked out a couple of pieces of fabric with interesting designs in the right size. 

The one on top is the one I made a few years ago. The raccoon is from a piece of fabric my oldest gifted me and has lots of other cute animals with flower crowns, but the raccoon is the only one that would fit neatly in a 3-inch hoop. Here's a couple closer-up progress photos.

Embroidery art through embellishment is very relaxing. A lot of the hardest decision-making is taken care of, because the image already exists. But there's still plenty to think about. Which stitch to use, whether to use the color that's been printed or choose something else, whether to cover the whole area or just part of it, deciding where a little bit of bead/sequin bling might look good.

My hiatus from making embroidery art for the purpose of selling it continues as these ones are for me.

Trying to be smart by slowing down

 So, after my initial difficulties with my early attempts at acrylic painting, I decided to try to be smarter. I know I have a real problem with impatience and expecting any new endeavor to go smoothly right from the start. I can't help it! It always comes out great in my imagination! Somehow I never can get reality to match and that's when the paints and brushes go back on the shelf and gather dust for a few more months. Or years.

So that was when I came up with the brilliant idea that surely no one has ever thought of before to make a test/swatch card. 

I tested each color straight from the tube, with a little water, with a little white, then that with a little water, a little more white, then that also with water. I didn't try to do any mixing between the colors; just with white so far. This has helped me (and hopefully will continue to be a good reference) to better understand not just how the colors work in each of these configurations, but how they look when they are dry. This swatch card is still missing the browns though. Also, with some of these colors there is more variation in the irl view than my camera's phone could capture (especially with yellow).

I did watch a video that talked about color mixing and I learned a few things. There were a lot of concepts that I think I knew on an intellectual level, but had never really used in a practical way. But, that felt a bit too much like a higher level than I'm ready for. I want to put what I've learned from doing these particular swatches into practice before I try that. I really shouldn't have gone bananas with that previous painting.

Ugly Bananas

 I tried out my new paints. I took a reference pic of some just-purchased bananas. I sketched out the shapes with a Posca marker and then started laying down areas of color. It's pretty bad.

But! It's not terrible-horrible-awful bad. You can tell what it's supposed to be. If you look at it kind of sideways or through squinty eyes it almost looks good!

Notes: Yes, you can see the marks from the previous painting showing through. I'm re-using old canvases because it helps me be less precious about things. Yes, the pink background is very patchy. I was running out of paint and didn't want to mix any more pink at that point. I figure I can return to this and add another layer later if I feel like it.

Learning Notes: I need to learn how to mix colors better. I need to learn what the colors are going to look like next to each other. I need to learn what they'll look like when they dry. 

Also, I hate to say it, but I think I'm going to need more paint. The set I got has 12 colors, but the tubes are pretty small. And it goes so fast. It seems so expensive though.

Anyway, may or may not try to improve this later. 

Here's a couple of Ordinary Beauty photos, both taken in fast food restaurants.

Open

Crazy Chicken

How the butterflies turned out

   

I finished up those butterflies. They were fun and I thought, hey, maybe I could cut them out and use them for something else in the future, like a garland or... something. And a new set of acrylic paint arrived today, so that's exciting.

I've been trying to think, how can I best organize this self-teaching experience? Because I want to learn techniques and practice them, but I also want to be thinking about style, and about what direction I want to be ultimately moving in. I feel like there are so many different paths I could choose from. So many appealing and inspiring art styles and applications. 

And maybe this is what had me stalled out so many times in the past. It feels like too big of a risk that I will waste time of pathways that are ultimately not right for me. I do recognize this as being unhelpful, but my impatient mind wants quick results and certainty. Not trying and failing, and trying and failing, and trying and maybe learning a little something, and trying and maybe, kind of, sort of, creating something I might actually like, and then starting that cycle all over again. Not trying something out, realizing I don't like it much, and then moving on to the next endeavor. But that's all there is. The sooner I can get my brain to accept that, the better.

How to be a Painter

 Yeah, I don't know. You just paint, I guess. And I guess that makes me a painter because that's what I've been doing. Badly, but what are you gonna do?

This is a page full of butterflies I've been working on today. They're not finished, but they're mostly experimental anyway. A lot of water added, a little water added, no water added. Using this brush, using this other brush, or how about this one?

I pulled out my watercolors yesterday too. I won't show you the results because I just how it turned out that much. I can't make the pigment do what I want it to do. But I'll try again. The thing about watercolors is that I actually have a nice little quality set--Windsor and Newton--but it doesn't seem to make a difference with how things are turning out. 

The acrylics, though...I still need to purchase myself some quality supplies, but even so, using them feels easier at this point, and I'm getting better results than I am with the watercolors. 

Just keep going. Try this, try that. I painted, so I'm a painter. I made art, so I'm an artist. 

If you say so, lady.

This Past Week's Creativity

 Firstly, I just want to make note of the fact that I am catching up on my 52 for 52 Challenges and I think I will be able to finish all of them by the end of the year. The challenges are (and I'm listing them here because I don't think I've ever put them all in one place): 52 creations (currently 5 behind), 52 Ordinary Beauty photos (currently only 1 behind), 52 blog posts (currently 4 behind), 52,000 words of fiction written (currently 26,314 behind, yeah, this one is the hardest for me), 52 books (currently on track), 52 albums (A-Z album titles, then Z-A artist names, currently on track), 52 dates (weekly dates with Pat, currently on track), 52 movies or full seasons of a series (currently on track), and 52 board games played (currently 12 behind). I feel like it's important for me to note this to myself because it's giving me clear evidence that being in school actually did hinder my ability to do all the other things I wanted to do, including being creative. That seems obvious, but I do think I was pretty harsh on myself for getting behind on my challenges even though I had classes for the whole first part of the year. Classes that required a lot of reading time, a lot of writing time, and a lot of general study time. The fact that I am managing to get caught up now should give my brain permission to give myself some grace and understand that time is finite (as is the amount of mental and physical energy I have to devote to these things). Whether or not I manage to keep that in mind moving forward is another story.

