Where is my head lately?

Hello! Remember me? Sorry I've been kind of... not here. It's not for lack of interest but rather for need of a much needed break!

I have had a crazy CRAZY time of things this month so far and because of this I am so glad to see January out of here very soon!!! 

1. I have been transitioning from 1st to 2nd semester and working with a whole new gang of student artists for 2D, 3D, Art History, and Digital Studio (Illustrator)

Some 3D works in progress. Fun with paper sculpting! Subject matter: EMOTIONS

 2. I have been prepping for an upcoming professional development workshop day that my school hosts every year for local-area schools

The first slide of a keynote presentation I must finish within the next two weeks!

3. I have been battling the cold and flu bugs in my house as all of my family members have had it twice now including me

[I will spare you the visual seeing as how it would probably be pretty gross]

[Seriously... you didn't actually want to see it, right?]

4. I have been getting back into graduate classes after a lovely month long break from it. Also, I have been doing with the most ridiculous work schedule (at school) because of inclement weather. Two abbreviated days last week and one today!!!

Scene from my house late at night when I have to stay up and do grad work while everyone else gets to sleep

5. I have been focusing on painting with much greater purpose and more meaningful brushwork

Painting over the painting I previously painted and called DONE.

6. I have been spending a ton more time with my cute as a button kid including finally soft sculpting/crocheting her annual character hat. This year it was a pink panda!

My sweet daughter in her panda hat! I got lazy and used felt to applique the eye patches and nose instead of crocheting them.

 7. Preparing for the school's Spring musical of "Hairspray" and this includes lots of meetings, lots of creative budget solving, lots of "figuring things out," and lots of feeling like I am going to lose my mind!!!!

Not from Hairspray but how it is making me feel. This is the Josefina AG doll that I am "refurbishing" from ebay for my daughter as AG dolls are her new favorite thing to play. I save money on them by buying used and fixing them up!

*sigh*

So, to answer the question posed by the title of this posting, my head is pretty much all over the place these days which is why I have been not here. My plan (and hope!) is that January helps me to sweep most of this craziness out and February - my favorite month of the year!!! - ushers in something new, fresh, and much more manageable. And with all of that? The possibility of me doing some of what used to be "regularly scheduled" blog postings the way I did last semester.

Until then, bear with me and hang tight! Only a couple of days left for January and then my plan is to bring the love with the blog postings! ;)

This is what two weeks of painting looks like

Two weeks ago the canvas looked like this...

Underpainting

And then it went to this...

 

And I have revisited it so it currently it looks like this...

 

I am guessing that I have at least another week but more than likely two more weeks ahead of me to actual finish this painting. It's been a tremendous amount of work and very challenging but I have learned just as much too and I am in no major rush to complete this. I just want to be able to paint this well and CORRECTLY. I want the colors to be right, the marks to have integrity, the lines to have obvious speed, and I am not willing to skimp on anything that will diminish how it speaks to glorify creation and the creative process.

There is so much JOY in this journey

It has been almost three months since I entered full-throttle into this new chapter of my life that requires me to devote myself more whole-heartedly to more personal art and creative endeavors. (Right now it's just fine art oil painting but it will also include sculpting and creating artisan jewelry). Though it's been incredibly challenging, I can't say I am doing anything less than feeling like I am living a dream of some kind.

I have always ALWAYS wanted to be a painter and more than any other kind of artist in the world. And I have always ALWAYS felt like I couldn't be that because what I was painting was merely rendering things and wasn't ever truly creating anything worth the paint and time I was using up in order to paint in the fist place. And while it's debatable that I am any good at all, well... I am not very hung up on that. This is because for the first time in my life I feel much more like a legitimate painter (and in turn serious visual artist) than I ever have before. I feel like I actually have a specific direction for the artwork that I am seeking to create and I am not just making the same thing over and over again or swiping other peoples' work by simply remaking what they very uniquely created to begin with leaving me with only a poor imitation of their truly phenomenal work.

I mean... like I said before - I am not trying to say that I am some acclaimed artist or anything worth my salts (or rather my paints) but I finally don't feel so hung up on the whole business of whether I am good or not. And even if someone thinks I am not good? Eh... I am not hung up on that either because I feel like by painting and sharing it, I am doing what I have been called to do which is really what is validating me more than any priceless masterpiece I might ever create or not.

