In 2018, I decided to try something new...It is, after all, a new year. I decided to step outside the norm, take chances and go with my heart.
Art Studio workstation with a few works in progress
I have a full time career as a Business Analyst in an IT department (I like to say my brain is ambidextrous) , but I have the privilege of being able to work from home. We reconstructed our ever unused dining room into a home office, and even added an art workstation to create a small home studio place. It's a struggle some days...staring across from my work desk at that art desk with all those works in progress calling my name but one has to make a living, how else would I be able to buy all my art supplies?
Creating this website and writing this blog post about my journey is also new for me, I'm not always good at communicating, so this will definitely be a learning experience. Maybe no one will follow or read these posts. Maybe people won't like my art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.... One thing I know for sure though, I will have a nice journal of my journey and that is something I know I will continue to look back and reflect on.
I felt like I needed to build up my artistic skills and 'palette' and work outside my typical subject matter. I decided in 2018, I would paint wildlife. I mean, people (ok....family) have told me they love it when I painted animals, so why not? Maybe with time, I could be as good as some of the other artists out there.
Thomas Merton
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
I've painted a few so far this year and I'm pretty happy with most of the outcome, a lot done Alla Prima within an hour of two of painting. Some...are still a work in progress.
I started this owl painting with an under drawing using charcoal. It's more of a 'rough' sketch, really. I mean who has time to put that much detail into an under drawing when they work full time and have teenagers (can we include the husband in the list of kids?). Balancing my time is hard for me, between working and being a mom...sometimes I make it work...sometimes we have potatoes for dinner. You gotta pick your battles, right?
Pablo Picasso
“ The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls. ”
This piece is taking me a while to complete, I started down one path and changed directions on a whim (I did say I was going with my heart, right?). I went from a green background, meant to later include out of focus leaves and such to represent trees and a forest to completely abstract and bordering on chaotic. Kinda matched the theme of how my workday went.
A little bit calmly...
A little bit rock and roll...
It sat like this, to be honest, for a few days (or a week...it completely dried by the time I came back). Every time I looked at it from my work desk, the eyes on that first owl just bugged the heck out of me. I finally did something about that the other evening but still have yet to finish this piece. I'm getting there....slowly but surely...sometimes it's a process...and sometimes we work on other pieces in between.
Soooo much better with the larger eyes!