During the last week I finished completely my latest abstract hoop. In fact, I finished it before I had written my last post (about painting) but I didn't feel terribly motivated to share it, since my decision to step back from embroidery (for the purpose of selling) for the time being was at the forefront of my mind. But I did finish it and I do intend to add it to my Etsy shop in the very near future, along with the Orange Crush Cloudburst hoop I finished a while back. 

As for painting, I took my two pages of messing around with making marks from last week and I added Posca marker to each of them, thus turning them into something a bit more intentional. I wouldn't call either of them ground-breaking or anything, but I kind of like them. 

And finally, I did a somewhat more intentional painting on a previously used canvas. This, also, was an exercise from the painting book I currently have on loan from the library (Start Here: Paint, by Moira Clinch). 

So, a couple of things I want to acknowledge about this painting. One, I don't like it. My lack of skill here bothers me. I think if I had executed it better, I actually would like it, so it's not the subject matter. Two, as usual, my phone camera is not showing the colors as my eyes see them. There are shades of blue here that actually look purple in real life, and the greens look more like blacks in the photo. And while I do think that that is a real issue with my phone's camera, I am also realizing, in this moment, that it's also a problem in terms of my color choices. I have seen videos in which people reduce their artwork to grayscale so that they can tell if their pieces have enough contrast and I think maybe I'm seeing a version of that here. So, that's something to keep in mind as I move forward. Something to learn more about. 

But that right there is a demonstration of the success of this painting in facilitating what I want it to be facilitating: learning! And, so, as much as I do not like the way this painting turned out, I do like that I feel like I have learned some things along the way. The yellows in this painting, for instance, started out much more translucent, which was frustrating to me. But the book said something about adding a bit of white to create more opaqueness, so I tried that and suddenly the yellow was just popping off the canvas (so to speak). 

Again, as I said in my last post, it's not that I have never, ever painted in this way. It's more that I haven't ever done it with the intention of learning, growing, and maintaining a steady practice. Here's to the beginnings of that journey!

Painting

 In my last post I wrote that the embroidery piece I was working on was helping me re-evaluate my relationship with embroidery. As is sometimes the case, I wrote words about something I was feeling without fully realizing I was feeling them until that moment. I had to sit for a bit with the truth of them. And in doing so, I realized that what I actually need is to take a step back from embroidery, at least in the sense of my embroidering pieces to sell. 

I don't even know if I can explain it more than that it's just a feeling I have that I need to follow through on. But one aspect of it is that I want to devote some time and effort to learning more about painting, with acrylics, watercolor, and maybe gouache at some point. I've dabbled, but I haven't put serious effort into learning techniques and improving skills, or even into figuring out what types of painting I most want to paint (finding my style, I guess). And I think a lot of the time when I am choosing a creative activity, I opt for embroidery because I am comfortable with it, instead of choosing something that leaves me feeling so much more out of my element. But the only way to get more comfortable is to be uncomfortable first.

I also have been having some ambivalence about Etsy and social media, and I have been wondering whether those platforms are part of the right path for me, but that's a musing for another day.

The point for now is that I want to get more serious about learning how to paint. In that vein, I picked up a couple of books on the subject from the library the other day. Yesterday I did a very simple exercise, just making marks, getting a feel for my brushes and what kind of viscosity I can get with different amounts of water mixed in to my acrylic paint. Unfortunately, I learned that a lot of the paint that I currently have is getting old and kind of globby. It's high time I purchased a new batch of colors, so that's next on the agenda. 

When Is It Done?

 I've been working on this piece for so long. Or it seems so anyway. It's becoming filled up, maybe even too busy, but I also think it wants more stitches, more beads, more elements. There's one long meandering chain stitch in there that I think could be symbolic of the piece as a whole. I meandered. I took my time. I took breaks when I felt like I needed to take breaks from it. Sometimes I'd just add a few small stitches and call it good for the day. 

I also think this piece is helping me re-evaluate my relationship with embroidery right now. I don't know if I could tell you where I've landed with that, but I am realizing that there's something in this piece and my stitching of it that feels transitionary in some way.

Another bit of art: a sketchbook spread of a mushroom forest. I wanted to play around with bright colors, make use of my Tombow markers and colored pencils, and kind of figure out how I like to make weird mushrooms. Not sure I've made them exactly how I want to have made them, but it was fun.

A Quick Trip, A Few Photos

 Over the weekend, we (Pat, me, one of our adult children) took a quick trip to Utah to visit family and celebrate my Grandpa's birthday. It's been a long time since we've even been out of town, so that part was good and so was the opportunity to see family members. Not so good was the fact that we weren't really escaping the heat of Vegas since it was nearly as hot there as it is here. Thankfully, there was a bit of rain on Saturday that cooled things down considerably. I took some photos of the aftermath and I am counting two of them for my Ordinary Beauty challenge, which catches me up completely.

Speaking of Ordinary Beauty photos, here's one I have not yet shared. It was taken in my house; just something on the shelf that caught my eye.

Upside-down SUMMR