The beginnings (in sequential order) of a piece I am currently working on.

 I have been painting since early 2000s but I always knew I was never quite that good while I was doing it. People would see what I did and they would appreciate it but I always knew that they agreed with me that what I was doing wasn't all that noteworthy. Looking back I can evaluate what I was doing and say outright that my work lacked confidence and direction and also what I was painting? It was obviously indicative of the fact that I was trying to paint for the sake of painting and I wasn't saying much with what I was painting but I also didn't know what to say. I was just sort of painting for the purpose of hoping that I would turn out something decent and worthy of praise at some point but I had no idea how I could be a little more intentional.

None of the aforementioned applied anymore though. Why? Because I have made a more concerted effort to do something more than be simply self-taught and an enthusiast of the art of (and from) the act of painting. Now, don't take this like me bashing self-taught artists. That's not what this is at all. I mean, for as much as I struggled during my self-taught years but still continued to paint despite it, well... being self-taught (and thus a little bit unknowing about the importance of being something more than simply self-taught) helped me to explore a territory and offered me plenty of mistakes to experience so I would be able to understand the importance of more formal training - that which I now have at this point in my life!

Some more sequential images via my instagram feed. It's a work in progress but I feel like it's working out enough to show progress better than most any kind of artwork I have ever done before!!!

Definitely, I learned plenty during my time of being self-taught painter but I have to say that what I learned in that time can be summed up mostly by saying this: I definitely didn't know very much or at least what I knew didn't help me to do and (visually) say what I really wanted to. I mean, I still have plenty to learn about and to prove that I know a thing or two about (as evidenced by the most recent image of the state of my painting as seen below) but I can't help but feel like I have already come so far even though I know I still have many miles to go.

Added lighter values and warm colors back in after darkening almost the entire canvas in an effort to correct value issues.

I might never sell a painting in my life and I might never make it into a gallery of any kind. But you know what? That's not my point in being a painter and a visual artist anyway. I am doing what I am doing because I feel truly called to do it and with every mark of my brush, with every canvas that I "dirty" with paint, I feel like I am answering that calling and that gives me greater joy than anything I might ever have for all of the rest of my years on earth.

Lesson Idea: The Deconstructed Book | 3D Design

This lesson idea is actually from my personal archives and is a project that I did my very first year of teaching at my current school but then I did it only one or two more semesters (out of a total of nearly eight that I have worked so far) after I did it the first time. I stumbled upon the original idea on Etsy probably at least five years ago but probably more and (like I always do) I mentally bookmarked it for the purposes of knowing that I would need it again in the future.

When the Lord was finally so gracious to put me in the classroom as an art teacher? Well... I got right to work with it and every student artist of 3D Design I had (of three sections total) did this project and we filled the student gallery hallway with these and it was, in a word? INCREDIBLE. It was like exploding books were simply raining from the sky and without me even realizing it I had essentially facilitated the first installation art exhibit I of my life. In the history of the school where I teach nobody had ever endeavored to hang student work from the ceiling so it was quite a bit of something to behold and (thankfully) I didn't get in trouble for drilling holes in the ceiling. (Sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?) I wish I had some pictures to share of what it looked like but I don't and to show you what it really looks like we all are just going to have to wait for this coming semester's 3D Design installation exhibit endeavor because I plan to do the idea with them but put a bit of a spin on it. (You'll have to wait for the details of that!)

Still, I wanted to share this with you now because a parent of a student at my school is an art teacher at a local amazing public high school and she sent me an email asking me how I did this project. I started to respond to her email but then I realize that what I was about to respond with to her is something that others might enjoy knowing about as well and why don't I just put it on the blog? So... here I am! And here it goes... this is how I went about teaching my student artists how to do this deconstructed book project.



(My husband was so nice to keep the yelling at bay during the filming of this video. He knew I was going to be doing it and I hardly paid attention to him and the fact that he turned the TV down and kept a lid on the yelling specifically because I was filming the video! He is such a good guy that husband of mine.)

(Also and again, please pardon the ridiculous book that I was forced to use because I didn't have any other book in the house that I otherwise would have wanted to deconstruct. I still cannot figure out where the book came from in the first place and I am completely embarrassed to have it in my house for the language that was used in it alone! I mean, I don't consider myself a type who lacks a sense of humor and there was a stage in my life when I definitely did use some rather colorful language (like that found in the book) but still! Anyway...)

