Art Every Day? Not Even Close

I began this month with excitement in my heart and a paint brush in my hand, and while the desire still lives in my heart, my hand is empty of the brush. There are reasons. There are excuses. What makes me sad is that time is passing and I'm letting it slip away from me. I am watching it pass, bound by some unknown part of my personality that will not let me make my mark--both literally and figuratively.

Mad For Modigliani in November

It's November--woo-hoo--and aside from the fact that this is my favorite month of the year it is also art every day month and I have promised to give myself the gift of art every single day!

I adore Modigliani, and his "Pierrot" was my first experience exploring pastels. Yes, it has issues, yes, it was a struggle, but that's OK. Most of my work has issues right now. It's all about learning for me--practice, practice, practice. Perhaps I'll try "Pierrot" in paint tonight.

lessons...

I'm trying to teach myself to draw and paint and let me tell you, it's not easy! I love it though, and want so much to get better at it. The "model" for this sketch came from a picture of a demonstration of cobra pose in a yoga magazine. I obviously altered that and, yes, that alteration makes her look a bit wonky, but hey, like yoga, art is a practice!

A work in progress...

That's me...a work in progress! I love playing with abstracts, and love, love, love faces. My "girl in a black hat" is also a work in progress--I'll post her again when she is complete.

Looking beyond the obvious

I haven't posted in some time now. There are many reasons why--with feeling overwhelmed topping the list, but I'm trying to move beyond all that and just reconnect with my blog, my "art" and my yoga practice. I guess I'm trying to figure out how to just keep things simple and realizing that it's an ongoing effort.

I was playing with creating background pages in my art journal sometime ago using mainly paint, gesso and duct tape, which really is a lot of fun, and when I looked back at the pages recently, I noticed the shadow of a hairline peeking out at me. A few strokes of my charcoal pencil and a face was born! I still have work to do on this drawing, but I thought I would share my lesson of how looking beyond the obvious can yield an entirely new vi son of something. Not a new insight, but one worth mulling over every once in awhile!

Creative Every Day...Finally

A little over a month ago I signed up to participate in the creative every day challenge for November and while I truly thought about being creative every day, the action itself never quite manifested for me. My time was spent at work, traveling to Arizona to support my sister who was participating in the breast cancer walk, and unfortunately visiting and worrying about family members who were in the hospital. Just six months ago I would have considered this to be a failure, but today I’m simply happy to be aware of the creativity living inside of me. I feel more alive and vital than I have in a very long time and I think that is what the creative process is all about. I enjoyed visiting the blogs of other participants and learned a lot in the process! Lots of fun!

Art Every Day

I hesitated to post this drawing, but according to the Bliss Chick (who by the way is my new hero), in order to live a full life you have to take a risk every now and again. So here I go-- jumping in with both feet! I'll let you know when I can breathe again!

I'm taking a drawing class and this week our homework was a self-portrait in charcoal studying light and shadow. I look a bit wonky and my choice of paper was wrong, but I think there is some resemblance--hey, my family knows it's me! At any rate, I'm learning and growing and I can't ask for more than that!