 So that's the deconstructed book art education project and lesson idea! Hope this was helpful to you and if you end up giving this a try, please let me know how it goes because I really love seeing how other people do things differently than I do.

WiPs: Cartoons-in-the-round | 3D Design

The 3D Design class finishes out today and I am so incredibly proud of how far they have come...

Took this picture yesterday at the end of class

All of them have improved incredibly from this study of sculpting cartoons in the round (with boneware clay) and each piece really shows the great investment of time and effort that each put forth in order to turn out such carefully sculpted and painted finished works.

Inspired by Mike Wazowski of Monsters Inc.

Inspired by Pearl of Finding Nemo

Inspired by Pascal from Tangled

Something else that isn't so obvious from the works is also how much the students have learned in the way of learning how to navigate and take care of working art studio space. I would like to say that all student artists learn this but this 3D class of this semester did an exceptional job at really learning how to use all of the tools and space available to them on top of really taking care of all of it.

While in the past I have had classes who have really been hard on both the tools, raw materials, AND space offered to them by way of their visual art and design studies, the students I have had this round have shown great integrity and taken great responsibility not only in what they have created but in the ways they have created. It really makes me feel proud as a teacher because I feel like I really and truly have done a pretty solid job teaching them this semester. And I even had this confirmed/affirmed two days ago when I was out sick and the substitute teacher left me a lovely note that said that from her experience as a public school physical education teacher at the elementary school level, she experienced my classes as being incredibly well-mannered, hard-working, focused, and generally pleasant. She said I was very lucky to have the student artists that I have and I can't say that I can do anything other than agree with her whole-heartedly.

Next semester I have two more sections of 3D Design and I really hope and pray that they get as much out of the class as I know this class finishing has. I am going to be keeping some projects (like this clay sculpting one and maybe the Form of the Formless one as well) but I will also be adding in some old favorites from my archives like the Inside Out Masks and an updated version and spin on The Ombre Experience. That being said? Even though I have been a bit spotty with what used to be a pretty faithfully update blogsite every week day morning at 7am, don't abandon checking in with me completely even when I am being (sort of) flaky. There is plenty more to come and I will try and keep sharing as best as I can.

Hacking up (and jacking up) my stuff

I tried to "glitter" my Otterbox case. (It worked for about 10 hours.)

What type of person are you?

Are you the type who likes to know things like - how something is made in order to understand why it works the way it does and thus understand how it manages to do what it does?

So anyway, I am pretty much that type of person. Case in point: my daughter got an American Girl doll for Christmas and during one of her naps, I figured out how to disassemble it (like, I was holding the dolls head IN MY HAND separate from the body and limbs) for the purposes of being able to know how to reassemble it so that I wouldn't have to do things like (in the future) send it to the sort-of expensive "doll hospital" to be able to do things like get the limbs retightened or the head reattached. Because, like, you know... the head would become unattached at some point and I would need to know how to do that to save myself money, right?

(I know. No need to comment. I am a weirdo. Let's not even get started on if my daughter would have caught me doing this to her doll. At least I am not a jerk like my older brothers were once to me when I was little and they lined up every doll I had, took their heads off of them, switched them around, and then brought me in to see what they had done. In retrospect I see it as both awful and completely hysterical BUT I also remember it as being just one more traumatic and tortured moment of childhood by their doing.) (Jerks.)

I like to know all of that because I am just plain curious (and, yeah, nosy too *there I said it*) and also because I am 1) a bit of a cheapskate 2) very much pride myself on being as resourceful as possible. I really REALLY enjoy being able to do as much as possible (meaning making something over again, fixing something, or creating something completely original).

All of this being said? I spend most of my life either figuring out things, doing whatever it is I figured out how to do, or... undoing the thing that I thought I figured out in order to fix an issue that I (essentially) created for for myself to have to contend with.

Basically, I (regularly) hack up my life which usually actually JACKS up my life instead.

*sigh*

Here are two things that I have learned within the last 24 hours with pictures to illustrate:

• Otterbox Defender cases were simply not meant to be "glittered" at least according to the online DIY tutorials circulating about pinterest.com and the general blogosphere
• If you buy cheap shoes from social network type shopping (I am talking about YOU, totsy) then expect to have to glue the sole (of at least one of them) down in order for your to wear them the way they are supposed to be worn. And also, glue that does not work includes Gorilla Glue AND Alene's gold craft glue. 

The glittery front portion of my otterbox that otherwise was actually pretty and glittery. *kicks dirt*

The back of my otterbox that still has some glitter that remained. Honestly, it doesn't look so terribly ugly to me and I kind of like it though I do admit that it looks pretty ridiculous. *shrug*

My beloved spike toe ballet flat with the right shoe's sole that needs to be glued AGAIN. See my bare right foot? Yeah. Story of my life right there. I am not only a "hot mess" most of the time but I am pretty much either literally or metaphorically missing one shoe on any given day. I do not have any good excuses for this. Love me or leave me - This is just who I am.

Tomorrow is my last day of classes with all of my first semester student artists - one section of Graphic Design, three sections of 2D Design, and one section of 3D Design. I am definitely bummed about this and if you were wondering that this unrelated posting was my way of not talking it? You are right.

Update: Classroom Management for Classes that PAINT!!

Sorry this video isn't edited or anything fancy like the last one. I am fighting a cold and I have little (to no) energy to be fancy this week and it will be pretty miraculous if I don't end up out sick at all this week. 

Anyway, thought you all might appreciate an update on how the classroom management for painting activities has gone since I introduced it at the beginning of the year. As things have happened, I have decided to change things up a bit! Check out the video for just what I decided to do differently and why...

And this almost does it for me for the semester. As I said last week, the kids have been working diligently on their final projects and at this point they are all pretty adept and autonomous at doing the things they are doing. This means that I only need to play "lifeguard" (if you will) while the students are all doing what they are doing. It's kind of nice to have it be like this because it means that I did what I set out to do this semester (and I did it pretty well!) but it's also kind of sad too because when this happens? It means the end of the semester is definitely here.

So... this is all to say that I don't really know what else I will be sharing here on the blog between now and a little bit into when the new semester kicks off other than my own art endeavors. *shrug* Bear with me and I will be back to things that are more art education centric.

Amazing grace

Underpainting on a 36x36" piece I am starting for the purposes of creatingartforHim.com

I finally painted something worth painting more of this weekend. I did it Sunday night to be exact. Amazing how it took me all last week and then all this weekend to finally put brush to canvas and paint the way I know I am supposed to. It's a darn good thing that I don't do this full-time seeing as how long it takes me to do something as (seemingly simple) as underpainting.

In all honesty, I really didn't intend to paint this. My plans were actually to paint a picture of an elephant. Yes. You read that right. My goal was to paint an elephant. (Elephants are a bit of a thing for me and my life. I don't know what it is about them but it's just happened that way.) And all weekend long I have known that I needed to get started with painting but I haven't been able to motivate myself to actually do it. Essentially, the whole business of painting became a bit of an elephant in the room for me.

So... I finally got to painting and did the above and it just wasn't working. I mean... it was well and good enough but I just felt unsettled before, during, and after it in a way that I cannot explain and also feels completely foreign and out of the ordinary. I finally stopped the process right after I snapped the photo and then I went about the rest of the evening - putting away Christmas things with my family, getting my daughter into her nightly routine, etc. etc. etc.

And I just kept thinking of elephants the whole time. I kept picturing them in my mind and feeling completely and ridiculously uncomfortable until I put the above canvas aside to dry and got out a new one because I thought, "OK. I will do a stinkin' elephant painting and just get it out over with already!!!"

Thank the good Lord above I did because almost immediately I felt that peace and JOY in my heart that I get from being in my "happy place" that painting almost always brings to me...

I think this one is going to be a mother-daughter joint effort because I invited my little shadow to block it out and underpaint it with me. She did such a good job and it was such a joy to have her alongside me at the easel.

After I completely the blocking of the elephant piece, I realized what my problem was. My whole business of painting needs to be something that my family is in on. It simply cannot be separate.  When I did the "Covenant Revisited" piece (on the front page of my fine art portfolio site) it was accomplished only because my husband was alongside me helping to figure out parts of it. But tonight when I was trying to do underpainting on the first one? Well... my family was here with me but I was really more working around them and they were hardly a part of the process. As it goes, I think they have to be a part of the process rather than being a problem that I have to contend with during the process.

One of my art mentors from long ago used to tell me about how they had such a hard time painting and creating sometimes because it competed with their role of being in and of a family. There was always a husband that they weren't spending time with and three children begging for attention. What ended up happening was that they weren't able to really do great work until after they had found themselves in a different time in their lives when their familial relationships were quite something that they had to choose to focus on. And while I listened to their stories of struggle as an artist, I couldn't help but ask myself over and over again, "Does it have to be that way though? I mean... Can't I have a family AND be an artist? Or... Do I really have to be sentenced to a life alone in order for me to be able to create and paint?"

I have spent a lot of years before now alone. I remember sitting alone in my apartment in between hour 10 and 11 of a 15 hour painting marathon of an over six month stretch of working on one piece that was hardly noteworthy and thinking, "This can't be all there is to this. This can't be it." And you know what? I was right. I was right about that.

I do believe that I finally found my voice as an artist and especially as a painter as a result of me being married and having my little girl. Despite the suggestions long ago from not only my previous art mentor but from many others as well, art doesn't have to be something that can only happen separate from the way I want my life to be. My family doesn't have to be something that I have to contend with and I don't have to take things away from them in order for me to enjoy the joy that is creating and painting. In large part that's why photography (as both a business and an artform) have not worked for me. It was something that created a competition (with my family) and I always ALWAYS let it win and my family lose miserably. But that's not my life anymore and that's definitely not my art. The way I understand it, if my family loses, I will lose and you can best my art will be lost as well. It doesn't have to be that way though.

I am not sure entirely how it works out like this - because logically it makes NO sense - but I think that the way my life will go will not require me to juggle anything. I think so long as I put my family first and remember to preserve and maintain the covenant I have with them because of what the Lord has called me to do (being a wife and a mother) I will end up turning out some of the greatest works of art of all of my life. I mean, I am just barely a week into the new year but... well... something tells me this is how it's going to work out.

WiPs: Cartoons-in-the-round | 3D Design

Allow me for the lack of presence on the blog lately in the way of student artwork. I give you some works-in-progress from the 3D Design class. It's their last project of the semester!!!

PRIME time with lots of gesso being brushed about (pun definitely intended)

Yesterday and today the 3D class spent time attending to their cartoon sculptures done in the round out of boneware clay. They took about a two weeks of class time drafting up their ideas and then doing the actual sculpting right before we broke for Christmas and NY vacation.

The two weeks that we were out  left just enough time for the pieces to air-dry and set beautifully though some of them did suffer from some hairline fractures and natural separation of different pieces that weren't attached with the blending technique that I pushed them to use. (Hate to be the one to have to say "Told you so" but I absolutely did!!" A combination of gorilla glue, Alene's craft tacky glue, and some plaster tape helped to attend to any of the major issues of the drying out process (in a super cold studio classroom at that!) and it wasn't long until everybody was applying 2-3 good even coats of gesso for them to paint and detail in time for the end of next week when the end of class happens. (Cannot believe the end of classes is coming! Hate this time of year because of this. I ALWAYS hate having to say goodbye to the student artists every time it's time to do so.)

One of the pieces on the mend with some quick setting plaster tape. It was the best I could come up with to fix the very MAJOR crack that resulted from the drying process. This one even had an armature in it. *shrug*

Finding Nemo's Pearl the octopus!! Pretty much every day some one in class would take a turn and say her  infamous phrase, "Awww you guys made me iiiiink!"

A gecko/chameleon from I don't know which animated movie BUT the piece is BEAUTIFULLY sculpted and I know the student artist will do just as beautiful of a job painting and detailing it. Can't wait to see it finished!

One of my faves from this round of student work. It's a minion from Despicable Me!!!! This one also had us quoting Despicable Me at least every other day. It's been so much fun doing this project for everybody!!

There were also two Mike Wazowski's from Monsters Inc. and the dragon from How to train your dragon. There was one Mickey Mouse and one Cookie Monster and then (2?) from Dora the Explorer and one more from Finding Nemo (I think it was Dorie). I can't remember some of the others of the bunch but they are all pretty fun and I will certainly share them finished here on the blog when they are done.

I choose JOY

Yesterday was the first day back for teachers and today is the first day back with the students. In a little more than one week there will be mid-term exams for my school. That means that next Friday will be the end of classes with all of my current students and I will get a new crew of student artists to work with starting second semester on Tuesday, January 22nd. I seriously cannot believe that first semester is pretty much over and second might as well be here already. 

As for the rest of it all? I will be taking six graduate level credit courses and three undergraduate credit courses (studio art for content knowledge) in order to continue my pursuit for what feels like the ever elusive Masters of Arts in Teaching (for Visual Art Education) degree that I *might* finally be awarded in 2014. (Maybe.) 

As indicated by my previous posting about my official retirement from photography?  Well, I spent my holiday break not only trying to celebrate Christmas and the turn of the new year with my family but also sitting at the computer post-processing over 2000 images from the last two weddings of my photography career. There are two open jobs (one senior portrait session and one family session) that I were booked for last Fall but never happened and so they might end up happening in the coming weeks/months but I have yet to confirm that officially with the clients so I really and truly might be officially retired from all of the photography work as of now. Funny enough as soon as I was back on campus, a colleague of mine approached me because her husband is a VERY well-established and well-known photographer and he is in desperate need of reinforcements in the post-processing of his images so she asked me if I would be interested in doing some hourly photoshop and design work for him. *sigh* 

For as much as I have fussed about it all? I was chomping at the bit to do anything but say No to her offer. Why? Because that was the old me that I wasn't so happy with and this is a new year and I have a new opportunity to keep doing what I feel like I should have always been doing to begin with which is NOT be an insane workaholic visual artist who is trying to get in every which direction at one time. It's gotten me nowhere I really wanted to be and so this year? It's time to try something completely new which leads me here...

I guess you could call this a little bit of a New Year's resolution of sorts but I don't know that this qualifies as such really.

Ever heard of blogger Ali Edwards? She has been doing a campaign (if you will) every year since 2007 called "One Little Word" where she takes the idea of a New Years resolution and makes it something a little bit less of a resolution that can be easily forgotten about and (thus) abandoned and instead takes the approach of establishing a theme and focus for your life and year. The word can be just about anything but it should be something that you can use to help you to approach and deal with the things of the year that might come at you whether positive or negative. Ali's word this year is "open" but others have used other such things like love, peace, hope, strength, etc. 

I never heard of this "One Little Word" movement before recently and it resonated with me and seemed like a "cool" idea but as quickly as I stumbled upon it I just kind of forgot about it and didn't make a point to try and revisit it. And then something weird happened. I just started stumbling back on the idea and the word JOY just kept presenting itself back to me almost like a signpost from the good Lord Himself. It pretty much got to the point that I couldn't ignore the literal "one little word" that IS joy and I finally submitted to participating in the movement myself.

Joy is such a special word for me in so many different ways. It is an acronym used for my classroom management (I'll share more about this soon enough). It is also the very thing that I have learned has been missing from so much of my life before recent months which includes my experiences/life as a wife, mother, teacher, daughter, and generally woman of the Lord. The word itself is so small in physical presence but its meaning is just so much more enormous such that I feel like it really is hard to quantify. To me, joy is kind of like happiness on steroids only without the bad connotations that comes from something being on steroids. To me, joy easily the best thing you could ever imagine that just doesn't stop ever and carries on long after it first started existing so long as you just let it exist.

There is a whole online workshop that Ali Edwards runs to help carry out the whole business of the "One Little Word" movement but I am not quite sure that I will go that deep into the movement just yet. (You can join it at any time during the year and it's reasonably cheap.) I am thinking that I am going to keep doing what I have found to be success finding that has got me to this point and I am going to hitch my heart to exploring the idea and the presence of JOY in life so that I am dreaming, praying, and then eventually creating it into existence in my own life. I trust nothing other than Christ Jesus as it stands with any of the ideas I have ever had (harebrained or not) but I know that every time I have placed one of them in front of Him, they have always turned out better than I ever could have made them happen. And so? I choose JOY and I present it alone to the Lord God for Him to help me to learn what it is, how it looks and feels, where it exists (or where it doesn't exist), And (most importantly) how to create it in a way that is so sacred it can't be torn apart and can endure forever.